Create your own personal actor website that will get you cast in 2019

The Basics of your personal Actor Website

Your actor website is essential for great online presence. You’ve heard time and time again that casting directors google your name and check out your social media. An actor website is your digital resume, it’s your online casting profile. This is because all of your business activities will flow in and out of your actor website. It can really make an impression on anyone who is considering you for work. Luckily it’s up to you to make sure that impression is a positive one.

If you don’t have an actor website set up, it can seem like a daunting task. It can get expensive to pay someone to design you a professional actor website. And there are too many options for drag and drop builders that it’s hard to know which is worth your money. Furthermore, you don’t know if a drag and drop builder will even look good! But it doesn’t have to be difficult. There are only a few essential things you should know to make an actor website that will get you cast. Your personal website should:

• load quickly
• clearly lay out your information
• keep in mind your audience: casting directors

Your actor website does not need to be fancy, it needs to be professional. A casting director won’t be impressed with jumping fonts and animations. But they will be impressed if your actor resume website is simple, clean, modern, and easy to navigate. The good news is, you can easily build that kind of actor website yourself without breaking the bank.

As I’ll explain later, building your own actor website not only saves you money, but also gives you the flexibility to easily update your acting resume. Or, let’s say you want to swape out your reel. Making your own website allows you to easily make these changes for free without waiting weeks for a programmer to help.

Getting Started on your Actor Website

 Let’s talk for a second about the technical stuff. I’m sure you have seen and potentially considered self builder websites like Squarespace, Wix, Weebly and the likes. These are all okay options to build your actor website if you want to spend more money. They require you to pay a high monthly price ($20+ for the right plan), or be billed annually ($250+) to keep your website operating. But it’s not necessary. The other downside to building a website with these builders is that they do not have great SEO functionalities. This means your actor website will not rank as well in search results. And let’s face it, if no one can find your website on Google, it’s not doing a lot of good.

Don’t worry though, I have a simple solution that is budget friendly and will allow you to build your actor resume website professinally.

But wait, can’t you make an actor website yourself for free?

Some website builders offer flashy offers to build a website for free but once you take a closer look you see that it’s not a good idea. Free websites have their name in the domain, instead of your own domain. It’s tacky, no one takes it seriously and it likely won’t appear in Google search results. They also limit you in functionality.

If you take your career seriously, it makes sense to make a minimal investment in yourself and your career to show the casting directors you take business seriously. Plus, building your own actor website can cost you as little as $4 a month so there is no reason to look unprofessional. That’s the price of a latte!

WordPress explained

So now we will get down to what you will be building your website with. In the next simple steps you will learn how to build a professional self hosted actor website on WordPress.

WordPress is free and it is a really popular and powerful content management platform. In fact, more than 30% of the internet is powered by WordPress. We will be using it to help you run a personal actor website that is secure, fast, and easy to update. 

What does this mean for your personal actor website?

Since WordPress is free, this means the only recurring cost you have is hosting. Web hosting is essentially digital rent to have your actor website up and running. The good news is, digital rent is cheap. Below you will see how to have your actor website hosted for less than $4 a month.

Normally, the other expense you have is a domain name, the cost to register and maintain the name of your actor website (www. your website name .com). But to help you out, I created a strategy to help you get it for free!

Other actor resume website options to stand out

So besides web hosting, the only other expense (which is optional) is investing in a really good, high quality wordpress theme. A theme is the framework on which your actor website will be built. A high quality theme will cost you anywhere from $49- $95. Please note, this is only a one time cost, not recurring. The reason I suggest using a theme is because it makes it easy to add a cohesive look to your actor resume website. Leonado Dicaprio, Russell Brand and almost every famous actor’s website also uses a theme. I’ll even tell you which one Leo uses as soon as we get started! So, now that you know everything you need to know about what this will cost, let’s get started and make you an awesome personal actor website to show of your resume and actor profile.

