 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop We we got a crowd with this tonight because we're gonna talk about your websites and how to get the rest website and Joe Davis is with us and his team and if you've got questions about websites or social media or all those kinds of things These are the people to talk to Right mr. Woodham. Are we ready here? I think we're as ready as we're gonna be let's let's launch this Apollo rocket Shall we absolutely let's light this candle voice over a body shop right now Which one of us is playing the video? I guess I will I know it's here somewhere. There it is now From the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe. They bring it to you now George Wittem the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional video studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a professional voice down with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio and Each week they allow you into their world Bringing you talks with the biggest names in the voice of a world today Letting you ask your questions and giving you the latest information to make the most of your voice over business Welcome to voice over body shop Voice over body shop is brought to you by voice over essentials.com home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites.com Where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VOheroes.com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training JMC demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success and now Live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys It's us it works, of course it works Hi, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George with them and this is voiceover body shop or VO Ah, well we have a crowd tonight because we're gonna talk about websites and So if you've got questions on that throw them in the chat room depending on where you're watching if you're on Facebook or YouTube Because I know Jeff Holman is in there in both chat rooms and is directing those things right to us So yes, he is answered those questions if you've got a website that perhaps you built or something We'd like to see it and Joe staff over at voice over actor voice actor websites.com one of our sponsors will They'll take a look at it and they'll give a few comments on it We're gonna talk about what makes a good website and all those sorts of things So you mind if I rearrange the room for a second? Sure. Go ahead. That works. Thank you. Oh, it's the feeling awkward Then now now that you've got control of this you're you're going nuts with it Anyway, it's time to introduce our our guest to somebody who's been with us a bunch of times before Joe Davis has over 18 years of experience Working in digital marketing and web development and has spent the last 10 years Focused on the world of voiceover. Why we're not sure During that time he has developed numerous websites internet platforms and marketing plans for voice actors agents Voice over businesses and other VO professionals. He loves helping entrepreneurs shape and develop their ideas into viable businesses this includes the entire process from conceptualization all the way to Implementation so let's welcome our good friend Joe Davis Hello, hello guys. How you doing? I you know, I heard you say 18 years And I think it said that for the past three years, so it should probably be 21 years Okay, let me just kind of that I go by what's on your website, you know, so I Forget to update my website. That's not what we want to hear You know what we say like the mechanic drives the the dumpiest car It's like I'm a voice actor voiceover studio designer without a studio. So hey Good boy who might have judged I was actually at my mechanic today and he is driving a very nice Acura Okay, that's a good sign So Joe, you know, you are a very successful digital age entrepreneur I guess that's the best way to describe you. You've started a bunch of internet related companies as it said What brought you to voiceover of all the things you could be doing with all All these industries and all these things what brought you into this you it's all your fault. Oh, thanks. I'll be going So actually that's very much the case so I when I was in Buffalo with then and and we we were actually on the involved in a nonprofit together and I did digital marketing at that point for other types of businesses law firms and such and I was looking for other industries that were similar where you had essentially small businesses that needed to market themselves online and Dan asked me to help with Some of his marketing needs and then said hey, you know, I've got this show Why don't you come on voiceover body shop? And so I knew very little about the industry at that point but Dan was a very good friend and I figured it would be interesting and you know, who knows what would happen So came on met George at that point. It was actually e-wabs. It was east-west audio body shop that was still in Buffalo. Yeah still in Buffalo, right and I went on the show and it was it was a heck of a lot of fun and I Didn't really know what would happen the next day what happened the next day is I got a whole bunch of emails from voice actors saying can you help me and So I said there's there's something here and So spent about a year learning about voiceover started doing some voiceovers Getting involved in conferences, etc. And and then said, you know, I this this has all the ingredients of something I want to do it the people are amazing the the industry is interesting and It's exactly what we were looking for its small businesses that need to market themselves online and so launched voice actor websites and It just kind of snowballed from there Karen was a huge part of the reason that we were able to grow and Now we've got dozens of people on our team and we work with thousands of talent Production companies ad agencies casting directors, etc. So it's been a really fun interesting ride. And again You're looking at the reason. Well, and I apologize every week, don't Anyway, why don't you introduce your team of folks here so we can we can get into the discussion really about what every why people need of a voice actor website And those sorts of things so why don't we go around and why don't you just introduce them sounds good? So Can I see them or am I just gonna do it? Just shout on name and I'll throw them up Let's do Karen Barth. Okay Karen There she is there. She blows so Karen is our director of operations and basically is involved in everything that we do from building websites to SEO and digital marketing to social to just making sure that everybody's happy and doing what they should be doing and She's amazing. So That's Karen. I was gonna say in a nutshell, but she's actually more in an outdoor enclosure with nice green leaves Looks like a Greek restaurant Who's next Let's do Cameron Cameron already There he is so Cameron is our head project manager a professional VO talent super nice guy and knows a Tremendous amount about the voiceover industry when we actually first started talking I