Aug 9, 2022
Websites are your digital storefront. That’s why Anne & Erikka are here to make yours shine. It all starts with the basics: a great domain name + hosting platform. Then, you fill it up with demos, a killer bio, and design that resonates with your brand. An amazing website can connect you with clients & book you jobs, so tune in to upgrade your site like a BOSS!
Transcript
>> It’s time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry’s top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let’s welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.
Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast and our balance series. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza. And today I am excited to bring back special guest co-host Erikka J. Hey Erikka.
Erikka: Hey! Hey Anne, how are you?
Anne: I'm doing good.
Erikka: Ooh you seem happy.
Anne: You know why? <laugh>
Erikka: Why are you so happy?
Anne: I am happy because I got an email today. Someone who had found me on my website and said --
Erikka: Those are the best.
Anne: -- I have a job, how much? And I said, awesome. How much is your budget? And they said a big number, Erikka. And I got that job. Woo-hoo.
Erikka: So for you, good for you.
Anne: I'm excited. I'm grateful. Okay. I don't wanna appear like I'm bragging too much, but I am gonna say that my website played a huge part in getting me that job. And I think it's an excellent topic to talk about today.
Erikka: Websites. So essential.
Anne: Websites, so important, right?
Erikka: Yeah, yeah. In the digital landscape, it's your digital storefront as they call it.
Anne: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and I think if you are a business today and you do not have a website --
Erikka: You're not a business <laugh>
Anne: You need to -- you need to rethink that.
Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. I'll take that back. It's not that you're not a business, but it's really hard to be successful without that digital presence today.
Anne: And it's gotten to the point where even myself, like whenever I go to look up information about something or what brand should I buy or what's the price? I mean, the first thing I do is I go to Google or I go to the website. And we make these decisions based upon, I do anyways, the overall feel and look of the website. If that website doesn't look trustworthy, I am not gonna give them my credit card number, that's for sure.
Erikka: Yeah. Or even I've had somewhere, I did a search and they didn't have a website. And for me it kind of takes away some credibility automatically. I don't even think about it. I'm just like, Ooh, you don't have a website.
Anne: How could you not have a website?
Erikka: <Laugh> Yeah. Yeah.
Anne: I want to pay. That's sometimes when I'm like maybe a restaurant even I'll be like, I want to see if I can order and pick up or go see them, visit them for a meal.
Erikka: I wanna know what the menu is so I can think ahead of what I might want or even if I wanna go there.
Anne: Take my money, take my money. But yet, if there is no website, then I'm just like you, I get very discouraged. And I'm like, what kind of business is this that doesn't have a website?
Erikka: I agree.
Anne: So I think it's important to kind of -- maybe we'll do like a website 101. Let's start with all the things that are important for our website. And I think the first thing, and one of the questions I ask quite frequently is, what should my domain name be? I'm a big fan of yourname.com.
Erikka: Agreed.
Anne: AnneGanguzza.com. 'Cause I feel like we are our brand, right? What we do is so connected to who we are. We are our own personal brand. So I feel like AnneGanguzza.com. I don't care how hard that name is to spell.
Erikka: Yep, figure it out, teach them.
Anne: Exactly. I'm always telling people, I wanna be the Kleenex of voiceover there. I need Anne Ganguzza kind of thing. Just like when people say they need a Kleenex, I need an Anne Ganguzza for that.
Erikka: That's right. That's right.
Anne: I need an Erikka J.
Erikka: That's right. Yeah. 'Cause you know, I got two K's in my name, so it's like really easy. I'd get the CK or the two RS or is it regular C but yeah, I had to do ErikkaJ.com, 'cause I just, I wanted to brand myself. I wanted them to know who I was and I got my SEO up so that when you search it should bring up my site. Even maybe if you do the double R's, but.
Anne: Do you have multiple domain names? That's the question.
Erikka: You just took the words outta my mouth. That's what I did. That was my trick. My hack is that I did redirects. I did multiple domains. So I grabbed the one. The most common misspelling I see in emails is the two R's. So I grabbed the domain E-R-R-I-K-A-J.com, and I redirect it to ErikkaJ.com. So that literally teaches them how to spell my name correctly, 'cause it tells you you're being redirected, but yeah. So that way they'll still get to me, even if they misspell it.
Anne: Do you have your full name as well or no?
Erika: I don't because I really don't use the Veeny, my last name, professionally, other than on LinkedIn And Facebook, but yeah, I'll leave it off, but yeah. So I just do the Erikka J, but I have a ton of other ones with like little weird things like VO that I might use for branding later. I got my kids, their names as their domain, 'cause they might wanna use it one day.
