 Hey there, it's time for VoiceOverBodyShop and we got a great show tonight, George, because we're going to be talking with Karen Barth and Joe Davis, who's over there somewhere. Wave hello and say hi, guys. Like talking to old friends, or actually in current friends. That's right. Yeah, we're going to talk about websites tonight because Joe and Karen run VoiceActorWebsites.com and we're going to look at a bunch of different websites. People sent us a bunch of URLs and we're going to have some fun with that. And hopefully you can take some criticism. But anyway, are we ready, George? Yes, we're ready. Are you ready, guys? Okay, that's good. VoiceOverBodyShop, right now. V.O. Universe, they bring it to you now. George Widom, the engineer to the V.O. Stars, a Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build, set up and maintain the professional V.O. Studios of the biggest names in V.O. 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 V.O. Studio. And each week they allow you into their world, bringing you talks with the biggest names in the V.O. world today, letting you ask your questions and giving you the latest information to make the most of your V.O. business. Welcome to VoiceOverBodyShop. VoiceOverBodyShop is brought to you by VoiceOverEssentials.com, home of Harlin Hogan Signature Products, Source Elements, Remote Studio Connections for everyone, VoiceActorWebsites.com, where your V.O. website isn't a pain in the butt. V.O.Heroes.com, become a hero to your clients with award-winning VoiceOver training, JMC demos, when quality matters, and VoiceOver Extra, your daily resource for V.O. success. And now, live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California. Here are the guys. Hey there, I'm Dan Leonard. And I'm George Widum. And this is VoiceOver. Body Shop. Or V.O. B.S. Whoa, is there another voice in there? Or what? There seems to be another voice in there. Well, welcome to another edition of VoiceOver Body Shop. We've got Joe Davis and Karen Barth are going to join us in a second. And you know, how crazy are you guys going during all this stuff? Now, I got to do something last night that nobody would have thought of. I got to go to the opera last night. But it was the Pacific Opera Project does great stuff, and they did an opera in a parking lot in a Methodist church in Camarillo, California. And it was great because, and then they broadcast it on our radios, and when people finished an aria, everybody honked their horn. So I guess we can be very innovative. How are you spending your time these days during all this? I'm trying to not watch and listen to the news, but it's like heroin now, so I can't stop doing it. Just a lot of bicycle activities, which is what I do to stay calm, spending time with family, my daughter, and my girlfriend, Ella. I was basically, I was in full on dad mode this morning, getting my kid in class at 8 AM. Kids these days on laptops, she's more of a power user than I probably ever was on my MacBook Air. The thing is overheating, the battery is swelling, it's full of cat hair. I got it cleaned out today, and I'm going to mention that later as a power user tip. Are you having fun taking fifth grade again? Oh man, I mean, I can't teach her math because I don't know how to teach math to fifth graders in 2020. I know how I learned how to do math, and it ain't the same. So I'm not very helpful. I have to literally relearn how to teach math from a teacher, but what I did get to do that was really special today, was she took a clarinet lesson with the teacher, and then after the class, I played duets with her. We played Hot Cross Buns, Neon trumpet, and her on the clarinet, and what's cool is they're the same key. That was super mega dad moment because my dad did the same with me at the same age. That was pretty special, and now you're a band. Anyway, so today we're going to talk about websites for your voice acting business, and there are no two better people to talk about this than the people who run voiceactorwebsites.com. So let's welcome the voiceover body shop, Joe Davis, and Karen Barth. Hi guys. Hey. Thank you very much. Good to see both of you. Good to see you guys too. Yeah. Now I have to apologize to Joe every day for giving him the idea to start this business. It's all dad's fault. It's all my fault, but I find it fascinating because the business has grown and you're working with so many different people and so many different cool websites, but not everybody uses you, and we wanted to make sure that people could get their site reviewed, so we'll get to that in a second. But let me start off by asking you this. How are voiceactorwebsites different from all other websites? I was hoping you'd ask me what I've been doing during COVID because I prepared a little presentation for you. Please, please do. You call that a spiel? Yeah. Please hold. Hold on a sec. Here we go. I decided to make masks more fun. Oh, geez. That is brilliant. Brilliant. Okay. Now it's the fun question. Yeah. So what makes voice actor websites different from every other website that we see? Well, so I think what makes them similar is that it's a portal to the world. So especially in COVID times, every business needs to be digital because in-person business really is not going on. But where it changes is that voice actors have some very specific needs that other businesses don't. So audio obviously plays a huge role because at its core, every voice actor site should give talent seekers the ability to hear you and hire you. And so presentation of audio in the right way with the right options is probably the most important part. And when I say presented in the right way with the right options, you want it to play on everything, all devices, all browsers. You want it to not just be playable, but downloadable. And having it downloadable is important because talent seekers are, you know, they're agents. They're casting directors. They're producers. There's the guy with a camera shop on the corner. It's Pandora. It's all these places that have different ways of consuming your audio. And many of them don't make a decision right then or maybe you're not the right fit for that project, but they want to keep you in mind for another one. And so having your demos downloadable is extremely important. And when they're downloadable, that brings in a whole new equation. So you have to name the file correctly because if you don't, someone downloads it. And what do people name their demos? Commercial demo dot mp3 narration demo dot mp3. And so someone saves your demo, they like it. And then a week later, they play it. Who the heck are you? Who was that? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So putting your name in the file name, extremely important, embedding it in the metadata so that when someone opens the mp3, they can find your website, your email address, your name. Those are all really important things. I have a lot more to say about what makes voice actor sites unique, but Karen, do you want to fill some in? Sure. Having video content, if you have it, is super important. You want to keep people engaged. And if they're not downloading it, and they want to see it in action, it's nice to have a video, your bio, studio information. Right now, everybody wants to know that you have a studio in-home studio, professional sound. That's really important. If you use SoundConnect, a source connect, or IPDTL, any of those modes of connectivity that you're remote ready, excellent things to have on your site, contact form, all really good things. And of course, your contact information front and center. Don't forget that. So, and I think, you know, with something that's becoming more popular is having video presented on the site with your voiceover, obviously. And I think it's great. It's always good to have video because it's more engaging than audio. But I don't think it's a replacement for audio because they serve two different purposes. Video can be played and watched on the website, but no one's going to download that while an agent or casting director might download your MP3 and send it off to a client to say, hey, do you like this person? So I think including video when you can is great, but it's not a replacement for just audio. So what kind of mistakes do people make when they're trying to set up their website? I mean, because I've seen a lot of websites and it's like, why did you put that there? Of course, we'll get a chance to look at some of those and I'm sure you'll probably ask that question. But what are some mistakes that people make? I think that one of the top mistakes that we see is not making an easy path to hearing your demo. And so some people don't put it on the front page. Big mistake. We talk to casting directors and agents and we do websites for those folks too, but we also help with casting. And one of the number one complaints that we hear is if I have to hunt for your demo, I'm just going to leave because you're, you know, even if you add 30 seconds or a minute to my day, you multiply that by all the different talents that I have to look at, and it can add hours. So making sure that demos are playable and downloadable above the fold on the homepage. And when I say above the fold, I mean without scrolling. So you want it that first screen that people hit to be able to take the actions that you want hear you. And as Karen mentioned, contact information. You know, if you don't want to put your personal phone, get a Google voice number, they're free. And Google's changed things a little bit. So if you use G suite, they from what I've heard, they have started charging for Google voice. But if you use a regular Gmail account, it's still free. And you just go to Google.com slash voice sign up, and it's a free forwarding number. So you don't have to put your personal cell phone on the website. Karen, what do you think other mistakes that voice talent make? Other mistakes, probably will besides that, you know, what you mentioned, when people put their name in the form of a logo. So it's an image and Google can't see that. So when people sometimes contact us, they're like, you know, I type my name into Google, and I can't find my website on the first page. There's all these other sites that come up. Well, if your name is never mentioned in real text, then your site, Google doesn't know what your site is about, doesn't know it's about you. So that's, that's a thing. Well, yeah. So we, we, you know, we, when I put the promo off for this show, I said, Hey, if you want us to review your website, send us the URL. Well, we got tons of them, meaning that you guys are actually reading the promos, which is great. So you guys ready to analyze some of these and give some critique? Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, let's start with this first one here. Okay, let's get that one up. There we go. Millennial Mama Vio. Okay. Whose website is this? I can't read the URL. It's too small on my screen, but I can see the site. Yeah. It's, it's, it's someone named Megan Vio. Okay. So we'll, we'll assume it's Megan. Yeah. Okay. So very simple front page. The demos are above the fold, which is good, and they're clearly labeled the three dots next to each one. Is that an option to download or can you see what those are? Those are download. Yes. Okay. So if possible, I would make it a single action, meaning you don't have to click the dots and then download, just have the download arrow and someone click on it because that kind of three dots might not be obvious what it is, and it also might not function on mobile. Another thought is that there's no clear call to action. So when I look at the site, I can hear demos right away, which is great, but you're not telling me what you want me to do next. Book me. Contact me. Let's work together. Have my voice on your project. Whatever fits your brand, that should be the messaging that's the call to action. And there is a menu in the upper right, which is good, but there's no email address, phone number, and the contact doesn't quite stand out. So these are not major problems, but I think it would be good to have the phone number, email address on the homepage also. So this way someone doesn't have to take a second action. And again, just give a little bit more of a call to action. And really on these internal pages, I think a call to action would be a good idea too. There's Megan. Yeah. But what we know is that her name is Megan. We don't know her last name. I guess that's on purpose. It's possible. She could be hiding her identity for privacy's sake. I mean, I don't know, but there's your picture right there. So, so much for that. Well, yeah, I don't know. I gotta ask her what the reason for she's, I mean, when somebody goes out of their way to not reveal their last name, it seems to be for a reason. So. And so I think the picture of her is very nice. But the, it says confident, caring, a bit of a boss. Okay. That's cool branding. It's a nice brand message. But if Megan has chosen not to put her last name for privacy reasons, then that might run counter to the brand message. And so I'm not sure we're making assumptions. I'd love to hear from Megan if possible. Another thought is if you scroll down to the bottom, Megan has a copyright notice, which is good. But then there's no privacy policy. And the privacy policy is important for a couple of reasons. One, Google will, there's something called, there's an acronym called eat. And it stands for expertise, authoritativeness and trust. So they're, they're factors that Google looks at when calculating a website's