realized he was one of those guys that had been doing voiceover for a long time knew a tremendous amount about it and I had never seen on the Speaking circuit, you know at the voiceover conferences and on the the shows and such because he was too busy actually doing voiceover and so I Knew I wanted him on our team and he now manages a lot of the the websites that we build working with both the Clients and our team to get it done with our designers and our coders and such Okay Who's next? Let's do Laura already there. She is There is Laura in the mysterious room With the interrogation light on her so Laura is An expert in Content writing and SEO on page SEO factors So when I will talk a little bit more about what that means but basically in SEO there is a division between on page and off page things that can help your site rank well and Laura is our director of content SEO and content So anytime there are questions about what kind of things should I be writing? How much content should I be publishing? What type of information is attractive to humans and search engines that kind of thing? She's the gal to ask and she's overseas our writing team. So all of our writers report to Laura Okay, and Alan shires Excellent, there is the infamous Alan So Alan is on the other side of the pond. So he's staying up late for us, which I appreciate you do and Alan is a Pro voice talent actor social media guru casting guy and Father and all kinds of other things so he's a he's a great dude knows a tremendous amount about it Different aspects of the industry and he'll be good to talk to about social media strategies. What works? What doesn't what platforms to use that kind of thing? Excellent, and then we got Whitman here somewhere. There he is in case in case you got me a question Typing in the background. You weren't supposed to see me. No, it's okay. I can I can take you out if you want that's fine No, it's cool. I'm here. Okay, if I if I'm picking my nose. I'll just take myself out of the shot Oh, there we go. I'll take myself out of the shot and then pick my nose in that order Can I pick wait, okay, just send me a message and I'll take you out of the shot and you can pick your nose Why don't we start with Karen who who really runs a lot of this operation and hello dear? How are you? That's good. So let me let me ask you Why do you think every voice talent needs to have a website? It's your online calling card. People need to hear you and hire you what better way than Visually on the web a place for them to get a taste of what you sound like and a feel for your your vibe your sound and be able to contact you and so What what are the vital elements that you have to have when you're talking to it to clients when they they're you're on the phone with Them or doing zoom or whatever? What are the things that you tell them? You need to have this and you know So what what do you ask them? What are you one of those things that we're what are the things you think they need? We need pro demos that are downloadable on the site and Labeling them correctly. So don't label them commercial demo because if somebody downloads them and then wants to call you back Well, who does this demo belong to? You need to have the file names, right? Get testimonials if you have a ability to have testimonials on your site Client list of bio maybe some descriptors of your voice Like a vocal profile the age ranges you do What else studio information? important to have on there and So whether you have source connect or not if you have source connect listed a contact form Video if you have video super engaging keys people on the site longer. So that's also great to have Yeah, that's a basic and then obviously contact information email and phone number How do I get a hold of you once I hear you and I want to hire you? I I would think that would be like the top thing on there, wouldn't it makes it kind of important The thing is is now voice actor websites you create websites specifically for voice actors and The idea is you know, people want to get it done as quickly as possible You know because they're they're just starting out and they want to have their website up because it's a vital part of what they have to have What slows the process of creating a website and how can people help themselves make the process faster? Oftentimes they don't have their demos when they're Contempting us at first. So you got to have the demos or being you know At that finishing line where you're about to get them if it takes a month a month and a half to get a site Done then have your demos ready or by that time. That's the first and foremost You know getting together an idea of what you want your look to be and if you don't then you know We can work on that together, but have some sort of idea Maybe have ask your friends ask people who you work with colleagues. What do what do you think my sound sounds like? So you can get kind of an idea of how you might want the the site to look and feel You want to get your branding right, you know, and so it works with your website Exactly think about a bio lead in with you know, the stuff that has to do with VO and With a backstory if you want to add a backstory. Yes, Joe I just wanted to add Karen mentioned bio and it's surprising how many voice actors who Speak for a living and are very eloquent with the spoken word Have challenges writing their own bios I think everybody, you know has a difficulty writing about themselves, but that I think is one of the biggest sticking points is actually how do I want to present myself online and You know, some people just feel that they're not good writers But even people who feel that they're good writers often are not sure how to represent themselves And you know, what's interesting about me? What's interesting and related to VO versus, you know, just a random fact and should I put random facts? And so the bio is Karen said is something I think that the aesthetic so How do I want to be visually represented and the written word how do I want to be represented in words are probably the Two biggest things because they're both subjective. There's not necessarily a right answer What's right for one person isn't always right for the other and just an example of that is You know, half the people we we talked to say Whatever you do, I want a microphone on my website and the other half say whatever you do I don't want a microphone on my website. It's very cliche. Right. And so, you know, it it's just Aesthetic is subjective And people hate to write and talk about themselves oddly enough A lot of I would say a lot of voice talent don't like to write their own buyers They don't like to write about themselves. They don't like to boast about themselves at least in the bio sense right Once again, we're talking with the folks from voice actor websites tonight If you've got a question throw it in the chat room more importantly, if you want us to take a look at your specific website We'd love to get that so if you can in the chat room, whether you're in facebook or on youtube Give us some urls and let's go in