I’ve been in New York for the past two years and have been reading your column for the past couple of months. I find most of it very pertinent to the New York scene, and wish I had discovered it sooner! Anyway, I’m in the process of creating my website and I did a search and you didn’t seem to have a posting on websites. I’ve looked at a few other actors’ websites to get some ideas, but my questions are: Do you look at actors’ websites? And if you do, what do you look for or value?

Ever since doing the series on “Bad Headshots, Good Headshots,” I’ve received several emails with requests for a similar look at actor websites, reels, resumés, etc., and I think it’s an awesome idea — especially regarding the websites! I very definitely have an opinion or ten about what makes for a gorgeous, professional actor website vs. what just doesn’t work. And certainly, I have things to say about how often CDs or agents may look at actors’ websites anyway. So, this is worth a column for sure! The thing is, I can point readers to existing websites that are fantastic, but the very nature of the web creates the concern that, someday, those websites will be edited at some point in the future and will no longer represent the examples for which I select them.

Also, there are very few people out there willing to serve up their examples of really bad websites. Man, I had one! Not my actor website, but my very first “I’m in school and keeping in touch with my family and friends around the world” website. I had extra-large spinning graphics, paisley backgrounds, animated and blinking artwork all over the place, and a dozen other deadly website sins. I think I really believed I was brilliant, creating a “jokes collected online” page, where I copied and pasted every “hee hee hee” email ever sent my way.

All right, so here’s where we are, on this topic. I’m going to do the “Bad Websites, Good Websites” column next week — which means I need some volunteers who are willing to show me their BAD websites (or put up mock BAD websites for the purpose of this column). Further, if you would like to have your site in the mix for this review of what’s good and bad, just shoot me an email at that good ol’ address below.

I’d also love to hear from those of you who have used those comprehensive plans (where you buy a prefab actor website template and the upkeep and hosting is handled by a company that specializes in services for actors) vs. the DIY form of trying your hand at a little HTML and hosting your own site at a basic web server. Hit me up, folks! And fast! I’m going to make this the column topic for December 4th unless something really outrageous comes along and inspires me to write about something else. Thanks in advance for all of the help in bringing good info to actors everywhere!

Oh, and don’t forget to check out the next POV column, which goes live on December 1st. And major thanks for all of the great feedback on this new feature. We’re pretty happy with it too!

Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!

Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/000640.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.