rank and the algorithm looking at it. And one of those trust factors is what are you doing with my private information? And whether people realize that or not, all websites are collecting private information. So if you go back to that site for a second, you click on the little lock in the upper left hand corner in the URL, the law over, over, you see the other left hand corner. Oh, that guy. So it says seven cookies in use. And most people don't realize that their websites are using cookies to collect information, but pretty much all modern websites do. So if you don't have a privacy policy, but you're collecting information, that's kind of a no, no from Google's eyes. The other reason to have it is because there is a European privacy standard called GDPR and other countries are passing similar things. Certain states now are passing these where you're required to put certain information on your website saying what you do with other people's private data. And if you don't, you're in violation of that. I think largely for most voice actors, they're never going to have a problem with it. But if you want to do business in the EU, that is an important thing to have on your site. So overall, I don't think that the site was bad, but there are certainly some things that you could do there to improve it. Do you think there's an issue of, I don't want this to be come off wrong, but of an ageist issue, like if a website is designed by somebody, maybe a more younger generation, millennial or younger, there's a certain amount of literacy that's assumed of the user that they do know what the three hamburger button means, the three dots. They know that it's called that, you know, things like that. And then if you're someone that's of another age group, 50 and up, you just may not assume to know what those buttons are doing. So I think that's something you have to look out for is whoever's designing your site should be very aware of, you know, making sure that it's not too slick, not too minimalistic. So yeah, I mean, I'm just reiterating what Joe said, but in a different way. But yeah, watch out for that. Make sure that the site isn't overly simplified. The only other thing I would add is that on the homepage, there's no text. And so again, back to what I was saying about the logo being an image, if there's no text on the page, Google doesn't know what the page is about. And so if somebody searches for her, maybe her bio page would come up, but not her homepage. And that's the page they'd be entering the site through, unless they had some prior interaction with her direct marketing or something of that nature. So it could be below the fold. There could be a bunch of copy down below the fold. That's fine, right? Exactly. All right, cool. All right, let's learn a lot. Yes, let's move on to the next one. Let's see. Moxie. Okay, now. See, I was able to get into that site. And we know whose site this is. This does is a Google site, isn't it? This is a Google site. So the first thing that strikes me is that the URL is sites.google.com slash a whole bunch of different things. And I think there's a couple challenges there. One, if you're putting it on a business card or telling someone over the phone or you meet someone at an event or whatever it is, it's going to be difficult to remember that URL. The other one is if you were hiring an accountant to handle your finances or a lawyer to handle something for your business. And they gave you a website that was sites.google.com slash something else. I think the impression is that maybe this person is not doing this full time, or this is not their primary business. So while it certainly could be, or maybe you're doing this part time, I think the messaging there, if you have your own domain name, it's something like $10 or $15 a year to get a domain name. And so I think the level of professionalism that having your own domain brings to the table is worth the investment. Great. Okay, well, having the diamonds above the fold. Yeah, I mean, that just looks like a business card. And then we get into this stuff. And there's his demos, but you gotta, you gotta, gotta find them. And then there's all this stuff down here. Well, that's fascinating. So I think Rich, I think he embedded his resume from Google Docs, maybe. Huh, I've never seen anybody do that. Clever. So I think Is being clever bad or good? Sometimes. I love clever, man. I'm all over embedding and all that slick stuff. So tell us how that's a good or a bad idea. It's, it's interesting because it might allow you to export it as a PDF and that sort of thing. So there might be some functionality that Google gives through Google Docs that you couldn't do with a normal website. The potential downside is that I don't think most people will know that they can scroll through that. And if you're on mobile and there's an embedded block, and there's a scroll in there, when you hit that with your finger, you're not going to be able to go further down the site, because it's just going to keep scrolling in that box. So it does present some challenges on mobile. And then the other thing is that embedded content from elsewhere doesn't necessarily get credited to the website where it's embedded, because it's not the original generator of the content, the content was generated wherever it's being embedded from. So I think what Karen was saying about having content on the site, she's 100% right. I'm not sure that site would get credit for the content that was in that block. But it is an interesting use of Google Docs. I haven't seen anybody else do that. Fascinating. Yeah, look at that. The use of SoundCloud, I think it is. Yeah. Do you recommend using SoundCloud or cons of SoundCloud? Yeah. I'm not a big fan of that personally, because typically what happens is after something plays, it goes to the next talent, another talents demo. It might not even be you. I don't know how his settings are set up, but that typically happens if it's not set up correctly. It's like the YouTube of audio. Yeah. You play something on YouTube and it takes you off some other direction. And again, looking on mobile, something that SoundCloud tends to do is if you're looking at a website where it's embedded on mobile, instead of playing, it'll say play in SoundCloud app, because they want you to download the app. And so then somebody would have to go to your iTunes store or your Google Play store and download the app and then play it. So I think having that challenge eliminated is a good idea. All right. Let's move on to the next one. Here's one for Ebony McKinley. Very good. Sure. Yeah. So I like that the demos are above the fold. I don't think they're downloadable. I can't tell. So that's something I guess we've been talking about that would be good if they could be downloadable. And