and look at some of these websites and see what What you're doing whether you're doing it right or doing it wrong or whatever So, uh, hopefully uh, jeff jeff holman will get a hold of those and forward those to us so we can take a look at those Uh, let's see here. What are some other things? Now you folks the other folks you've got with this we've got we've got alan and we've got laura and we've got Cameron What are your thoughts on these sorts of things about you know cam? What what do you think about uh, you know what what people can do to really improve the process? Yeah, and that's exactly where I come in. I mean when people go to our site at voice actor websites.com Um, they look at our packages. They can chat with one of our our intake strategist, um, hall matthews And he can discuss some of the packages and the pricing and see what Uh, what's a good fit for you at the time? And then when then, uh, I take it from that point and try to make the process of building designing and building your site As simple as possible as easy for you as possible I hear people they tried to build their own websites. They got mired into the weeds and and they just got frustrated and gave up I just want to make that process as simple and and as pleasant for you as possible I mean because I did my site through these guys a few years ago and I enjoyed the process So here I am and I just want to return the favor. So basically taking like talking with uh, the voiceover talent talking about what their vision is Kind of clarifying those getting their demos together getting their bio together Talk about all the elements that they want to see on their site Pile that together and then what I do is then make that process I work with the designers the coders behind the scenes to put the site together for them So that's the process that that I enjoy doing and I want to make as easy as possible Or as you said Dan in the intro make it as least uh, or less a pain in the butt as possible and um and Some of the things that can delay Um, like Karen mentioned the demos uh, sometimes branding, you know, some people put the pressure on themselves to Come up with a brand, you know And some people just starting out may not have a brand and they may just sort of get caught up in the weeds on that But really doesn't have to be that difficult So branding can be an issue right off the bat. Maybe people want to think about that a little bit more But we help with that We always have an eye towards branding whether you have one or not whether it develops right off the bat or not Maybe it develops down the road. We're always here to talk about that sort of thing um demos like I said um Photos is another one that um, you know, some people kind of weigh their options Like do I want a picture of myself on my site or not and you can debate that argument all day long But you know having those done, you know ahead of time Or maybe you're planning on getting those done That's one of the things that can you know kind of delay the process a little bit But we always try to help out with that give tips on you know, what to do what not to do for a head For a headshot. In fact, we were just talking about that this week with our team So those are just a few things but again my role is to make that process As pleasant for you as possible and that's basically what I do Yeah Laura, what about you? What are your thoughts on that? I was I was just thinking as Cameron was talking that How important it is in this day and age when everything is just going so fast and it's everything is digital That you have to find a way to represent yourself out there on on the web online And it really needs to be you it needs to be your personality. It needs to be the colors you like But it does. Sorry. It does have to have a photo For SEO purposes, it has to have a photo And that's about building trust So once you get your site all built together it has all the pieces Then you're going to start building trust and that's that's what I do with with the artist is start to Compile all of the things and all of the resources that says, you know, I'm an artist I'm part of your community and this is what I have to share Yeah, Alan your thoughts Yeah, I mean, you know, we we talk a lot about branding and and all of these things and I think one of the most important things is What is your conviction as as it's your website? What is your conviction? If you're not entirely sold on that website or if there's a part of it, which makes you feel unsure Then guess what you're probably not advertising it very well to those clients that you're wanting to share it with So what do you do in that scenario? Well, that's one of the amazing things about the voice actor websites and also sharing in Settings like this is that you can get some input and maybe somebody can go Oh, maybe if that color was different or if the photo was in a different angle And and you know not being scared to try new things different colors different font styles And moving some of the pages around Trying different things until you find something that you're super confident with Because that will show if you are not confident with your website it will show Absolutely Once again, we're talking with joe davis and his team at voice actor websites.com We'd like to take a look at your website if possible. So give us some of those your URLs. Don't be shy This is a tv show. We want to see what you guys are up to we want to see what's out there When when you're you know people are just starting out in the voiceover business You know we say you got to have a website But it sounds like most people have no idea what they want or Their graphic designers are the really creative people and they want to go all out What do you do to try and convince them that perhaps less is more? And and and perhaps not say well, I want this I want the poster for you over here And I want the color scheme like that. How do you handle that karen? I don't think there's a right or wrong answer Meaning if you want it all you can have it all sometimes it needs to be dialed back a little bit Because you don't want to distract What people are coming there to see but or hear you and do um, but yeah, I mean Every site has to be unique and feel like that person if your sound is you know kind of mellow and Just real and chill and then you have this like chaotic site. There's a disconnect, right? So you just wanted to make sure it matches like it makes sense but yeah, I mean There's so many different looks there's no right or wrong It just has to feel right for you and who is your end? Who is your end's client? Right. What is your target market? So that would also play a part in how your site should look I just want to add on to what karen said about target market. So, you know if you love fun animated things and you have bright colors on your website and a picture of a cartoon here And you do e-learning that's a disconnect But if you have a very clean corporate site and you do corporate narration that you know is related So I think people can Overthink branding and over