1. Select your domain

Your domain should be your full name to make sure it is the first thing that comes up when a casting director searches you. Ideally you want a .com extension. This is because they rank best in Google and are easiest for people to remember. If your name is already taken, which is very likely, try a variation of yourname + actor or yourname + official. Other variations to consider are “actress” or “acting.” If those are taken or don’t sound quite right, you can pick other extensions, like .me or a few other ones. After you have decided on your name, you can register a domain at GoDaddy.com or you can get a free one when you register for hosting in step 2. 

2. Sign up for Hosting

  You need a self hosted actor website in order to have full control of your online presence. It can be a little overwhelming to figure out what hosting company to go with, since many companies offer it. Here’s the long story short, you want to use Bluehost because it is reliable, cheap, and has some of the best customer service. And if you sign up here, you get a free domain, so you don’t have to buy one on GoDaddy. It’s a lot better to have your domain and hosting all in one place. This is because it makes it easier to connect the domain to your actor website. A lot of mistakes can happen when you connect a domain from an external provider. This can cause your actor website to go down and you don’t want that to happen. With Bluehost, you are not risking a crash, and did we mention, it’s also free. Here’s the step-by-step hosting set-up:  

• Follow this link to their homepage
• Click Get Started Now
• You’ll see their pricing options, choose the BASIC one. You don’t need anything more than that, the basic is all you need.

3. Install WordPress

Bluehost makes it easy to install wordpress in the same window as soon as you sign up for your hosting plan. WordPress is the content management system (CMS) that you will use to create and manage your actor website. WordPress is really easy to use for beginners and there are tons of free tutorials online. Here’s your step-by-step guide:

After you set-up your username and password you’ll be prompted to choose a theme. Don’t worry, you can choose any one, we will change it in the next step.

After you select one, your screen should look like this:

This is your wordpress dashboard, select business and you’re all done with the set up.

Now the next step is installing a good theme and starting to put together your actor website!

4. Install a Theme

Over the years I’ve spent thousands of dollars on different options and themes. But the truth is, there’s really only one way to go with themes. That would be using Divi and or any of the other Elegant Themes. Elegant Themes is a company that makes themes that are modern, look great on mobile phones as well as desktop computers, and are regularly updated. Their themes are also made to rank high in Google search engines. This is not the case for a lot of other themes. Divi is one of more than 80 different themes that Elegant Themes offers. So the best part is that when you get Elegant Themes you have access to all 80+ themes. This way you can go through all of them and see what themes you like best.

As far as best actor website examples and examples of famous actor websites using Elegant Themes, Leonardo Dicaprio and Beyonce make the list. It’s no surprise since Elegant Themes is easy-to-use and affordable for everyone as well as extremely professional. If you want to stand out like Leo or Queen B with your website, you know which actor website theme template to use!

Again, I recommend Divi as it is highly customizable and looks great! In addition it employs a drag and drop interface, so you don’t have to know any code at all to build your own professional looking actor website. To get started with Divi or any of the other Elegant themes, you can go HERE. After you have purchased Elegant Themes, this video provides the easiest explanation of how to install your theme.

5. Design Your Personal Actor Website

Whoever said simple is better was right! As an actor or model, you shouldn’t have to worry about coding or developing a complex actor website. But at the same time, you should be able to have a professional actor website, since it’s crucial to your success. 

Lucky for you, the Divi theme makes it easy to drag and drop build a personal actor website. So no coding experience is required! You can take a look here at how the new update for Divi makes it simple and straightforward to design your actor website in no time!

As an actor or actress we constantly need to update our resume. Divi allows you to make quick updates in no time. And easy updates aren’t limited to just text, you can also easily swap out your reel.

I highly recommend adding social media handles on your website. Casting directors love to see how engaged your social following is and Divi makes including your social profile links simple.

Congratulations!

If you’ve made it this far, then you’ve successful setup you actor website! Hopefully, we were able to make it a little easier than you may have thought it would be. Keep in mind that if you have any questions don’t hesitate to leave a comment and we’ll do our best to help you out! Or, if you just want to leave us a little love in the comments, that’s also always welcome 🙂

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