What is “branding” and why do I need it? Check out the article we wrote for the June ‘o7 Voice Over V-Zine. It is geared towards voice over branding but there are tasty tidbits for everyone.
View page 4-5 in the linked PDF:
http://www.villagegreenstudios.com/vzine.pdf
I’m going to have audio and/or video on my site. What types of files do you need? We can work with just about anything, but the higher the quality you can send us the better.
If you have an audio track on a CD, we would prefer that you email the “aiff” file that is on it.
If it is a video file, we would prefer a high quality Quicktime or “.mov” file. If you or the person that is providing it knows about “codecs”, we would prefer an “animation” compression.
If any file you have is larger than 5mb you can send it via yousendit.com for free (upto 100mb).
Can you give me an email address with my new domain? “john@johnvoice.com” Yes. And you can add this email to your current email program (outlook et al) and can receive, view, and send from a password protected website. The free webmail only has a capacity of 100mb so if you are only using the web system you’ll need to delete and empty your trash often.
Here is a link demonstrating the process for setting up a new account in Outlook.
http://products.secureserver.net/email/email_outlook.htm
We can provide you with all of the information that you need, except for the “Outgoing Server.” You will need t
I’m a VO artist and don’t know what makes a good bio A good bio is one that indirectly reinforces your brand. If your brand is “Frazzled Mom” then you could mention in your bio that you’re available for auditions when you’re not hauling the rugrats to ballet practice...
Also, you can check out the bios on our client sites for ideas.
Why are you so
expensive? Its all relative. We sometimes get asked why we’re so INexpensive!
Web design is no
different than anything else in that you tend to get what you pay for.
The answer is really economics 101. We charge what the market will bear and currently we have all the work we can handle (and more) at our current rate.
Will I own all the files or do you? You do.
at anytime you like we can send you all of the files on disc or can upload them for downloading.
We do charge $50 to do this as it can take up to an hour to assemble them all (with fonts...) and get them out the door.
Important to note that we often license images and there are some restrictions on them.
Can we meet prior to starting and/or during the process? Or at least talk on the phone? Yes absolutely.
We do typically prefer email contact as at any given moment we are neck deep in the process of designing.
Prior to commiting to Village Green Studios for your project we will spend up to 30 minutes or so on the phone or in person to discuss your needs at no charge.
Following that, a deposit check will be needed and
Will I be able to make changes to my website by myself? It depends. We do a lot of work in Flash. Certainly if you are familiar with Flash you will likely be able to make changes yourself.
I can also build certain portions of the site so that you could change them with relative ease. The downside is that it probably will take longer to produce it this way especially when you include the cost of teaching you how to do it. This will also highly restrict the creative options.
The design rate is charged in 15 min. increments and simple changes,
especially text changes, often only take 15 minutes.
Unless you anticipate needing to make significant changes or additions daily or weekly, it probably makes more sense to let us do it.
You said that you updated my site but i don’t see the changes? Your computer keeps a copy of websites that you visit so that the next time you go there, it will load quicker. The frequency that it checks for new files varies depending on your settings.
These copies are saved in your computer’s “cache” and your “cache” can be cleared. In fact it is considered good preventative care to regularly clear your cache and you don’t even need any fiber.
Here is how to clear caches on various browsers:
Internet Explorer:
Macintosh: Go to Explorer>Preferences>Advanced>click Empty Now
Windows: Go to Tools >Options>General>Temporary Internet Files>Delete Files
Firefox: Go to Firefox>Preferences>Advanced>Empty cache
Safari: Go to Safari>Empty Cache
Netscape:
Macintosh: Go to Netscape>Preferences>Advanced>Cache>Clear Memory Cache.
Windows: Go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced>Cache>Clear Memory Cache.
This information may become out of date. If so, a simple web search should get you what you need.
Typically changes are almost instanteous but sometimes it just takes time for changes to show up, as a website must go thru a network of systems to be accessible everywhere. We have a client in Africa and it can take up to a full day for changes to become visible.
Can you get high search engine rankings for my site? This is a multi-faceted question.
First of all, there is very little that anyone can guarantee you when it comes to “search engine optimization” or “seo.” Given that, there are lots of things that can be done to help your rankings.
Before we discuss those, you need to ask yourself if you really need SEO. If you’re a business, then you probably do or would at least benefit from some. If you’re a voice over artist, you probably don’t and here’s why:
VO sites are typically like digital business cards to be handed out to a targeted audience. I have never heard of anyone getting a VO gig because some stranger stumbled onto their site via a generic web search. However, we have had some who wanted to show up in things like regional searches such as “voice over Vancouver.”
There are some basic things we do (and can do) at virtually no cost to you. (No cost because it takes almost no time.) We give your site an offcial title such as “John Doe Voice Over” so that if anyone is looking for your site and doesn’t have the address, this term will show up in a web search. We can also assign invisible “meta tags” with “keywords” that the search engines will see. This is usually more than enough for VO artists and certain businesses.
Given that, depending on what you’re interested in accomplishing, additional SEO might be worthwhile.
Lots of people wrongly think that Flash sites can’t be searched. There is a method, recommended by Google in fact, that often makes Flash sites better searched than others. It is called the SWF Object method. Essentially there is code inserted that checks to make sure that the viewer has Flash (which 98 percent%of web users do). If they don’t then a text only version of the site appears. As only 2 percent see it (and as how you’d rather have them see this than a broken Flash image...) it doesn’t have to be pretty and can be packed with all your key words as phrases. Search engines will give this priority and it definitely yields results. I did it for braintracksaudio.com. This site heretofore had never ranked in the top 100 for searches like “voice over coaching” but if you Google that now it shows up at number 8-11 depending on the day.
BUT, search engines also put a lot of weight on the quantity and quality of other sites linking to yours. Braintracksaudio.com definitely benefits from this. One of the recommended strategies for increasing rankings is to sign up with as many web directories as possible and to get all your friends and neighbors to link to your site from theirs.
ALSO, the longer a site has been around and the more people click on your link when they search on a given term, the better your rank will be.
All of this should help to explain why no one can guarantee very much.
I don’t try and sell the SWF Object optimization to VO folks as, in general, I don’t really think they need it. But if you think you do or if you’re a business that would like to see what it can do, the cost for
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