brand and they can also under brand. So when you're when you're starting out I think it's more about coming across as professional. Hey, I know what I'm doing You know, if you were hiring an accountant and they had a website that Didn't function right or didn't look professional. You wouldn't necessarily hire them So same thing with a voice talent when they're starting out if you Brand yourself in the beginning too much You may end up positioning yourself as something that either limits you In in vo or ends up not being what you you book in so maybe you start out thinking, you know, I'm going to do commercial and animation, but then you you find this great niche in promo and IVr, there's a lot of different avenues within voiceover and so I think ultimately a brand is a great thing and it will make you memorable And there are are ways to create a brand either that position you really well for for one or two things Or for a wide variety of things, but when you're starting out I think it's more about coming across as professional Right and just I just wasn't saying, um, you know Oftentimes people start out and they're like, oh, I want to do this. This is this is the genre I want to go into and the business actually pulls them in a completely different direction and a lot of people actually almost rebrand after two years, so I feel like, you know Yes, it's great to have a brand that's solid If it's something that's going to sustain over time and that it's it kind of encompasses a lot and it really represents you good but if you If you think you're going in one direction the the business might pull you in another and so You might end up changing your brand after two or three years Absolutely once again, we'd love to take a look at your web sense. We're going to do that in just a couple of minutes So make sure you put those in the chat room if you if you dare And we will we will take a look at all those websites. Let me get out of here. There we go George and I are directing this in tandem tonight. So we have no idea like well, you know, you take this shot No, you take that shot Directing by committee never flashback to a bad independent film. I worked on one Yeah, and if you have any questions, of course, there are yeah, I'm going to be screen sharing the The the websites have them on this side. So when you're ready, let me know and I'll start throwing them up on the screen We'll do that. We got a couple of questions from our audience so far First one is she has a Do we need to have any privacy disclosures listed on a website? Is that an issue? It depends when you say need to So there are there are different privacy standards all over the world now Um, the uk has its own europe has its own not that the uk is not part of europe, but they have two separate Uh privacy standards that they follow Um, california, which sometimes is, you know, thought of as its own country has its own privacy standard and so in general if you Are collecting information about your visitors and all websites nowadays are whether you realize that or not Pretty much all websites have cookies have Contact forms, etc. And so you're you're collecting information about your visitors And so it's a good idea to have some sort of privacy policy on there, which says What you're doing with their private data, which is usually nothing, you know Most voice actors are not intentionally collecting data. They're not selling it or anything but Have a privacy policy and say that and it's actually so the the european privacy standards called gdpr And if you're doing business in the eu and you don't have that then you're in violation of gdpr Which means you could get sued I think the likely of it of it for voice actors pretty low But certainly corporations have now had experiences where they've faced Legal consequences for not having that so having a privacy policy is a good idea There are a variety of ways to get one you can hire a lawyer to write one You can find a Privacy policy generator online. There's a lot of Ones out there Or you could write your own writing your own probably would be the the Least legally binding one because unless you're an attorney So I would say generally you want to either have a lawyer do it or find one online and just modify it to the needs of your website you know, for example Most voice actors are not going to be doing e-commerce. So anything that talks about e-commerce just delete that And um, it should be pretty easy to tailor to that All right, we've got another question here along the same lines from the same person actually When do we know You know, I mean I've been doing this since you know the nixon administration, but when somebody is just starting out When do you think they're ready to have a website? Because there's a lot of people out there. They're like, you know, I go through websites and I'm like This person hasn't done anything. When when do you know you're ready for a website when bob woodward writes about you? There you go Would want to take that one. Well, I mean it could be When you have your demos ready I mean if you are ready to have your demos done and produced you want to get it out there in front of eyeballs You want to get it in front of agents? creative You know casting directors Producers So if you're ready for your demos and they're done, you're ready for a website If you don't have your demos done like karen alluded to before. I mean, yeah, you're probably not ready But You are ready to start direct marketing getting your website in front of more people So that's and it doesn't have to be elaborate. I know people put the pressure on themselves Well, I don't have much to to show it doesn't you don't have to show a whole lot Um, you know, like we've been talking about just keep it clean and simple Professional looking. I mean, I think um episodes back when um, you're talking with joe Probably years ago. I mean agents when they go to a site They just want to see this this this and this and that's it. They just they are in and out So make it as easy for them as possible have your demos contact information all the things that karen listed before But yeah, if you have your demos, you're ready. Let's get it out in front of eyeballs And we have different packages tailored to your needs. I mean if you just want a basic site It can be short can be long. Um, we have some marketing tools Part of our packages. So that might be um, you know more suitable for if you're really planning some big marketing pushes So we tailor those packages to you and um, but yeah, when you have your demos, let's do it Alrighty a question from bob leadham. Do you include branding elements in your website designs? I would imagine you are And you do yeah, who wants to take that one? Oh Yeah, I'll go I sorry. I don't mean to to hog it all but um, but yeah, like I said before we always have an eye towards branding Uh, we listen to your demos, you know, what what genres do you want to go after? Um, and like I said, we may not land on anything right off the bat You don't have to it may evolve over time. I mean mine did I mean I