then the contact information at the top of the site so they can listen to you and then hire you. And I'm not sure if the logo or the name is text or if it's a vector, but since it's just text, if you click on it, can you drag it? Nope. Okay. So maybe it's not an image. No, I think it is because when you hovered over it, there was an alt text. Oh, yeah. So because there's nothing going through it, anything graphical going through it, I think I would turn that into real text. There's no reason why it shouldn't be. And then Google could actually see it. Mm-hmm. And she's got like testimonials. That's awesome. There's a testimonial. I like the contrast on the testimonials. So they they stand out really nicely, the white on black. Yeah. Interesting. Generally, white on black, a lot of white text on black is hard to read. But here, because it's a small block of text, I think it works well because it really draws the eye there. Right. And if you click on it, that changes the, I guess, a place for as long as you can take you to read it, I guess. Mm-hmm. All right. Then she's gone. So even though those demo players, they may or may not be downloadable, but there should be a very clearly, painfully obvious button maybe underneath each player that just says download. Yeah, right beside it, like a little arrow that's down there. Yeah. Speaking of downloading, can I ask you a little slightly geek thing? How do you force the web browser to actually download the file and not then try to play it itself, which Google does, Chrome does all the time? It's a very good question, and it varies by browser, which makes it difficult. So Safari within the last year or so made it really challenging because now you have to do separate code just for Safari. And so there's an attribute that you can add for download this instead of play this. And that works in everything except for Safari. Okay. There's some JavaScript that you can insert, which works in Safari unless you have JavaScript disabled. And then it doesn't work. So there's, depending on your goals, you kind of have to, the kind of perfect way to do it is have the browser identified by the web server. So the web server says you're using Google. Therefore, we're going to serve this code or you're using Safari. We're going to serve you this code. So it knows what browser the person's using and then presents the right download option. But the download attribute generally was the standard until Safari went off in its own direction. Wow. Now here's the thing like Safari is definitely not the world's most popular browser, but it could be the most popular browser among your client base. If your client base are creatives or Hollywood types, which are a lot are on Mac, and they're more probably likely to use Safari, right? I mean, I could use the default browser. Right. You have to know your audience. It goes back to what you were saying before that if someone is, you know, young and hip and very aware of what certain things on websites mean, but then some of your audience is of a different demographic, then you have to take into account the lowest common denominator. You don't want your website to be brown. You don't want to learn how to browse a website the way you learn how to use Snapchat. I don't see anything ever use Snapchat. I still don't know how to use Snapchat. It's so cryptic. Right. Well, we got a lot more websites to look at here. So stay tuned. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with Joe Davis and Karen Barth from voiceactorwebsites.com and looking at all these great URLs you set us. So we'll be right back after these messages. Hello. Welcome to voiceover body shop. It's a place where you can get your body shopped with voices. Come on. Look at Dan's head. So shiny. Well, hello there. I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice to announce her guy on your new orientation training for Snapchat, were you? Stick around. You don't want to miss this. Power 1039. At Target, we want you to come as you are. Be comfortable. Okay, maybe not. Bathrobe comfortable. Pants for the customer on aisle four, please. Nuevo México necesita un cambio. La representante Michelle Lujan Grisham ha luchado por nuestro estado en la cámara de representantes. Watch anywhere, anytime on an unlimited number of devices. Sign in with your Netflix account to watch instantly at netflix.com. The ice cream maker is a big risk that can have huge reward until you forget to turn it on. That's it guys. Time is up. Are you ready or looking to get there? Check out JMCDemos.com and see a sample of our work. Now let's get back to Dan and George and this week's tech wisdom. Getting into VO is quite an accomplishment. And accomplishing anything in the world of performance can be really tough. Getting great information is tough. Getting the right advice and mentoring is tough. Simply getting ahead is tough. And the best way to get ahead is to simply get started. Let's make it simple. To get started in voiceover, the best way is with VO Hero's free online course, Getting Started in VoiceOver. You'll learn everything you need to know to create a successful, satisfying, and profitable voiceover career. The link is really simple. Here it is. VOheroes.com forward slash start. Again, that's VOheroes.com forward slash start. Get ahead in voiceover simply by getting started. Go to VOheroes.com forward slash start. Well, we may not be traveling a whole lot, but if you are and you've got to be able to record on the road, here's the way to do it. With a Harlan Hogan porta booth plus easy to handle, easy to get onto a plane. It fits right into a luggage rack. No problem. And more importantly, the porta booth plus is made with real Aurelex. Not that fake stuff you get at Banjo and Porium. This is specially made to make sure that your sound is just right when using the Harlan Hogan porta booth plus. Where can you get one? Very easy. Go on over to voiceoveressentials.com. That's voiceoveressentials.com. Look on their front page. You'll see the porta booth plus and the porta booth pro at voiceoveressentials.com. Voiceoveressentials.com. Get your porta booth plus now. Yeah. Hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky, the voice of Rocco, and you're watching Voiceover Body Shop. And we are back here on Voiceover Body Shop with Joe Davis and Karen Barth from voiceactorwebsites.com. Got a couple of questions before we move on with a couple more sites. One from April Richwine. She says, I was advised to only have one page site. What's your opinion on that? It depends on your goal. And I think defining your goals before you build a site is extremely important because if your goal, there's basically two ways that voice actors use websites. There's the extension of a business card, meaning you have some sort