Anne: Right? <laugh> I think that's so important. Like secure that name. I mean Anne Ganguzza, isn't a very common name. And I would say for those BOSSes out there that have common names, do the search to see if your first name, last name.com comes up with someone or if the domain is available, I say snap it up. But if maybe somebody else has the same name, then I always say, well, then we start adding things. So it would be AnneGanguzzavoice.com or Anne Ganguzza voice talent or Anne Ganguzza -- VO is like, I think less desirable for me. I think not as many people know VO, but if people are searching for voiceover or voices, I feel like that might be it. I always tell the story of when I first started off in this industry, I created a name that was AnneSpeaks.com. And I thought I was so clever <laugh>.
And as clever and as cute as that name was, the fact is I am an Anne with an E, number one. And speaks, Anne speaks, it's not something that people necessarily search for. And I realized that after I had the domain name for quite some time, I even registered a business under Anne Speaks and it didn't buy me any good SEO. Let's put it that way. And then I definitely turned to AnneGanguzza.com and then Anne Ganguzza Voice Productions is my registered company name, Anne Ganguzza Voice. So it's got my name in it, and I have multiple domain names too that get redirected to AnneGanguzza.com. And I have multiple domain names for the different brands that I represent as well.
Erikka: Right. Right. Well, now there's also a ton of extensions. So obviously.com is the one that's the most common. So that's the one that you wanna try to get. But if you're gonna do multiples, you know, they have like .studio, obviously there's like the dot nets and stuff like that. So you can be a little more creative too, if you have like a specific kind of subbrand that you wanna market, and if it kind of goes into it, I think they might even have like .media or something like that. But yeah, they're more expensive, but yeah.
Anne: I almost don't wanna say this, but the AI companies now, they are almost exclusively with a.ai name or IO is another popular one, the digital --
Erikka: Mm-hmm, yep. Yep.
Anne: So they're becoming more accepted. It used to be, if you couldn't get the .com, the other ones were cheap. You could buy them cheaply, but almost nobody did. It's taken them a long time to kind of come around I think and be accepted.
Erikka: Agreed. Yeah.
Anne: But now there's just so much internet out there. <laugh> it's just so much internet.
Erikka: Yeah. And like I said, if you're using it as a redirect anyway, then kind of what's the harm, you know? So.
Anne: So I would say pick your name first, if you can, and then go for all the versions of voiceover, voice talent, VO, whatever that works for the end of your name. And then you can go for the other ones. Like I have the e-learningvoice.com medical-narration.com, phone-voice.com. I've got a bunch of other ones. Think about Automotive Annie, there's the cute one, AutomotiveAnnie.com. YourPoliticalVoice.com. So I've got a bunch. They're so reasonably priced these days.
Erikka: Yeah.
Anne: Where do you get your domain names from? That would be a question that people would ask me. Where do you buy your domain name?
Erikka: Right now, my website is still with Squarespace. So I did originally use theirs 'cause they offered it to me, but I ended up going to, um, Google Domains. It just, I just find it really easy to manage and it's a little bit cheaper. It's like the generic ones that are pretty easy are not high demand, usually like $12 a year or something like that.
Anne: Right, right, right.
Erikka: So yeah. That's where I usually do mine are Google Domains.
Anne: I used GoDaddy because I started with GoDaddy long ago, and as a matter of fact, when I worked in education, everything was registered through the Nick. Do you remember the Nick?
Erikka: I don't.
Anne: Oh my God.
Erikka: I'm sorry.
Anne: You registered everything under one authority. It turned into GoDaddy. Let's put it that way. So I've been doing this for so long that because the company evolved into a branch called GoDaddy, that's where I ended up purchasing all of my domain names a long time ago. And I still keep the purchases of them to GoDaddy, 'cause it's one central place I can go. And I can manage all of my domain names and that's important, to be able to manage them. 'Cause you do have to pay for them yearly or sometimes they have a five-year agreement or --
Erikka: Yep, yep.
Anne: -- multiple years.
Erikka: And making sure that they're on autorenew.
Anne: Yeah.
Erikka: Most of them, I think, automatically put that on there for you, but just make sure because if it lapses, and somebody else grabs it...
Anne: Yeah. Absolutely. No, you don't want your domain name to lapse, and you don't want somebody to buy your domain name.
Erikka: Oh goodness.
Anne: During that time.