started my website years ago and then I redid it through voice actor websites And then even after that I came back and did a little bit more rebranding So, um, absolutely. We always try to have an eye towards it could be color schemes. It could be a logo Um, it could be you know a tagline And you know, it's funny when we talk about taglines people say well, I need to have something snazzy But no, you don't have to but you know oftentimes when people talk about themselves I'm jotting things down. I'm jotting down notes when they're talking about themselves They are usually coming up with their own brand and they don't even realize it. Well, they may but um They're usually saying these catch little phrases or something about them in their interests that tie that that ties themselves into voice over And I'm like I realized like hey, do you know what you just said that could be your brand right there? So we always have an ear and an eye towards branding. Yeah Yeah, and that branding is one of those things that I think it's a total mystery to a lot of people unless After a while, you know what kind of stuff you're getting hired for And and that really is your brand, but of course you can expand out in lots of different areas But to somebody who's new that can be very very confusing. So you have to really see where you where you get hired for Uh, now joe, you mentioned a little bit about, you know, social media. Now, who's in charge of social media? That's Laura, right? And or alan is in charge of that How important is integrating uh social media into your uh into your website? I think the thing is it all feeds into the same boat. Um, your website is your number one marketing tool But we have to think about the last 18 months Both as a part of this and separately We are creatures of communication and relationship, you know, if we were working in an office Maybe we would go in we would sit at the booth We would do our job and then we would go home But in voice over We are connecting with people. So whether it be the client that we're delivering a product to a casting director Um, whoever's in our ears in a remote session a sound engineer. We are connecting with people and that means that Our our web presence is really important because if i'm working with a client in new zealand Well, they don't know a great deal about me other than what is on my social media and my website I think the the the the final takeaway on on this is to make sure the content is parallel. So it's great if you have just posted um three amazing testimonials which you've had from three amazing clients in the last Couple of weeks on your social media platform But then if your website's last blog or update was 2017 Well, there's there's some inconsistencies inconsistency there Uh, you'll want to keep both fairly parallel to really maximize um your marketing push with your website Mm-hmm All right, we are going to take a little break here. We would love to get your websites on here so this crack team of A voice selector websites can take a look at it and let's see what your website is doing for you Or perhaps not doing so stay tuned for that Give give the url right into the chat room wherever you are And we'll get to that in just a couple of minutes. So stay tuned. We'll be right back here on voiceover body shop after this Yeah, hi, this is carlo zellers rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voiceover body shop as voice actors We need to hear the clear transparent and honest sound of our voices Harlan hogan signature series voice optimized headphones 2.0 Provide both that accurate transparent sound with enhanced mid-range audio less bass and the creature comforts voice workers deserve Clearly different from traditional studio headphones The upper mids and highs are clear as about no muffling or cross bleeding between frequencies Like a pair of studio monitors the low is there But at the same level as the rest of the spectrum They're comfortable like no other phones. I've worn that's because harlan used actual leather for the pads It's like putting on a pair of leather gloves for your ears They're also very light for their size as harlan made them from aluminum instead of plastic The headband is flexible like a watch band and the plug comes out for walking away Get the only headphones designed for vo harlan hogan signature series voice optimized headphones 2.0 for just $149 with free shipping from voiceover essentials.com Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you? This is virgin radio Well, okay. We're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes for working Dickies because I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values A leader for california and a voice for america. It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smartphone But it's so much more. It's the files already. Don't forget to pick up the eggs. What time is hockey practice? Check out this song. It's the end of the road for rig Oh, this is your near it when hope is lost the i8 from bmw Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's j michael collins. I bet you think i'm gonna try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email. It's j michael at jmc voiceover.com Now if they will stop waxing this mustache for a minute, we'll get back to the show before Hi, here I am in my normal workspace with a question What's the biggest challenge you have with voiceover? What's been the puzzle you need to solve the question you need answered? Well david h laurence the 17th and the coaching team at vo heroes dot com want to know They're creating new courses and training and they want to know what you need most and it's easy to let them know Just drop an email to david at vo heroes dot com. That's david at vo H e r o e s dot com And let him know what you'd like to know. Is it tech oriented? Is it auditioning? Is it about booking more work finding an agent podcasting audio books performance questions? Whatever it is that keeps you up at night that makes you scratch your head Or what you've always wanted to know about success in vo Email david and ask the email address again is david at vo heroes dot com This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham vobs dot tv And we are back with our humongous panel of Voice actor website experts again If you want want us to take a look at your website throw it in the chat room You guys are being a little shy about it, but we do have one Uh from diana dudley. You want to throw that one up there george sure thing. I've never seen our chat room so shy What's going on tonight? Yeah, come on. There's lots of you in there They're gonna be gentle and they're gonna give you a lot of help. So this is a really really good positive thing All right, here's our first one Okay Who wants to take this one on first? I will make one observation I don't see the demos and I don't see the contact information I like the the colors. I like that it's bright But I want to hear you and hire you Yeah, let's see what happens when we scroll So there is a button dead center for my demo reel And so i'm