of interaction with someone and you're sending them there to hear you and hire you, as I said earlier. And then there's a website that generates business or traffic without you taking an action. And that would be a website that's focused on SEO, or at least partially takes SEO into account. So for the extension of the business card, you want people to have the simplest path to what you want them to do. And so one page website is fine for that. And especially if you're just starting out, I think a one page website is probably more than enough. If you care about SEO, a one page website is probably the single worst thing you could do because Google is a relevancy engine. It's trying to serve the most relevant result to a searcher's intent. And the more granular your website gets, the more powerful it is. What does granular mean? Good question. So this is a very large granular. I mean, let's say someone is looking for government e-learning voiceover. And you have a website about voiceover. Is it related? Yes. But could it be more specific? Absolutely. So then let's say they have a secondary level of navigation where there's a page built out for each genre of voiceover that they do. One for commercial, one for narration, one for e-learning, one for IBR. So Google looks at that and says, all right, the website's about voiceover. Check. And it's about e-learning. Check. So it's more related. Now, let's say you dig a little deeper and you have a tertiary level for each of those genres. So subgenres where for commercial, you might have automotive commercials and toy commercials and pharmaceutical commercials. And for e-learning, you might have aerospace e-learning and government e-learning. And so you have pages for each one of those genres with content on it. And when you do that, you become one of the most relevant results on the internet. And so if you search for government e-learning voiceover, Kim Handyside is going to come up because she has, well, we handle her SEL and there's other factors for sure. But the fact is she has the most relevant result on the internet for that. And so having a one page website does not give you the ability to break things down in that organized way. The other part of it is that there's something called authority. So every page on your website has a certain level of authority from one to 100 and your domain overall has an aggregate called the domain authority of all the pages. And so if you have multiple pages, each one can have a certain level of authority and then pass it to the others and your whole website gets stronger. If you just have one page on your website, then you just have one option. You have one page to build authority and that's it. And when Joe was talking about content, he was talking about text on a page, not just your demos and videos because that's the only thing that Google sees. Again, just reiterating that. All right. George, you get to ask the next question. You got it. This one is from our very own Jeff Holman. Obviously, you'd prefer we use your services, but what are your professional opinions of some of those other ones like Squarespace and Wix and things like that? So those CMS, I guess they call those things? They're do-it-yourself, you know, whizzy-wig builders, basically. Whizzy-wigs. And so I would prefer that someone uses the service that's best for them, meaning if you have the ability to design something nicely on one of those do-it-yourself sites, by all means do it. If you want something professionally designed by us, that's great, but those platforms do serve a purpose. And I think the two reasons perhaps not to use them would be, one, some people find it challenging to create something that looks really professional and has the functionality that a voice actor needs. So when we're building something, we build thousands of these things, so we know what works for talent and for talent seekers and that sort of thing. With these builders, it's hard to do things like make your demos downloadable, which we talked about before. The other reason, and if we pull up a Wix or a Squarespace or a Weebly site and then look at the source code, because these platforms are drag and drop editors, they have so much code behind them that it makes a website load slower, and Google has to look through all that code and a web browser has to look through all that code. So if you do a website and one of those, what might take 500 lines of code on a different platform like WordPress might take seven or 8,000 lines in Wix, Squarespace, Weebly. And so that is a challenge for the web browser and for the search engines to sift through. So those are probably the two number one reasons not to use them, but again, they do have a place and if you're just starting out and you're investing in equipment, you don't want to invest in a website right away, that's a good option. Or if you're really talented on one of those and you know how to design on them, then yeah, by all means, use them as long as you can get the functionality out of it that you want. Okay. Nisnic Joe says, asks, what should we use to upload our sound clips? A good question and it depends on what platform you're using. So if you're using WordPress, there are a bunch of really nice players that are available for that. Many of them are free. WordPress has its own built in player, which is free. And then there are ones that you can pay for too. And they have all this functionality that we've talked about and even, you know, statistics behind how many times something's been played or downloaded, all that's built in. And so you don't have to build it from scratch or even pay someone to build it from scratch, because it all exists there. Go ahead, Karen. Sorry. I was going to say to upload MP3s as opposed to WAV files, because WAV files are so large, they take so long to load because they're so big that people might think your site's actually broken or the player is not working. So definitely use MP3 files. Go ahead, Joe. Sorry. All right. Let's get on to the next website that was submitted to us from Ebony McKinley. Did we look at this one? We got that one. Okay. Jim McNicholas. There we go. Jim, yeah. Where is the demo? It's very small up here. So I think the first thing that struck me is it goes back to something that George was saying that you don't want to teach someone how to use a website for the first time by looking at your website. You kind of want them intuitively to know what to do. And I automatically looked to the upper right-hand corner for navigation, because there's that thin white line with the logo, and I don't see navigation there. Then there's the logo, which it could be a part of a mic. It could be a setting sun or a rising sun. It could be an eyeball. So it could be different things. And it's interesting