Reasons for actor websites
Recently I was at an event in Hollywood where I spoke with an actor, whose name I won't mention, that was very resistant to the idea of owning a website. Usually I try not to "sell" my agenda and tend to change the topic, but he seemed to be quite opinionated so I wanted to hear his thoughts, so I asked him: why NOT have a website?
Because none of the famous actors have a website with their credits.
It's true, I told him. If you're Julia Roberts or Tom Hanks, the odds are you don't need to tell people what you do or demonstrate your skill set. Once you reach a certain level the only website you'd need would be a fan page, but to be frank, you're not Tom Hanks. I'm extremely opposed to people comparing themselves to others unless they strive to improve themselves, but, in my humble opinion, you can't compare yourself to the top level industry actors if you're not there yet. Let them do what they do and focus on how you can get to the next level.
Because I'm not important enough for people to search my name.
Numerous times I've come across websites that pet owners put up for their cats, dogs, parrots and hamsters. Are you suggesting that Mr Fluffy Pants is more important than your career? A website offers another stream of information that can be accessed by anyone in the world when researching the right keywords. The only difference is, you have full and total control over what goes on it. It's your online business card. People might be researching actors who live in your neighborhood, or actors of a specific gender, ethnicity and age, and still come across your website. They might be researching films that you were in and find you that way as well. Simply enough, if you put enough information on your website, the higher the odds people will stumble upon it not even knowing your name.
Because website cannotguarantee that people will find me and hire me.
Again, not a false statement. I'll do one better, I told him: lack of website WILLguarantee that people won't hire you after finding your website. There is no magic potion to people finding your work and connecting with it. Each actor is different and her or his skill set differs - it's simple as that, but with so many DIY film projects coming out of the woodwork, more and more indie filmmakers do their own hiring. So many times I hear of directors making connections online, hiring actors, and falling in love with their work so that they hire them for every single project they do.
Because websites cost money and I can't afford it at this time.
First of all, besides IADB there are tons of other services that will offer you a free website. As a matter of fact we don't even allow people to buy a service at IADB prior to creating a free profile. We insist that you first build it and then, only if you're happy with what you see, you can upgrade your account to include domain name, email address and other templates and services.
I'm not even afraid to mention the biggest competitors offering free sites here, such as Wix. If you're not an actor and you want a quick and free solution, you might want to consider that, there's also Weebly, SquareSpace, Jimdo, all of which offer some sort of free services. The only difference though is that they don't focus on actors, they'll cover your site with unrelated ads and they won't let you easily switch templates. So, if you ever consider time as money, it will cost you that.
IADB offers free websites that are built with actors in mind, are built quickly thanks to our top of the line information aggregation tools, don't have ads and allow seamless switching between templates. What more could one ask for?
By the time I got home I noticed that the person I spoke with created a free profile. Three days later he upgraded his account to premium. So how about you - do you have any concerns about owning a website?