Erikka: No, 'cause they will try to sell it to you for an exorbitant price. <Laugh>
Anne: That's right. Yeah. They'll sell it back to you at an exorbitant price. And I think it's still kind of a side hustle for some people where they --
Erikka: It is.
Anne: -- pretty much grab the good domain names. And then they try to sell it back to you. I can't tell you how many versions of BOSS that I went through when I was doing this podcast and domain names that I tried to get.
Erikka: Yeah. There were a few I tried to get to and it was like $5,000, and I was like, no way, like get out.
Anne: It's another good reason by the way to trademark your name if you need to as well. So I had VO BOSS trademarked. I also had VO Peeps trademarked. 'Cause I've had other people try to advertise with that name.
Erikka: Yeah. So I actually trademarked my performance name from before when I was in music. So Erikka, Erikka J is trademarked. So even though I do have a separate company name, just so that like in contracts, like it's not directly me, I'm doing business as Erikka J, and I can use that and it's actually trademarked. So nobody else for performances or for apparel can use Erikka J.
Anne: Well, there you go. There you go. And I've actually had to use the cease and desist on a couple of people trying to use VO BOSS and VO Peeps as well.
Erikka: I had a close one too.
Anne: But I think it's a great way to protect your name. So.
Erikka: Yes.
Anne: Picking a good domain name and pick multiple. I think it's absolutely a thing these days where yeah, if people misspell your name or domain name, you can also buy the other domain names and redirect to one specific. That's pretty simple to do. It's a smart thing to do. So once you've picked your domain name, and I mentioned that I did all of my hosting at GoDaddy in the beginning, so I kind of just stayed with GoDaddy from my domain names, but for hosting there's, God, there's a lot of options out there.
So when I was on GoDaddy, I was able to install WordPress on GoDaddy to be able to create my own sites. And so that's who I started off in the beginning. I've also had experience with hosting at Blue Host, which I really liked. Blue Host was a really relatively cheap hosting provider that I could put my WordPress website on. And it basically ran itself. I didn't find that many issues with let's say my website going down or having issues managing it. I also worked with Cloud Nine. Not sure I would recommend that one. I had a lot of issues with that. Cloud Nine was the previous owner of the -- Voiceovers.com actually was not happy with their tech support there at Cloud Nine, especially really myself having worked in technology for 20 years and doing tech support. I have a lot of expectations for tech support. At least GoDaddy answered the phone. I will say that.
Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. I know that. And as somebody else who uses GoDaddy, and they were very supportive, they, they talk to you on the phone.
Anne: They do. And that's a big thing. Believe it or not. They may not be able to solve your problem right away. But the fact that they talk to you and will pick up the phone, that is super important for hosting.
Erikka: Yes. Agreed.
Anne: I also did a managed WordPress website, which I was so happy with until they kind of disassembled and became a different company. And then right now all of my websites have been finally transported over to Wix, which I am super happy with. Wix takes care of a lot of things for me. What about you Erikka?
Erikka: Yeah. So for me, honestly, like I said, right now, my website is still the one that I built that's on Squarespace. So what I loved about it is that it was an all in one solution, and I didn't really have to worry about all of that. So if you're on the opposite side of that, talking about balance and you really just like, hey, I just need a one and done, you know, something quick so that I have a website and kind of just throw my demos and a few pictures and go, and build as you go, Squarespace is a great solution for that, 'cause they have all of that embedded for you.
Anne: That's your current one, right?
Erikka: It is. Yeah. Yeah.
Anne: Your website's beautiful. Remember I'm all about your website.
Erikka: It's crazy. 'cause I'm like, you know, I need to update my website. It's been there so long, and I'm like having somebody work on a WordPress-based site for me, but I'm like, I still get so many compliments on the SquareSpace one. I'm like, did I -- should I even change it?
Anne: It's beautiful! It's beautiful, really.
Erikka: Thank you. Thank you.
Anne: And you know, WordPress is really wonderful. I like WordPress 'cause it gives you a lot of options. It's not that difficult to learn once you understand your own plugins and things that are working and WordPress. It gives you back a lot of control. For me, my managed WordPress was wonderful, but what happened is my websites are kind of, let's say my VO Peeps, my VO BOSS, I do a lot of things. I do memberships. I do videos. I do eCommerce. I do membership. And so it became something that had to be super functional on the back end and, and I ended up adding more and more plugins. The problem with doing that is that sometimes those plugins don't get along with one another. And if you update one of them, it kind of breaks the others. And so that used to give me regular heart attacks.