assuming if I click that it pops down To the demo reel. Yeah, that's what it does. Okay So I think um, I Agree with what Karen said. I'm glad that the the button scrolls down and I like the colors I I think it's memorable and I I will remember it tomorrow when I'm thinking about the the show today but the When an agent or a casting director or producer Basically any talent seeker that's looking they're generally not Looking at one person's website and then hiring that person right away. They're looking at many and so the more time you add to their day the You know if everybody adds a minute if each you know website As an extra minute then and they look at 60 websites. It's an hour So I think having the the demos above the fold if possible above the fold means Without having to scroll is a really good idea So if you had a bunch of demos, it might be hard to fit in there with that graphic But I think with one demo, which I think you had just one you probably could move it up above the fold And then on that contact form Yeah, so that that's above the fold. I think the demo would fit there nicely so on the contact form If you are separating first name and last name because of Maybe a crm that you're using so if you are dumping contacts into a crm for management That's a A decent reason to have first name and last name separated But otherwise I would make it just one field and say name because the the more You make someone work to contact you the less likely they are to go through with it and so I know it sounds silly, but when you have A millennial producers who don't necessarily Want to fill out a long form even an extra field or two can be a a challenge to get them to do it So I like the form. I think it's it's great, but I would just consolidate the first name and last name And there's actually a comment about demos just because it brought came up from Ron They're saying demos plural Are there actually ever websites for people just starting out with just one demo in one genre? Do they have specific recommendations for the numbers of demos and genres? So I guess there's a concerns like oh, should there be more than one demo? How many demos am I supposed to have? Anybody else want to take that one? So, you know, you can definitely start out with one demo. I know traditionally most people start out with a commercial demo Um, because most people want to do commercial. It's a sexy genre Um, but it's if you have the budget and you can do it It's nice to have more than one More than one genre that you're targeting You can also if you only have one and you want to make it a little fuller You can always separate out your tracks so you can have your commercial demo and then your cut up tracks and you can either label them by descriptors of your voice how you sound in those reads or by Going more granular. So for example, if within your commercial demo, you have A family commercial a political commercial automotive commercial little cuts little tracks When you separate them out you can label them that way as well So but yeah, if you have the budget it's nice to have more than one demo Uh, George, can you bring the the site back up again? Sure So um in the footer is it scrolled all the way to the bottom? I'll scroll all the way down. There we go Okay, so, um, I I like that your phone number and email address are on there But I would probably pull it up above That menu and maybe put it either above the contact form or or immediately below it because As you saw when you scroll down to there We didn't see it and it kind of looks like the bottom of the site So someone might miss it And you ultimately as Karen said before the goal is to get someone to hear you and then to hire you You want to make those things as easy as possible and then put a copyright notice on it? So At the bottom, I think it it was just the contact information Throw up a copyright 2021 all rights reserved in the name of your business And it's a good place to put that privacy policy that we were talking about earlier Because the privacy policy no one's actually going to read it You don't need to make it prominent at all just put it in that footer by the copyright notice and that will Get that out of the way Could you scroll up a little bit also? Sure I'm also playing with playing with the actual size of the browser window a little bit Just to see how the site reacts You know, is it what gets cropped off? How does it handle different resolutions? That's important responsive Yeah, how far do you want me to go? Right there. Okay. So The Photo uh If you could you right click and inspect it? You know to uh inspect Let's see Because of the way I'm sharing the screen You don't get to see that Okay, I think it's okay. I can just comment on it. Okay What I was going to say is that when you have a photo there's something called alt text And it stands for alternative text. It's it was initially created for people who are visually impaired so that Text reader or website readers could read to them what a website was about But search engines very quickly picked that up and said we're going to use this as a ranking signal to understand What's in the image? and so You want to make sure that you always tag your your photos or any images on your site with alt text and so I'm not sure if it was done this site or not But that's just a a little tip for you to do and you want to have it be relevant to what the photo is And ultimately what you want your website to rank for in a search engine. So In this case it might be diana's name and then you know pro female voice talent Or a dynamic voice actor or something like that I I noticed that you mentioned that you're in Idaho and so I There are absolutely reasons to mention a certain area Like if you're in la and you what you're going to be doing work in person Or if you Have a certain dialect that you're you're going after and people are booking that dialect With Idaho I actually I don't know if there's a a big voiceover industry there and of course the beauty of voiceovers you can do it from anywhere But it's just something to think about that like if I if someone puts wisconsin on their website I automatically have some idea of what they're going to sound like even if they don't have a Accent from wisconsin. So there's things that pre bias the listener Uh that say okay. This person is going to sound like this and so all these things to I think nothing should be put up on your website without there being a reason for it And you also don't want to leave things out that are are needed so just think about all those everything that goes up there and I ultimately I think it It it works with the blue and the blue and uh diana's shirt, although it's a little bit of a different hue Can you scroll up a little bit more? Sure thing and Can you click on the thing that says hear more work? Sure, just down a little bit And can I interject real quick the one thing there's there's a lot of color and then the demo is just muted It's so light like I would want to make that pop so that I see that as I'm scrolling There's the main demos