I don't like talking negatively about competition, so I'm writing this just to get it out of the way. After this post, it will be straight up breakdowns of other website providers, what they do wrong, what they do right, and mainly, what they do not do.
There are a lot of companies that offer to build you your acting portfolio, but if you check their social media, you'll see they have none, or if you read their blog, you'll see that they're not constantly keeping everyone updated, or that they haven't released a new feature in years. Do you know how I know what happens to these guys? Because I follow the trends and keep an eye on everything. Some of the domains that I own today did not used to be owned by me, so let's take a look:
WebForActors.com This website provider went up in 2011 according to the WaybackMachine. If you would have invested that $500 at the time, you'd end up having a squarespace website, that someone put together for you, but, you'd be responsible for updating it. So yes, if you were looking for any support from your provider, you might have had issues now. Hint... if your provider has less content on their website than you do, they are probably not planning to stick around.
Webdii.com These guys started even earlier, in 2010. You can find their listing on ActorRated and you'll find that they received 3 five-star reviews and had over 3k views. Wow, it makes me wonder how many actors gave them money and ended up not having websites when they closed the shop. Hint... if your actor website provider's website looks really outdated and each template they offer for actors looks more modern than their own landing page, odds are they haven't spent too long of a time putting it together.
StarvingArtistWebDesigns.com Okay, so unlike the first two, I can't tell exactly whether the design was okay (looks pretty clean at first glance, nor if this person had any following, but... something went wrong? The only thing I would assume is that maybe, JUST maybe, the fact that this person was not an actual web developer had something to do with it. I mean, just think about it, if you were looking for something to do on the side between auditions, this could have been it, but once your calling got you more gigs, you'd probably just shut this down, right? Hint... as much as I want all actors to have side gigs, I wouldn't recommend a permament business. If you want to trust someone with your headshots, that's up to you, but long-term deals... think it over.
StarvingArtistWebDesigns.com Lets go international! Unfortunately I couldn't find anything about this website on the WaybackMachine, but I definitely see that the girl who was in charge did some linking from other websites, and put in some time into making sure her website gets noticed. Twitter account is still there, still links to the website, but no updates since November 2016. I wish I could email her and ask her what happened, but everything I could say now is speculatory. Could be same issue as one of the above, could be something completely unrelated. Hint... if you can't find anything about the owner of the business, who knows, maybe they're not even real.
There's many more out there, but how many domains must I buy to prove my point? Moral of the story is, make sure that if you're trying to create a long-term relationship with someone, make sure they will stick around. Make sure you know who they are, and that what you are asking of them is their primary focus. I don't know a better way to finish this article other than by signing off:
Tomasz - Web Developer / Web Designer