Erikka: Yeah. And not worth.
Anne: It was not worth it to me and going to Wix, which basically everything managed just like Squarespace, everything is managed by Wix, and their functionality has grown to be able to support things like mail management, eCommerce on the backend, inventory, invoices, membership, all sorts of really cool things. Not as cheap, I will say as the others, but I will say I've never had my website go down.
Erikka: That's awesome.
Anne: Never had a website go down. And that is huge.
Erikka: I don't think I've had an outage with Squarespace either, really great. And I do have, I have e-commerce but it's very light. Like just, you know, add to your cart. Like I have a few apparel items from that I had from way back, I might add some more, but yeah, I think that's been pretty good and like they give you templates and you can customize, and if you know some HTML, you can do even more. So. Yeah. The all in one solutions are not a bad deal.
Anne: Yeah. And being up 100% of the time, especially when you're selling -- the last thing you want as a voice talent, as a business is to have somebody click on your website and go to pay you and then have it not work or have the website down so they can't pay you.
Erikka: Yes. Especially when you're in a global business, because it's just about what time zone you're in. That last week I had a client from Australia. I think it's like a 14-hour time difference. So if your site goes down at 3:00 AM, not a problem for you here, but might be for one of your clients. You might miss out on something. So yeah. That's important.
Anne: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So lots of different options for hosting. So make sure that you research. There's a lot of chatter about it on the Facebook groups. I know that there's been a ton of people who recommend Upper Level Hosting with Brad Newman.
Erikka: Yeah. Yeah.
Anne: And I know Brad, he's just an upstanding wonderful, wonderful human being. And I know he works very hard to make his hosting service a wonderful experience for anybody that works with him. So I'm gonna give a shout-out to Brad, and Upper Level Hosting.
Erikka: Part of the VO community. Yeah.
Anne: So another thing I wanna bring up, which, oh gosh. Back in the day it used to make me crazy because I did my own website; thought I was cute. I did AnneSpeaks.com and I did my own website on WordPress. And then I realized that I know what I want my website to do on the back end, but to design it, you know, it was not my training is to actually be a graphic designer and make beautiful websites. So I'm happy to outsource that. <laugh>
However, it is always important that whether you outsource your website to someone else or you do it yourself, that you understand, like what are the main criteria for being able to manage that website? Like you must have a username and a password to some place where you go and manage that website. Cannot tell how many students in a frantic panic would come to me going, well, I don't know how to change this on my website. I don't know how to upload my demo. I don't know how to put my bio on there. I don't know how to update my pictures. And most of the time it was kind of like their websites were held hostage by the website company that did that. Or maybe not, maybe they were given the login and the password, but they put it away somewhere, and they haven't ever logged into it.
Erikka: Yep.
Anne: That becomes a problem.
Erikka: I've heard of people having their websites held hostage, and it is not a fun situation to be in. Thank goodness I've never been there, but that's why I built my own. And I was just like, I'm a control freak. I have to. So now I'm starting to absolutely starting to release the reigns, but that is so important to first of all, have a very secure username and password. You don't want someone to hack your website. Jesus, it's like somebody breaking into your store, if you had a brick and mortar. <laugh>
Anne: Yeah. I think it's important to make an Excel spreadsheet or something. Some form of notes or database that has the URL and has your login and your password. And by the way, just with passwords, right, you really should have a password program on your computer.
Erikka: Password Keeper or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.
Anne: That helps. It is one of the most common issues that I run into that people just, they get frantic, and they know nothing about how to manage their website. So at least know your login and your password and the URL. And if someone says to you, who manages your domain name, or where did you buy your domain name, have an answer for that. And who is managing your website or what web hosting company do you use, have an answer for that. Understand what that means.
Erikka: Yeah. To that end visit your website every once in a while, for both perspectives, both logging in and just, you know, take a look, see if there's something I might wanna tweak this, and just as like a consumer, like just go to your website from desktop and from mobile. You've got to remember, most people are now accessing things from their mobile devices. So a lot of times the mobile presentation of the site, which does tend to be different, and placement of things, like you've gotta make sure that that is up to snuff.
Anne: Yeah.
Erikka: So yeah. Take a look at your site.
Anne: Yeah. Again, I can't recommend that the record keeping on this enough.
Erikka: Yeah, yeah.
