The best actor websites are not the most beautiful ones. They are the ones that answer a casting director's questions in the order the questions get asked. That order is always the same: what do you look like, can you act, what have you done, how do I reach you. A site that answers those four quickly beats a more elegant site that makes someone hunt, every time, and it is not close.
The tests below are what the good ones have in common. They are worth applying to your own site with somebody else holding the phone.
1. Your face and your name, immediately
The first screen shows a current headshot and your name. Nothing else has earned that space: not a splash page, not a monogram, not a line of italic text about storytelling.
The visitor already knows they are on an actor's website. What they do not know is whether you look like the person they are casting, and that is the question a headshot answers in less than a second.
2. The reel plays in one click and stays quiet until asked
One click from the first screen, no autoplay, and nothing from another actor when it finishes. If your reel is embedded from a video service, check what the player shows after the last frame, because the default is other people's work.
More on this in where to put your acting reel.
3. Credits in the industry's format
Production, role, director or company. In a table, most recent or most significant first, grouped by medium. A casting director reads hundreds of these and reads them by shape, so a credit written as prose is not charming, it is slow.
Two things separate a strong credits page from a weak one. The first is that it is complete, including the work you think is too small to list. The second is that it is honest. Inflating a credit is the fastest way to be caught by the one person in the room who worked on it.
4. A resume that actually prints
Somebody will need a paper or PDF copy, usually at short notice, usually the person putting you in front of somebody else. It should be one page, current, and generated from the credits already on the site rather than uploaded separately.
An uploaded PDF is a promise to keep two things in sync, and it is a promise nobody keeps. Within a year the page says one thing and the download says another, and it is always the download that is out of date.
5. One step to contact you
If you have representation, name them, with their contact details, and make clear that they are the right first approach. If you do not, a form or an address that you read is fine. What is not fine is a contact page that asks a visitor to work out which of three routes is correct.
6. It is current, which is the test that separates them
This is the one the most beautiful sites fail. A gorgeous site whose last credit is three years old does not read as a dormant website. It reads as a dormant career, and that impression is formed before anybody reads a word.
Being current is not a design problem, it is a maintenance problem, which is why it is the test most worth taking seriously when choosing how to build. Ask of any option: what does it take to add a credit, and will I still be doing that willingly on the tenth one?
7. It works on a phone
Your site will be opened on a phone, often by someone walking between rooms. Headshots that need pinching, a reel that will not fill the screen, a menu that needs a mouse, text at four points: any of those and the visit is over.
Check it yourself on a real phone rather than a narrow browser window. They are not the same test.
8. An address that is your own name
yourname.com, said out loud in one breath, spelled once. Not a platform subdomain, not hyphens and numbers, not a shortened link. It goes on a resume and into conversation, and it needs to survive both.
If your name is taken, the domain finder works through the variations that still read professionally.
The three things weak sites have in common
- They are about the actor's feelings rather than the actor's work. A long personal statement in place of credits and a reel.
- They are out of date, which as above is read as a statement about your career rather than your website.
- They make the visitor work. A reel three clicks in, a resume behind a contact form, credits as a scanned image. Every extra step loses people who were interested.
The longer version of this, with the specific mistakes, is in actor website sins.
Score your own site
Run it through the checklist and see which of the eight tests it fails.
Or start one that passes them
Put your name in and it builds a site that already does most of this. Free, and it does not expire.