You’ve done loads of training, got your headshots… your home studio is set up and you’re recording your demo soon.
Next up! You’re ready to create a voice over website. Not sure where to start, or what content to include?
You are in the right place. In this article, we’ll cover the non-technical aspect of building a website.
What are the essential things you need to include on your voiceover website?
First off, keep in mind the main purpose of your website is for people (i.e. casting directors, producers, potential clients) to be able find you, hear your work, and know where to contact you if they like what they hear.
So as a professional voiceover artist you’ll need to ensure your homepage contains all the information your prospective clients wants to see and hear.
But before we dive into these elements, ask yourself this question:
Aside from having a website that showcases my demos and how to contact me, what other purpose do I want my website to serve?
What is a short-form web page?
A short-form web page is a one-page website where all the relevant information you need to showcase is on your home page. At the top, you’ll see a navigation menu with tabs or a dropdown menu for each of the sections that contain important information about you. When you click on it, it’ll take you to the sections within the home page. It’s concise and easy to navigate to scroll on mobile and tablet.
To get an idea of what a one-pager website looks like, you can check out one of my favorite ones here for inspiration. For a voiceover example, check out Michel Glover’s vo website
What is a long-form web page?
A long-form is a website that contains multiple pages (like mine). On the navigation menu up top, you’ll see all the relevant pages. And on your home page, you would include all the essential information at a glance.
Who should consider a long-form multi-page website?
For those who have or want to add extra content.
Why?
It enables you to use your website for additional purposes aside from showcasing yourself as a voiceover artist. For example, if you want to branch out the type of voiceover information/services you provide, i.e. you want to blog about voiceover, be a product reviewer for VO products, create a VO coaching program, or have skills that overlap with voiceover you want to market, etc..
The long-form website will enable you to add more content in a more organized, easy-to-read manner. It helps to spread out the information on each relevant page and be displayed clearly.
Now that, that’s out of the way! Let’s look at the:
6 Essential things you need to have on your website to present yourself as a kick-ass voice over artist that wins clients
This should be one of the first things people see when you go to your main page, as this is the entire reason people go to your website in the first place. Your Demo is your marketing arsenal.
You need to make your demos easy to find for casting directors and producers. People want to hear your demos. If they like your voice, they’ll keep scrolling, looking at your information, and finding a way to contact you!
Tip: Make sure your demos are properly labeled and tagged for marketing purposes. Include your full demo up top. Then split the tracks of your demo into clips. Make sure all these are downloadable so that casting peeps can save a specific track they need and not have to listen to your whole demo for later.
Include a short bio about yourself. If you decide to create a long web form page, then your bio can be a snippet and have a clickable ‘read more’ to take you to an extended version of your about page.
You can include things like your personality trait, what you’re known for, any accomplishments or projects you’ve completed, fun facts about yourself, any initiatives or endeavours that are applicable to showcase your personality, your voice, who you sound like (celebrity references), information about your home studio. Add a photo!
Get creative! Think back to things you’ve done that overlaps with the voiceover industry or voiceover genres specialty that you can reference and make it applicable.
Even though as voiceover artists, we are not on screen I find it enjoyable to see who is voicing a character and what the voice actor looks like. Especially you know when you discover the face doesn’t match the voice you expected, I find this to be wonderfully amusing. I love it. Having a photo just adds another dimension and connection to the magic we can all bring behind a camera.
Get some testimonials! It helps to establish credibility and makes you look valuable. It legitimizes there are people using your services who have enjoyed working with you.
Show who you have worked with!
If you are just starting out, this can be a catch 22. You can leave this out until got a few clients under your belt, or get creative again!
Think of any companies you’ve worked with that required you to your voice and acting chops on the job to bring out their messages and stories.
This is a no brainer. People need to know how they can get a hold of you! Thus, make sure you have a contact form and your contact details, email and phone number on the page.
Bonus Tip
Your site should reflect your personality and the ‘feel’ of your voice.
If you aren’t sure how you’d describe yourself. Do this.
- Find 10 friends to describe you and get them to give you 10 adjectives about yourself.
- Out of the 10 friends you’ll find repeated words.. write those down
- Ask your friends again to choose one or two words from the repeated list.
This will give you an idea how to market your quality/character/personality to make yourself stand out from other voiceover artists.
For me playful, feisty, smart, resourceful were some of the repeated words. Hence, I chose colors yellow to showcase playfulness, red for feisty, and use language and images that exemplifies these qualities in me.
If you’re a guy and you have a macho rugged voice, you may want to have wilderness and gritty images on your site. But if you’ve got more of a chilled, energetic surfer vibe you may choose images that reflect that.
Let your personality shine through your website. It’s a place where you can showcase what makes you unique!
Photo by: Firmbee.com
