What you absolutely need on your actor website

As an actor, having a website is crucial in today's digital age. Your website serves as your online portfolio, a place where you can showcase your talent, experience, and skills. It's where industry professionals can find you, learn more about you, and potentially offer you work. But what exactly should be on your actor website?

▶ Your Headshot

▶ Your Resume

▶ A way to download your headshot & resume

▶ A way to get in touch with you and/or your representation

▶ Any media you have (footage: reel, commercials, demos; production photos, portraits, audio reel, etc.)

You may decide to add calendar for upcoming events — this is great if you’re someone who does a lot of gigs, like a comedian, singer, musician, etc. If you’re an actor who primarily does longer runs, this may be more annoying than beneficial. For each event, you may want to gather:

Consider including an archive of your past projects. I think of this as a more in-depth look at your resume. It can be a great way to keep track of production photos, press, and can allow you to offer more information on workshops, readings, concerts, anything! I like keeping this, to consolidate everything in one place. Especially as press links can eventually break as pieces come down, it’s nice to know you have a record of everything for yourself. But it’s rare that CDs or agents are sitting and going through every project you’ve worked on. This one is for you. For each project, you may want to include:

Lots of us do more than one thing, and that’s great! Your website can be a great way to show off all that you do to people who may only know you in one context. Here’s what you might want to gather:

▶ Best Overall: Squarespace wins for its ease-of-use and design versatility. It’s a giant for a reason.

▶ Best Value: Cargo. Some may find its Cool Kid Vibes intimidating, and it definitely takes a little adjusting to understand how their index pages are organized, but it’s wildly flexible, design-forward, and has been resisting the urge to increase prices just ‘cause everyone else is. Cargo pricing.

▶ Best for Filmmakers, Models, Photographers, Designers & Visual Artists: Format. This little platform-that-could is more specifically aimed at the more visual-forward mediums. It’s less flexible but its built-in templates are impactful and sleek. And for photographers? It’s unbeatable. You can sync with Lightroom and create proof libraries within Format. It’s also the least expensive of the bunch.

▶ Biggest Regret: I can’t tell you how many clients and friends went with Wix and wound up leaving for another platform. (It’s a lot.) Most common complaints? “It advertised itself as easy to use and it’s SO confusing.” “Frustrating responsive-ness.” (AKA making it look just as good at all screen sizes is a pain in the ass.)