| It's getting tougher and tougher to show management
or a production company that you are the one for the gig. Networking
is still the most popular way, but if you don't have that luxury
you may go hungry. There is always the resume, but the intense
competition out there makes you a piece of paper in a stack.
So what else can you do? Here's an option - your own website.
This won't get you past the stacks of resumes; however, you
will be seen as a serious contender. This article is primarily
based on designing your own website, but we will also be talking
about getting a professional company to do one for you. |
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There's a few things to consider for your site. For the most part
we all have some sort of computer experience. If not, don't fear
- there are ways around this, i.e getting someone to do it for you.
If you can type a letter in a word processor and edit an image,
chances are you can do your own website.
First and foremost register a domain name that is either your name
or company name. For example, www.yahoo.yourdomainname.com doesn't
look too impressive. These days you can register your own domain
name for as little as $35-$50 a year. If you are traveling, chances
are you have an AOL or similar worldwide account. For the same monthly
price you can host your website on a server.
We should probably go over the basics of domains and servers. Your
domain name is the address of your website. In other words Roadogz.com
is a domain name. The server hosts or stores your website information
in the same way it's stored in your hard drive. The only difference
is, the server sits in a room with a very large telephone line that
is linked to the rest of the servers in the world. Once you find
a place to store your website your domain name gets pointed to a
number that represents the servers address number. Your web hosting
company should take care of this procedure for you.
Once you have your domain name and server, then you will either
want to, or get,someone to design your site. There are a number
of different programs that allow you to do websites. The basic code
that webpages are made of is called HTML. (Hyper Text Markup Language).
The great thing is, most programs these days will translate this
language for you. If you are just starting out Microsoft's Front
Page is a good one. It will help you with the general navigation
and page layout. Also if you have a decent understanding of Microsoft
Word you will be able to design a website with Front Page. Some
PC's also come with Front Page express which is a free program that
allows you to create basic websites. You could even use Microsoft
word to design webpages. The thing is, when you save you file as
a webpage in Word it will add a lot of extra code that slows down
the time it takes for your page to load. Adobe's Go Live and Macromedia's
Dreamweaver are good programs although they take some getting used
to. However, all of these programs come with general templates,
lessons, and layouts to help you create your website.
Working with images is also something to deal with. Your images
should be small in file size, but the image should be as sharp a
possible. Adobe Photoshop is probably the most popular, but expensive
for the beginner. Adobe's Photo Deluxe is a good program that comes
for free with most digital cameras or scanner purchases. You can
work with the color, adjust the contrast, crop the picture, and
work with the image size in Photo Deluxe. Macromedia's Fireworks
is a good product which works well with Dreamweaver. This program
allows you to add all sorts of effects. The basic images to use
are GIF ( Graphics Interchange Format ) and JPEG ( Joint Photographic
Experts Group ). GIF normally loads quicker but you will lose some
quality. So normally it's better to use JPEG for the larger images.
Here's a few other things to consider when you design your site:
- Using a cheap hosting company could get you into trouble. Cheaper
hosting companies will pack a lot of different websites onto one
server. This can affect your bandwidth. In other words, if you
have a lot of programs running on your computer the machine will
slow down. Same thing here, a great number of computers are fighting
to retrieve information from the same place. If the page doesn't
get retrieved in a certain amount of time, it will time out. The
result is that you will see a page that says Page cannot be
displayed.
- If you are doing a website about you as an individual, keep
it short and sweet. You can make it look eloquent with a few basic
links in your navigational structure. Standard is put it to the
left or across the top. (Navigational structure is the general
structure of your website i.e. Home, pictures, bio, contact info.)
- Avoid having all sorts of flashing and blinking items on your
home page. Remember, this is a website that is going to get you
a gig. You wouldn't want to put unrelated logos and quirky comments
on your resume.
- Macromedia Flash is a very popular medium, although businesses
still don't favor this solution. It's ok to make the navigational
structure of your site with Flash, but lengthy introductions are
a big no-no. How many times have you clicked on the Skip Intro
button on a Flash site hoping to go to the main site and then
waited in vain for it to load.. If someone is interested in hiring
you, you don't want to make them wait.
- Placing images on your site? Keep them small and add a hyperlink
to a larger image. This way the page will load a lot faster. The
standard size for images is 72 d.p.i. (dots per inch).
- Some people prefer to fill in a form and others like to send
an actual e-mail. So perhaps it's easier to do both when you are
creating your contact page.
FTP means file transfer protocol. This is normally what you do
when you upload your website to your server. You can find a number
of free FTP programs that can do this for you. The process is basically
the same as moving a file from your disk drive to your hard drive.
Your hosting company can help you log into your server. Once you
are in it's just a matter of uploading those files into your server.
http://download.cnet.com/ is a good place to get free FTP software,
and FTP voyager is a good program that goes for around $40. It's
easy to use and their technical support is also very good.
If you would rather get someone to do it for you then consider
this:
- Most companies charge by the hour. Average price is around $50-$75
an hour. Some companies will offer a package deal. Make sure there
aren't any hidden charges. You shouldn't have to find out later
that there are set up or image manipulation fees.
- Whatever you can do yourself will save time and money. Scan
your own images, write all your info on the computer; so all they
have to do is copy and paste it. Tell them the pages that you
want and even a general sketch on the layout or structure of your
wesbsite.
- Some companies will try to sell you a template that they offer.
Ask yourself if these templates fit you, or whether it just looks
too generic. If you take the generic way out, will it cheapen
the look of your own work?
- Don't get talked into things you don't need. Things like: message
boards, chat rooms, and serious animation. If you're buying a
new car and you live in Alaska, do you really need air conditioning?
We hope these tips have helped you in the digital world. Having
a website is an online brochure showing your work. Good luck
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