Anne: To understand. First of all, remember we talked about a couple of different things here, and for people who are not technical or, and you don't, we're not saying you have to know everything, but you do have to understand, first of all, understand that your domain name is something separate from your hosting, right? Your domain name does not have to be embedded into your hosting. It can be like, for example, I buy my domain names through GoDaddy and I maintain them. I pay for them every year or every five years, whatever my policy is for my domain names. I host with Wix. That's the actual place where the information is for my website. I used to use GoDaddy. I used to use Blue Host. I used to use a managed WordPress site. Erikka, you had Squarespace.
Erikka: Yep.
Anne: So that's hosting your website. That's where your data resides on that server. And then there is what platform are you using? Wix is a platform, meaning that all of the design gets done through Wix. I log in through Wix with a username and a password. WordPress, kind of the same thing, but WordPress can exist on multiple hosting sites.
Erikka: Right.
Anne: Kind of understanding.
Erikka: SquareSpace is a platform.
Anne: Yeah. And so I would just say, what is your payment schedule? Is it a yearly schedule? Is it every three years? A lot of times you'll get good deals if you buy more years at one time.
Erikka: Yeah. For me, well again, 'cause mine is kind of the, all in one thing with Squarespace. I did have it on the annual just 'cause you save a little bit of money by doing that. And I'm all about -- I'm gonna give you all my money over the 12 months anyway. So why not get a little discount? I did recently just switch mine over to monthly because I'm waiting for when I'm gonna do my WordPress changeover. Yeah. To switch over to the new site.
Anne: Who are you hosting with, if you don't mind?
Erikka: Yeah. I think it's all looped in with Squarespace. So I actually don't have to have anything separated. Yeah.
Anne: Oh, okay, so Squarespace allows for WordPress as well.
Erikka: Oh, okay. Yeah. Good to know.
Anne: Right?
Erikka: Good to know. Yeah.
Anne: Well, that's what I'm just saying. Like if you're hosting with them, then they're gonna allow WordPress websites built on them.
Erikka: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Anne: That would be the question. Yeah. So payment schedule, I think is important so that you understand if you're paying yearly or if you're paying, I don't know, every three years. I think I'm on a three or a five year plan with Wix, which includes most all of my hosting and then everything else that goes with it because it doesn't just host my website. It also manages my email lists as well for each domain that I'm working with. And that is all run through Wix, which is pretty cool.
All right. So we've got our domain name, we've got a web host, we've got a platform. We've talked about the importance of knowing your username and password so that you can get into your website and do management or hire somebody or outsource it to be done. Keeping good records as to what's your payment schedule, 'cause that again is just good accounting for what it's costing you for your business. Now let's talk about the website. So what do you think is important for a website for your business, Erikka?
Erikka: So many things.
<both laugh>
Anne: All the things.
Erikka: Obviously -- all the things, right? Everything. Obviously with us being what we do, demos, they have to be able to hear the goods, right? Like they're coming to your site. You have to be able to give them a reason to hire you. Right? But I do think, I know that back in the day, there was the, you know, not so much putting your image on your site. I think that's changed.
Anne: Oh yeah.
Erikka: You know, these days that having actually a picture of yourself gives you more credibility so that they know who they're hiring. You know, friendly and you can show yourself in different ways. You can show yourself working. You can just have kind of, you know, the headshots where you can do fun things. But I do think that images are important. You can even do some things like RSS feeds for your social sites. And that helps to keep fresh content all the time without you having to go in and log in and do something. Bio, you gotta be able to tell people with some texts so that you rank well in Google who you are. Some people actually do read those things, not too long, but <laugh>.
Anne: Well now I have a whole spiel on your bio and why I think it's important. I mean, if you go to Anang Ganguzza I have a ton of bio on there, like there's pages of bio and words everywhere. And while it may not look like a clean site, that's neat without a lot of clutter, all those words really help with my SEO.
Erikka: Absolutely.
Anne: Which why I think a bio is super important, but it's important when people come to your page that they understand that you are a voiceover talent or a voiceover actor, that is your business.
Erikka: Yep. As soon as they get there.
Anne: If you don't have those words anywhere on your site, then how is Google gonna index you as such? Right? You do have to have a couple of those words of voiceover. So sometimes I'll look at a site and I'll see, here are my demos, but there's no word on the page that actually says voiceover or voice talent or anything related to the voice. They'll have a bio that talks about how they like their dogs and cats. And you know, they grew up here, but there won't be anything that says that they do voiceover. So I think that it's important that you have something on that front page that tells people what your business offers, what your business does.
Erikka: Yeah.
Anne: And I think, as you mentioned before, above the fold, the demos, people want to get quick access to your demos to hear. That's your product, right, to hear what you sound like. And I think contact information is super important. That should be above the fold, meaning above the fold, meaning they don't have to scroll down to see it.