to me. That's the next thing that my eye is drawn to. And then what I'd love to see just below that are audio demos that someone could play. And it says essentially what Jim is available for below that, which is good. There's a Gmail address listed, which it kind of goes back to what I was saying before, just from a professional standpoint. I think it's a good idea to have an email address at yourdomain.com. So I would swap that out. And then there's not a lot of issues with those email, those mail to colon, as well, because so many people when they click on it, it's going to open up maybe a mail application on their system that they've never used in their entire lives. Yes. And that becomes a point of frustration instead of them wanting to contact you, they're trying to close everything down. So maybe giving them the option to call you or a contact form to just fill out. Contact form, contact form. Definitely recommend that. And with a contact form, you don't reveal your email address. So if you don't have at your domain or you don't want to get spam, that's a good alternative. Yeah, right. And he has a lot of, looks like video demos on here, which are just like that. So you could, those are good to have. Yeah. So video demos are really popular right now. A lot of talent like to put them on their sites. They even sometimes have them professionally produced from their audio. But I don't think that it replaces the audio demo because like what Joe was saying before, when talent seekers are listening to several talent, you know, 30, 60, 90 people for one specific job, they're downloading them and listening back to see who they're going to call or who they're going to contact. So not giving them ability to do that. I think to me, I would add that functionality. Yeah. And then a big picture of him and then talks about himself. Yeah. I mean, it's a one page site, right? He went with that sort of one page simple website. And so what I would recommend from the one page website standpoint is on that top bar, which stays, you know, when you scroll, that top bar is staying there. It's a sticky bar. And so I, if you're going to keep that bar there, put something that's, you know, very important there, either contact information and or navigation, and you can just have it slide down. So, you know, when someone clicks demos, slides down to your demo section. If it, you know, bio, it could slide down to the bio section. All right. Let's take a look at our next one here. Let's see. It was, ah, this one. There we are. AVS Voice Home. Okay. Brad Ovenew. Cool. Can you click on where it says commercial to see if there's other genres listed in his player or if he has one demo? Okay. So the only thing I would say about the, about this is that if somebody's not familiar with this player, it's not super intuitive to the user how many demos are there. Because there's an arrow pointing down that says more demos. So typically when people see that if they're not familiar with it, they think that it's saying click on one of these spots below. They don't understand that there's multiple genres and you have a nice breadth of work here. So it would be good to either have some sort of control panel, like buttons that would control what's front facing on the player, or find another way to also display that you do those genres because, like I said, it's not super intuitive to people who are not familiar with it. I have no idea what Brad sounds like. I have my opinion about having a photo at the top of the site is sometimes I think it's a great idea and sometimes I think it's not because if you have a large range and you have a lot of gifts to your voice, I think that sometimes when you put your picture up there, you're pre-vicing the listener. So they automatically assume you sound a certain way or you sound like a certain age and maybe you don't. So depending on what you sound like, maybe it's a good idea. I do like having the picture on the page because I personally like it when it's lower down unless it's a perfect match in the bio or in the context area where they've already listened to you and they haven't thought, oh, this is not going to be the sound I'm looking for, then have your photo down below so they can see who they're going to work with. And then he's got all his clients on there. Now everybody asks, can you have all those on there? I know that voiceover lawyer, frozen caveman Rob Siglum-Heglia says, unless you're going to get permission from all these clients to use these, you're really violating copyright by putting these things on there, are you? So neither of us are lawyers. I'm going to preface it with that. I have asked several intellectual property attorneys and their answer was that if you're not representing yourself as the business, if you said I am McDonald's or I am Microsoft, that's a problem. But there is, and again, this is not me giving a legal opinion, this is just what I was told, that if you are saying we have worked with this entity, then there's a fair use clause where essentially you can use it and if the company contacts you and says take it down, then take it down. But again, that's what I heard and I personally don't know of any voice actors that we've worked with who have had a problem. But I have heard of people that I've had problems, just not people that we've worked with. So I would say if you are very concerned about that, you should ask an attorney. But I also have a tremendous amount of respect for Rob and so if he says it, you know, it's something to consider. All right. Okay, let's go on to our next one here, Moxie Labouche. I love your name, by the way, first of all. That's right up there with Nicola Lambeau. What do you think? Do you want to go or should I? Sure. Okay, so I would say the contact information at the top would be nice to have. And again, the menu, so it's easy to use and navigate through even if it just anchors down to those sections. Okay, hold on. Okay, so at the top there's an e-learning explainer. And then two coming soon, and then what's below? Are those more spots below? Or are those examples? So I think at the top are demos that are produced in below are samples of voice work, I'm not sure. Yeah, and these are audio books. There's audio books. And then there's miscellaneous. So it's sort of, I mean, if we click on more example, yeah, this is, it's kind of a mishmash. Mishmash. Or a mishmash. That's the thing on whose kitchen you're in. The correct, it is, is mishmash. Mishmash, I'm sorry. So I like the colors. I like, I think you need to have your demos downloadable. Sure. That would be really helpful. And I'm not sure if the top is demos and below are samples of work that you've done, or if they're all demos. It's all over the place. It's all sorts of stuff. I mean, there's podcast