If you are an aspiring actor, a personal website is a must. There is no better forum for showcasing your unique talents. Your fans expect to be able to find out all about you and to leave you messages of adoration – your website is both an advertisement and a forum. You will need one or more biography pages, which should explore in glowing detail the factors that helped to form you as an individual, a run-down of your past work, and a list of your special talents. Any personal tidbits thrown in are fodder for your growing fan-club, so try to be as open as possible with details on your dating, vacations, pet peeves, and alike.
Here are the steps you must take to establish a successful website:
- Buy a domain name, like www.yourname.com. They usually only cost about $10 or $15 a year, unless you share a name with a famous person. There are plenty of Internet websites that will sell you a domain name. Prepay for at least a five-year period – you’ll know by then whether acting is working out for you.
- Hire a webmaster. You will probably want to put up a WordPress website, as those are the most versatile and popular. Tell your webmaster what you would like included in your site design, and rely on their experience to deliver you a good product.
- Post photos and videos. Your website should be a multimedia tribute to your past. Plaster the pages with headshots, portraits taken in full makeup and costume, candid shots from theater work, plus any interesting personal videos you would like to share.
- Blog. Your life is full of an interesting mix of promise and rejection. Write about your experiences and how they make you feel. No detail is too personal to write about, if you have the courage to expose yourself to the world. Remember, the public expects you to have a sympathetic persona, and for you to be involved in good causes. If you need help writing your blog, contract with a freelance writer to ghostwrite your entries.
- Check backlinks using an online tool. You always want to know what other websites are linking to yours. First of all, these backlinks can boost your search engine results when casting directors search Google for actors. Second, you will get some idea of who is talking about you and what they are saying. If you like, you can hire a search engine optimization (SEO) expert to help you increase the amount of traffic drawn to your website.
Remember to continually add new content, as this tends to increase your readership. A good website can make a positive impact on your career, so take the time to set up an attractive one that invites the world to check you out.