page got it But those should be out front initially though, shouldn't they I I was thinking the same thing so, um If this was a massive website with you know hundreds of pages or dozens of pages and there are plenty of voice talent that have Sites like that Then it it's a good idea to break it down But if all your demos are just sitting on one page I would at least pull some of these to the to the front because On the first two times that george scrolled. I actually missed that button And so I didn't see and it looks like you actually have a lot more up here than I originally realized so I would Maybe either put all of these or or pull some of them onto the home page and Make if you're going to have a button to go deeper to a demos page make it Very noticeable I would also put some contact information at the top so maybe Like above that menu on the right where it says home and work and I I would also add A third menu option that says contact or hire me or something like that because um after hearing you that's the the most important thing that they could do and Especially on mobile people rely on those menus to to navigate down. So I think I would add At least that one more menu item there Yeah, all right So you like to see more information at a glance. I think that's the what i'm boiling down from what you guys are saying Right. Well, a lot of people say, you know, they don't want to click. They don't want to have to search for things So if you have it front and center You're taking that frustration away from them, you know, somebody might land on this and go Oh, there's only one demo. They might think there's no other demos on there And they might not, you know, search and look around to see if they can find more Because for at first glance it looks like there's one So maybe like joe said would be a great idea to pull some more into that home page And maybe like I said, if you have the ability to make it Brighter like the other colors on your site. So it's it stands out and it catches my eyes. I'm scrolling Yeah, let me ask this because It's always emphasized to me that you've it's got to be mobile friendly Most people aren't sitting on their computer anymore. They're just on their phone and they're like, oh, what's this person do? How do you make it mobile friendly? It wants to take that one. Sorry, I was busy on my phone. Would you say? What's the process of making it mobile friendly? Go ahead joe After you karen, please um, so, you know a site has to be built To be mobile responsive. It's part of the process uh Most people who build websites They know to do that It's now google's indexing websites and looking at them from a mobile perspective first So it's a mobile first index So you definitely want to make sure that it it works on all devices if you If you use a site builder or something like that some of them make you build the site twice Some themes on those sites don't let you have both options. So just make sure that Wherever you're building it, however, you're doing it if you're doing it on your own You have the ability to have people view your site on mobile tablet and desktop And the best way to do that is to have a responsive site. So when when the mobile web First became a thing people were building a mobile website and a desktop website And there's been this shift towards responsive web design Which means that whatever the the screen size is your website reformats according to that screen size shift And that's what george was doing before, you know, kind of playing with it in and out So the website should uh, whether it's a a big desktop or a small desktop or a big laptop or a small laptop or a an ipad or a amazon kindle or a you know A note uh phone or a very small I don't even the name of a small uh phone screen But anyway, you get the point it should for reformat to be for all different sizes not like size a b and c but every single size and that That is pretty standard nowadays So anybody who knows what they're doing with web development should be doing it that way and if you're doing yourself depending on what platform you're doing it on there's tutorials or Some of them will we'll have it built in. Okay. We've got time for a couple more questions. George. There's one there from michelle coke All right, let me go grab that Let's see I see z here er Patricia andria Right above that. Oh, there it is. It was I saw the red and I was like that's not me. Um, I had done Michelle says I had mine done in early 2019 Isn't that long ago, but when is it a good time to update your site? I don't know if that means update content or give it a makeover. Yeah, really I'll take content all the time. Um, you should always be updating your site if you can Uh, makeover is a much more subjective question Anybody want to take that? So show the mild website just kidding 12 years old yeah when you're not even a voice actor laura you got a thought on that Everybody's muted. Okay laura is not muted. Go ahead. I'm not muted. You can Harry. Yeah, we can hear you I think that um You know, you're gonna want to keep up with the times you're gonna want your website to look modern and fresh and you know Relevant to what's going on in the world So You're gonna want to it's basically up to you You're gonna update it as much as you want whenever you want And it it's not set in stone like when we were talking about before. Oh, I have to have a brand already Well, you don't you don't have to have that All laid out you just want to get your name and your demos out there and your contacts Information and then evolve let let the website evolve as you evolve And don't be afraid to change things and try things and try new colors But the one thing you have to remember too is that websites are built We also have to please the google search algorithms So, you know, we have to do things like make sure that the site speed is there So if you've done made a beautiful website and all this content on it and it's super slow Then it that's going to hurt you when it comes to ranking So those are things that kind of go on in the back end and you need an expert somebody that can you know Handle doing all the coding and all of that to make sure that your site is running as quickly as it can Yeah, and also from a human standpoint people don't want the site to load forever because they're gonna think something's wrong with it And you don't know what kind of internet somebody speed has or where they're at And so you definitely want to make sure that your site is running quickly from an SEO standpoint and from a human standpoint Somebody could be looking at your website on dial-up Yeah Something that laura said reminded me Of I think a good thing to think about when either you're building your website for the first time or if you're thinking about rebuilding it There are essentially two ways that a website is useful to a voice talent One is extension of your business card meaning You've had some sort of interaction with a talent seeker Or potential talent seeker and you're sending them there to hear you and hire you The other is something that