intros and a phone system. So it's, it's lots of different genres. So it's not really specific. And if you don't know what you're looking for, you really got to like hunt around to find it. Yeah. So maybe I would organize it a little bit differently. But to understand what those are would be helpful to know how to get better, give better advice as to how to maybe organize it. Right. Now, why do you put these things down at the bottom with Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus and Instagram and that stuff way at the bottom there? Yeah. If you want, if you want people to go to your social media channels, then that's great. They can see you there. It's, I like it down at the bottom and not front and center personally, because I think that once you take somebody off your site, once you finally get them there, you want to keep them there. If you take them off the site and they go to Facebook or whatever and then they, oh, I got a message from this person. Oh, look what this person posted. And then you forgot what you were doing in the first place. So if you're going to have it on there, because it's important to you and you want to show that you're active on those platforms, great. But then the downside to it is you've gotten to your site and now you're taking them off your site. Okay. And I just want to add one other thing. If you notice in the address bar right next to the domain name, it says not secure. And so that's on the left hand side. Yeah, right there. And so that's related to an SSL certificate and an SSL certificate. It's a little bit counterintuitive for a voice actor because you're generally not doing, you know, financial transactions on the website. It's not an e-commerce website. So why would you need an SSL? In the past, I would say you don't. The two reasons now to have one are because Google Chrome is putting that big fat not secure up there and that scares people. And the other is that Google now weights that as a ranking factor. So if you care at all about ranking in Google, Google is giving preference to websites that have SSL certificates or a different way of saying it is that it's penalizing websites that don't. And many web hosts do give SSL certificates for free, some charge extra. We often work with upper level hosting with Brad Newman and he provides a free SSL certificate. So I think definitely get the SSL if you can, if it's not exorbitantly expensive. All right. Let's move on to our next one. This one is, boy, a lot going on here. Pretty clear who it is and where he is. Yeah. I like how I can see his contact information front and center. I also feel like I get this, I haven't heard his demos, but I feel like I get a sensorous personality with his picture there. I hope he doesn't sound like this. That would be bad. So I noticed that way down on the left hand side when you scroll down there are more demos there. And where are those buttons that trigger the player? I don't know. No, they're individual players aside from the voice sand piece. Okay. So I think I'm a little confused why those are there. I don't have a problem with having demos in different formats or different players, but I'm just not, I think making it clear why something's there is important. And they're kind of a little hidden. Yeah. He's got a lot of stuff going on here. Yeah. A lot of content. That's good. And the contact information is front and center at the top. I like that. He has demos. There's a lot of content, which is good. And a little trick that you can do is you can go to Google and type in the search box site colon and then your domain name with no space. So in this case, it would be just his name.com and it'll tell you how many pages Google has indexed for your site or whatever site you're checking. And so my guess is that Rick has at least a dozen pages, which is good for a voice actor. No. Okay. Let's go to our next one here and Phyllis Fort. We know the name. We see the headphones. We see what she does. We see two demos and her mission. What do you think? And I really keep scrolling along here to get where you want to go. Okay. Scrolling is okay, right? As long as there's hot, what do they call them anchors or whatever that? Yeah, like a contact, sorry, a menu at the top so that it can anchor down to those sections. Well, she's got contact up there. And that anchors down. I would add the anchors for all the sections at the top. And the blank space beside the bio, I thought a picture was trying to load in, but it was taking a little bit longer because it's a lot of space on the left. That's what I presumed was happening, but when you scroll back up, I still didn't see it. So maybe just make the bio all the way across as opposed to just in a column like that. And then if possible, maybe shrink the logo down a little bit and scooch it up and bring the demos above the fold. So before somebody has to scroll, they can see your demos and hear them. And if they're not downloadable to make them downloadable. And the imagery on this site, even though it's faded into the background, it's very prominent. And so I have a sense of what I think Phyllis's voice sounds like. And so that's an important thing about branding is that it's going to give someone a feeling for how you sound. It's kind of like what Karen was talking about with putting a picture of yourself. So just make sure that there is, you don't want to position yourself as something that you're not, or if you have a broad range, you don't want to position yourself as just one thing. So that's something to keep in mind. And that's just a general bit of advice. Again, I haven't heard Phyllis's voice, but I have a sense of what I think it sounds like. Hey, we got time for like one more here. So let me grab one more here. And let's see here. I sort of like this one. What do you think? I like the photo a lot. Yeah. I like the field too. You know, she's got, you know, bio, work clients, contact, all that stuff is right there. And she has a podcast, which she promotes there. So just in that navigation, it's kind of standard practice to put contact as the right most thing. So you don't want to, again, have people have to relearn how to use a website. And so I would just swap podcast and contact. And then I think you're golden. And I do like that it says at the top, you know, smart witty voice actor. So you know what she does right off the bat. Yeah. A lot of text. And nice picture. I like that there's a Neumann mic there because I want to ask everybody here, how important it is to show that is it that important to show a microphone A and B, what brand of microphone do you show? I mean, would you show anything other than a Neumann microphone? I guess is what I'm saying, being that it's the, you don't show a snowball. I'll show you mine if you show me yours. Right. It's a, do I put a mic on my website is a huge question that we get because I'd say half the people that we talk 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 cliche. And so I, George, I think you're right. If you are showing a certain level of professionalism, especially again, now that everybody or most people are recording remotely, if you have great equipment, I think it's okay to show it off, but you don't need to put a mic just to show that you're a voice actor. Right. All right. But if you do make it an expensive one. