The Importance of Amazing Website People
If you are in voice over and you have never met Joe Davis and his right hand woman Karin Barth of Voice Actor websites, that
It was a true joy when Karin Barth, Joe Davis, Kim Handysides and her husband Ed, and Shelley Avellino came to visit!
would surprise me. They are incredible people. I don’t know what the average professional voice actor’s relationship is like Joe and Karin, but they are warm, trustworthy, and brilliant with everything from website design to SEO. If our website is our store front in voice over, it is essential to have a solid relationship with the folks who run your store front. Having a solid relationship with people like Joe and Karin is so easy, they are two of the kindest, hardest working people I have every met. I can think of dozens of examples of times when I have had “emergencies” and they have been supportive and helpful, and one time when I changed my email signature (which they of course designed and coded) and I could not get it to load in my iPhone, Joe offered to fly from Florida to New York to help. Now that is customer service. So to say that I am appreciative of the team at voice actor websites and that I depend on them would be accurate. It would also be accurate to say that the success of my business is intertwined and inextricably linked to my voiceover website. Consequently, the journey I have taken with my voice over website is representative of my voice over journey as a whole.
How it All Started
It all started with a single scrolling webpage. I did not know about Brad Newman, sadly, years ago and I had to deal with host
Here I am with Brad Newman of Upper Level Hosting and Nazia Chaudry at VOcation
gator hosting and that is another long story, but I am also so very thankful to have hosting with Brad now and have the joy of his outstanding customer service at Upper Level Hosting. Anyway, I had one scrolling page. There was a menu at the top and if you clicked on it the cursor would jump to the section selected, so it felt like there were multiple pages, but really there was just one page. When my page was first created, I was very concerned with branding. I worked with Anne Ganguzza and she came up with the concept you see today. While branding was on my mine, SEO was not. The initial website that launched in March 2016 looked amazing. I was so proud. It was breathtaking.
Initially I did not Do Anything On My Own
When I started my business, Sara Waters designed the site and Joe was in the picture, but he was not the entire picture. At some point early on he ran the show. The transition was seamless because I cannot pinpoint a moment in time when the transition occurred, it was juts my friend Joe running things and before I knew it the more I worked with him the more he and his team became my friends. I did not do a single thing for my website on my own. NOT. ONE. THING. Here is a list of basic support I got from the team at voice actor websites:
- adding client logos
- adding testimonials
- adding and/or updating demos
- adding/posting blogs
- SEO services
- eSignatures
- marketing materials
- social media banners and updates
I was extremely dependent on Joe’s team. First, once I tried to do an update myself and made a big mess of my page. Next, it saved me time to have them do it. Time they were doing these services is time that I could be in the booth recording or simply doing other things. I lacked a skill set that they all had, and their expertise was extremely reassuring. Not only was it reassuring, but it helped me to establish myself as a professional in my field.
The Big Upgrade
In 2018 I made a huge website update. I went from a single scrolling page format to a multi page format. I had amassed an impressive body of booked work to post. I also had worked with so many coaches by that point and had so many professional demos produced that I really needed different pages for each genre so that I could showcase the demo and booked work I had done in a more spectacular, attention getting way. What I did not understand when I initially started the process in 2015 was that my single scrolling page, as beautiful as it was, would never have the SEO that the multi page site has. Joe and his team coordinated efforts. I began writing content and organizing all the video clips. Voice Actor Websites continued to help my professional dreams come true, my store front made a huge leap that year and the website truly became a place to show where I was professionally and all that I can offer my clients.
The Bold Move: Learning to Do Some Things in Word Press
After YEARS in the industry, I have gotten better at time management. I love learning new technology related to anything in voice over. So, I became curious about the workings of Word Press. I wanted to understand the magic that went into adding a logo or inserting a testimonial. I started small. I started by posting my blogs. But one day it occurred to me, if I could post my blogs, then surely I could learn to do more. Karin spent a good bit of time teaching me how, step by step. I made note cards and I was really excited. More than that, I was inspired. I decided to make a bold move and add an entire page to my site.
I did have one little hiccup when doing it, when I added this page I somehow made my commercial page disappear, but Joe fixed it!
Taking Ownership
I am extremely thankful for all of the support I have gotten from Joe and Karin of the years. Having a team of people who are wonderful like the team that Joe has built has helped make success possible for me. I have no doubt that as time goes on there are many services I will need to pay them for and many lessons I will need, but the sense of pride that I got in being able to upload my own client logos and add content as I want to meant the world to me! As small business owners, voice actors wear a lot of hats. For me, my website was the wild west, and feeling that it is not such uncharted territory fills me with so much joy.