drives business that you haven't actively engaged with that person And that's the process of search engine optimization being found when people are searching for something Related to what you're providing but not you specifically So if I'm looking for Dan Leonard, I'm going to find his website, but if I'm looking for a A guy to do e-learning with Dan's voice characteristics Am I going to find Dan's website? And so that's where where seo comes in so I think there Neither website is mutually exclusive You can do a site that is both of those things an extension of a business card and also a site an seo site Or you can just do one But defining that before you start is a good idea because the the process is a little bit different depending on on your end goal Okay, we got one more question here from Zeiss er Or it's Zeiss er Since for a voiceover who is bilingual in Spanish and English What is your recommendation in creating a website what to highlight or or to have on the first page or Do you have a system where you can like if you're Spanish speaking? It'll come up Spanish and if you're not or how do how you work something like that Is that really literally what you would do Then you have buttons on the top that select the language and it would change it dynamically You you certainly can do that. Yes. So I I said that to be playful But um, yes, you certainly can have a a website that shifts from one to the other Karen I think you had something to say so I want to let you Take that I forgot I was muted I was just saying yeah, you could definitely do that There's different ways to address it. First of all If you're writing it in Spanish then if somebody's searching for a voice actor in Spanish Then your site would come up if somebody's searching for a Spanish speaker in English you want the text to be in English So there's there's a difference difference there and uh, you could do both You could do it by you know a button that changes your whole site from one language to another You could have certain sections like your bio if you just want to toggle that from English to Spanish or whatever language it is But you also want to have the text on the site that say your bilingual voice talent the languages you speak That you voice so that you know you have that visibility on the web and people right when they land they know Boom they do both languages Alrighty well folks. Thanks so much for joining us tonight again If uh, you want to work with any of these folks go on over to voice actor websites dot com And uh, they're great operation now. They specialize in voice actor websites Which is why they have that particular url. So make sure you use that Joe Karen Cameron laura and Gotta remember the last things were there. They were they go. I don't know Alan Karen laura Joe Thanks for being with us tonight. Thank you everybody already. Well, we're gonna end this for tonight and uh, We'll be back with tech talk a little bit. So don't go away But thanks to our folks at voice actor websites.com. We will be right back After these messages This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voice over body shop with dan lennard and george wittem v obs dot tv In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept To live online in a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish They'll try it yourself go with the pros voice actor websites dot com Where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what? Well, it's that time of the show where we talk about source elements the creators of source connect Which is a tool that every voice actor who is really ready to leap out of the Bottom theater voice over work a lot of the pay to plays And want to get up into the next level which is working with the top studios the top productions The ones that want to direct you real time that are very sensitive to how they use their time And therefore the ones that tend to pay and make the most money Those are the ones that use source connect and that's a very good reason to have it in your studio And have your studio ready for source connect It's one thing to have the software But if your studio isn't up to par to that another studio can record yours and make it sound like you're actually in theirs Then you may not be quite ready and you want to find out that you want to know if you're ready So I highly recommend getting a sound check from dan or I dan does his specimen cup I do the sound checks and we'll tell you whether you're ready for source connect And when you're ready get that 15 day free trial Get it up and running become familiar with it And if you're really serious about this, maybe you're already using source connect You might want to get certified with your home studio as a source connect studio Which shows producers and everybody out there That you're not just Knowing what source connect is you early know how to use it You know how to keep it running correctly. So these are all things you can do over at source elements.com So head over there get yourself set up with your account get started experimenting and learning And we're here to help you if you have any trouble. All right We'll be right back here with our panel to check out some Voice over websites and see how they're doing right after this message. Alrighty. Well A fascinating hour there. I mean there's lots of stuff you got to know about your website and Folks at voice actor websites They know their stuff. So no doubt. Make sure you're going over there. Uh, who are our donors of the week All right, we got shana pennington baird. Yes. Icon productions our friend Martha Don griffith Steven chandler Sondra man willer robert leadham and Uncle Roy's ant land productions are all right herring donors. Yes Next week on this very show. We've got tech talk number 67 which george and I are about to do so stick around don't go anywhere We want your tech questions on your home voiceover studio And uh, we will be happy to answer those along with george's tech update and a demonstration on mike technique So you're either watching that next week or you're gonna watch it live right now and give us your question Uh, again, thanks to uh, all the folks over at voice actor websites For joining us tonight and giving us their insight on how to get the right Stuff into your Website, uh, we need to thank our sponsors like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials Uh, voice over extra source elements Vio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and j m c demos Thanks to jeff holman in the chat room tonight and giving us uh, all those questions and of course relaying the websites to us and It I guess we have to thank george. You have to thank me because we were directing tonight. Couldn't yeah, could you tell? And of course lee pennie for being lee pennie. That's gonna do it for us this week. Yeah. Yeah. Was lee in there? I didn't see yes. Okay. Anyway, we're gonna rack re-racket for tech talk, but uh, thanks for joining us tonight I'm dan Leonard. I'm george winham. And this is voiceover body shop or vio b s Jeff gets to get in there first