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Well, Joe and Karen, it's always a pleasure to hang with you and learn all about websites and stuff. And if they want to get a hold of you guys, where do they go if they want to get a really good website? You can come to my house. If you go to www.voiceactorwebsites.com, you'll find us. There's a very nice contact form on there. Or you can reach out to Karen or myself. And we're happy to talk to you about it. And then also just another thing that I'm doing is my father founded a cancer research foundation. And I've been helping with that as well. And they actually have had some tremendous results. It's cancerantibodies.com. And they achieved a breakthrough. And so I'm helping with that. And you can check that out too. Cool. Well, guys, thanks so much for being with this. Always a pleasure. Let's do this again sometime, like soon. Anytime, hopefully in person. Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah, I miss you guys. Alrighty. Good to see you guys. All right, we'll be right back and wrap this up in just a minute. Thanks, everybody. Voices, one place wasn't VO Buzz Weekly. Voice over body shop, the better one. 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.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.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.com has other great resources like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish. Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros. Voice actor websites.com, where your VO website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what. Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead. Now there's one place where you can explore everything the voice over industry has to offer. That place is voiceoverextra.com. Whether you're just exploring a voice over career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level. Stay in touch with market trends, coaching, products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls. Voice over extra has hundreds of articles, free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed. Learn from the most respected talents, coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books, auditioning, casting, home studio setup and equipment, marketing, performance techniques and much more. It's time to hit your one stop daily resource for voice over success. Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voice over audition. It's all here at voiceoverextra.com. That's voiceoverXTRA.com. This is the Latin Lover narrator from Jane the Virgin, Anthony Mendes and you're enjoying Dan and George on The Voice Over Body Shop. Alrighty, well this is the time of the show where we talk about source elements, the creators of Source Connect, which yes, many, many of you at this point probably already have. That's because, man, since the pandemic started, Source Connect has been probably the most requested technology of the voice actors, probably anything else out there. I don't have that information in a graph or some data to show you, but I can just tell you from the videos I've done on these products, my video on Source Connect has by far the most views. So a lot of people are needing it. And so if you want to get set up with Source Connect because you're being told you need to have it to complete your sessions with your clients, because their engineer is somewhere and the client is somewhere and you're somewhere and you're not all the same place, you'll want to get that set up. Go over to source-elements.com. They have a new website. Hopefully you find it a little easier to navigate and get your way through ordering and setting it up. And if you do have trouble, I do have some helpful, helpful free guidance over at georgethe.tech.sc that you can check out. And if you really need help, you can also book support there. But anyway, that's Source Elements. We appreciate their support of us and what we do. And Source Connect is a part of many, many of our lives at this point after 12 plus years of them creating that product. So anyway, thank you, Source Elements. Now back to you, Dan, back in the studio. All right. Thanks, George. In other news now. Well, you know, it's great having Joe and Karen on. Every time they're on, we know there's a lot of people watching because what's the secret? Go to voiceactorwebsites.com. That's the secret. Although everybody keeps trying to do their own website, it's, you know, having tried a few times, I just call my pal Joe. And that's usually helps me out. Next week on this very show, which we will get to in a couple of minutes, is Tech Talk number 45. 45. We can do 45. My fingers will do that. Okay, good. All right. And, and then we get into the holiday season, you know, you know, I know that we're not going to do a show on December 28th because that will be my 64th birthday. And it's like, we're not going to do it. But we will have a couple more great guests coming up in the next couple of weeks. Thank you. Who are our donors of the week? Donors of the week. We got a lot of familiar names, which is always great. We've got Michael Kearns, Christy Burns, Graham Spicer, Alain Productions, Michelle Blanker, Sarah Borges, Rob Ryder, and Michael Gordon. I believe they're probably all subscribers. I believe you are correct, sir. Oh, we also need to thank our fabulous sponsors like Harlan Hogan's Voice Over Essentials. Voice Over Extra, Source Elements, voheroes.com, voiceactor websites.com, and JMC demos. All right. Thanks to Jet Holman for chat room duty tonight, getting us some of those questions. Thanks to all of you for sending all those URLs in. That was always fascinating to get to that wave of them. Absolutely. And our technical director, Sumerlino, because she's just so good at what she does. You have to see what she does before the show gets going in order to see why it goes so well when we're actually doing it. Anyway, that's going to do it for us this week. And tech talks coming up next. If you got tech questions, stay tuned for that while we're, if you're watching live and you can put your questions in the chat room. So stay tuned for that. In the meantime, I'm Dan Leonard. And I'm George Whitton. And this is Voice Over. Body Shop. Or V-O-B-E-S. Whatever.