9 Engagement KILLERS to GET OFF Your Website NOW
Stop doing this dumb shit on your voice actor websites!
Today we’re going to talk about the nine engagement killers that after you watch this video you should be tripping over yourself to get the hell off your website.
They’re like people repellent and you either need to remove them or I will hunt you down with a giant butterfly net and send you off to a special padded room with no microphone.
These website blunders will KILL any chance of prospects, producers, casting directors, the people who we want to hire us from engaging with your site, listening to your demos, and putting you in the “good” pile when it comes to hiring time for their next project.
So here are 9 engagement killers to remove from your voice actor website immediately.
#9 A Demos Page
Let me say this clearly – your demos should be at the top of your homepage. The entire goal of your website is to get potential clients to listen to your demos. Why, dear god why, would you put them on a separate page?
Don’t make the people you worked so hard to get to your site in the first place, scroll, hunt, and navigate to find you demos. They should be immediately visible the minute we hit your home page.
Now, once you’ve accomplished that, it IS a good idea to have an ADDITIONAL separate page for each demo/genre. Those additional separate pages should contain copy about your work in that genre for the search engines to crawl and rank.
How much copy? No one really knows. Word count is not a direct SEO ranking factor, but in general, long-form content tends to outperform shorter content in the search engines.
So, demos on the homepage, then if you want, a separate key-word rich page for each genre with that demo.
#8 You-Focused Copy
In my humble estimation, roughly 99% of the websites I see from voice actors suffer from I/Me/My Syndrome. The copy is all about them, how great they are, what genres they work in, their clients, their studio, and on and on (and on).
Now, imagine you’re a prospect, hitting that website for the first time. How do you know that voice actor understands you, your needs, your pain points and challenges, and can help you solve them?
The short answer is you don’t. And you’re likely to move on.
As my son used to say when he was little, it’s not about you, Dad.
Make your copy, especially on the homepage, focused on the client, their needs, challenges, and pain points and how you, through your services and the way you do business, solve those challenges.
Change I/Me/My to You/You/Your.
#7 Long Paragraphs
I’m not sure where or when this became the norm, but there is are few things more off-putting the big, chunky, blocks of text. Break that shit up. Keep your paragraphs to 2-3 sentences, tops. Shorter paragraphs are imminently more readable than long blocks of text.
This again is especially true for your homepage, but also true for your interior pages.
#6 Dates on Blog Posts
Let’s talk about blogs. Sigh. First of all, if you have a blog on your website, I can almost guarantee that the last post is over a month old. Blogging can be a fantastic strategy to attract prospects through organic search, but only if you’re committed to it and consistent with it. The vast majority of voice actors are not.
The larger issue is, the dates on a blog serve no real practical purpose either for the reader, because your content is largely not going to be timely and will be evergreen, and not for the search engines because the dates on a blog are no indication of relevancy for search.
There’s nothing worse than a prospect going to your site, taking enough interest to ready. Your blog, and then learning that your last post is from last year. Go into your settings and remove the option to post the date from your blog posts.
#5 WAV Files
Back to demos for a minute. All the demos on your website should be downloadable mp3 files. Why? Because it’s the most widely consumed audio format in the world. That’s why auditions should also always be done as mp3s. Your demo is nothing more than a proactive, generic audition.
The only time you would use a higher quality WAV file is when sending the final version of a finished project to a client, because the client will in most cases want the higher quality file.
If the demos on your website are WAV files, they won’t be as accessible, and the downloadable file will take longer to download and be needlessly large for your client.
#4 Testimonial Pages
What? I shouldn’t have testimonials on my website? But what about all the data that says how effective social proof and testimonials are? What about all the trouble I went through to have my clients provide testimonials? What about the trust and credibility testimonials provide.
Settle down, Beavis.
I don’t say don’t have testimonials on your website. What I said was don’t have a testimonials page on your website. That is, don’t relegate your testimonials to a separate page with not context. No one will click on it. No one will go there. There are mountains of data that prove it out. When they finally find Jimmy Hoffa, I’m pretty sure he’ll be on a testimonials page not one has ever visited.
Sprinkle your testimonials throughout your site, and try to keep them in context. In other words, if a client said something nice about your medical narration work, but that on your medical narration page. If they said something kind about how great it was to work with you and how you solved their problem, consider using that on the homepage, and so on.
Testimonials carry a lot more weight when they are presented in context.
The last 3 engagement killers all have to do with email.
#3 Email Links
I used to say put your email link on every page of your website. I now say the opposite. Do not put a link you your email address anywhere on your website.
Instead, use a contact form. Contact forms are far superior to email links. The first and biggest reason is a contact form can provide a strong spam filter, whereas an email address is a blinking neon red invitation for spam and bots.
In general, keep your contact form as short as possible. We want people to get in touch and the longer the form, the more form fields you ask them to complete, the less likely they are to complete the form and convert.
In my humble opinion, as for first name, email address, and a comment. That’s it. Every field after that is something you could easily learn offline and becomes a deterrent to form completion.
#2 Links to Platforms
This one makes my head explode. You’ve spent all your time, money, and effort to get prospects to come to your website and listen to your demos. Why, sweet baby Jeezus, why would you then link them out to a pay-to-play platform with tens of thousands of other voice actors?
That’s like going on a date, bringing her flowers, taking her to a fancy restaurant, serenading her with a quartet, and when she finally comes back to your place, you open the door and introduce her to thousands of eligible bachelors, many of whom are richer and more handsome than you.
The same is true for your email signature – don’t put links to your P2P profile in your signature! Link them to YOUR website! You know, the one where ONLY YOU are featured.
And #1 Generic Email Addresses
Nothing says “doesn’t take their business seriously” like “yournamevo@gmail.com or jimmydoesvoices@outlook.com. Invest in custom, branded email addresses for your domain. jimmy@jimmydoesvoices.com is professional. It shows you aren’t a schmo who started VO last week at a weekend webinar.
Now, if you’re using a contact form on your site, yes that helps. But when a prospect actually uses that contact form and you have to respond, that generic email is going to scream “Amateur! Hack! Hobbyist!”
Yes, a custom, branded email address will cost you a few bucks a month. Stick a crowbar in your wallet and stop looking like a dabbler.
Thanks for the conversations we have here on the blog, in the VO Pro community and the VO community at large. The more we talk, the more we listen, the more we exchange ideas and information, the better, stronger voiceover industry we can have.
We’ll see ya again here soon. Thanks for reading or watching.