Keep Your Websites Alive
Okay, I have a bone to pick with WIX websites (what else is new?) - but my main frustration is their forcing of blogs onto some pages that shouldn't have one.
I'll keep it simple - if you are not going to write a blog, don't put it on your website, if you're not sure if... don't put it on your website, if there's a chance that... don't put it on your website. That's right, I just interrupted myself. I just want you to abandon any excuses. If you're not typically writing a weekly blog and don't have anyone else to write one for you, just leave it be.
I finally found a perfect example that I can demonstrate for you. Below is an image (unedited) of an actor's website. I was lucky enough to find a page that doesn't list the name of the owner so that I'm not pointing a finger at anyone. And besides, it's not the actor's fault. I blame WIX for this kinda stuff. Here's the kind of page you'd get on WIX:
??Ok, so where do I begin?
- First of all, there is absolutely no indication of whose website it is (good for me so that I don't have to blur anything out, but still, if you land on this page, you might be confused and exit immediately)
- Looking at the menu, you can't tell that this is a website that belongs to an actor. Where are the credits? Where are the creative linkups like IMDb, Stage 32 or Backstage?
- Use of "white space" - I don't know if I want to touch that one. There's a huge gap on top, things aren't centered, page is absolutely NOT responsive.
- Social media icons are confusing as hell. There are two Twitter icons, two Facebook icons, one google + icon. ???
- My biggest complaint of all: there are two "recent" posts from 2 years ago.
If I didn't know any better I'd say that that website's been abandoned, but it has not. I just got a message from an active actor in NYC inviting me to it. If you ask me, you do yourself a disservice by keeping things like that on your website. Not to mention that the two posts are probably default ones that WIX feeds to everybody's website just so that they're not empty. If you're not on IADB's platform and you have a blog that's empty, I urge you to lose it! If you have a credits page that is out of date - update it!
If you are an IADB member, I do have this question for you: should we add an ability to import an external blog? I honestly have a bad feeling about it, that I'd have to keep emailing some of you nagging you to either turn it off or write a new post, but... there could be some of you that enjoy writing and sharing your artistic endeavors. I just wonder how many of you would like that. Lets find out.