Erikka: Yep. Yep.
Anne: So how can they get in touch with you if they wanna purchase your services, if they wanna purchase your voice? Email, I like to put it all there, email, phone number, whatever that is. And by the way, a lot of people will ask about, do I have a business phone? There's lots of ways you can have a business phone without giving away your phone number. What do you do, Erikka?
Erikka: Yeah. Like there's the Google voice stuff. I believe ipDTL offers numbers as well that you can use. There's so many options to have a phone number. So yeah. That's easy. Another thing with the contact info though, is that a lot of the, especially like the SquareSpaces or any of those, like in a box sites, they have the contact form. And I remember hearing from somebody, a buyer that they wanted your contact information in the text, and that was like eye opening for me. I'm like, you can contact me through my form, but also put your email and your phone number and your name actually text right there. Yeah.
Anne: Yeah. 'Cause that's a step. Right? And I get it. People are like, I don't wanna get spam, but honestly, every mail hosting company, I know deals with spam in a way. And I mean, spam is just a part of life, to be honest.
Erikka: It's gonna happen. Yeah.
Anne: It's gonna happen. And I, I think unless you're getting harassed, I put in text, I put my email address, I put my phone number, and by the way, I'm gonna tell you something. I will admit to you. I have a Magic Jack phone number. Remember Magic Jack from like years ago?
Erikka: Yes! I have one of those and I haven't hooked it up, but I have it, but I have it.
Anne: But I don't hook mine up. All I do is you can record your message. So people can call me, it goes immediately to voicemail. It attaches that voicemail to an email and boom, I've got it. So how cool is that? Like --
Erikka: That is cool.
Anne: So I don't even attach it because I don't want people to actually ring it. I just want it to go right to voicemail. So that, I've been using that for 10 years. That's my secret.
Erikka: That is such a good secret.
Anne: Literally, they're so cheap. I think it costs $19.99 for like three years or something.
Erikka: Yep, yep.
Anne: I don't even hook it up. I basically just pick the number and then I forward -- you can configure it so that you get the email of an attached wav file. So when somebody calls you, boom comes right in, and it's super convenient for me because for me, I can't pick up my phone. I'm busy. I, I don't pick up my phone, and I don't always go to my phone and look at the voicemail either, but I'm constantly got my email up. And so when something comes in, it's great. It's got the recorded number that it came from. And if it's spam, who cares <laugh> Do you know what I mean? I just throw it away.
Erikka: And at first I didn't wanna put a phone number cause I was like, I really want them to come into my email, but you know, at the same time, it's that credibility thing. Like just like when I go Google and see a website, I'm like, how much of a business are you? And it's the same thing with a phone number, honestly. It's just a mental thing.
Anne: Oh my God, you are so right on that. Like I can't tell you how many times, if somebody sent me an email and I wanna verify that they are a valid business, if they don't have a phone number, I get really wary. I get really suspicious.
Erikka: Yep. Yep. And some buyers just do wanna pick up the phone. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. So.
Anne: Yeah, I think it's so underrated, but I think you have to have a phone number.
Erikka: I agree.
Anne: To be honest. I mean maybe today's youth want to text you, and that's fine. By the way, you can't text a Magic Jack number, but that's okay. <laugh> Actually, maybe you can now, I have no idea. I haven't checked. I have to check, but that would be the other thing that would be cool. If you could just have a number that could get text. Because that's a yes, it's another way to communicate with you. And I don't mind once I connect with a client giving them my mobile phone number, but this Magic Jack number is like the best kept secret <laugh> And you can get it in the exchange that you want. So if I want it in LA exchange, it's fantastic.
Erikka: And you know, another thing that's underrated for contact, and I don't have it on my current site, but I plan to have it on my next one is the live chat. 'Cause I haven't actually used it. So I'm kind of guessing, but I'm sure you can set hours when those are available. I'm sure there are ways to send it to you or you know, they get a message, you know, we'll be back or something like that. But that's sort of another contact method that a lot of people use now, especially if they're right on your site. They don't have to go pick up their phone. They don't have to open an email, they just click and you got 'em. So.
Anne: Now I will say, I'm gonna make one like kind of note about that. I like that. I'm not able to be chatting with people a lot of the day, so I wouldn't have enough hours open to actually utilize that. But if you use that, and then don't put a phone number, I would say that also makes me wary.
Erikka: Yeah.
Anne: So I think that phone number is important for the elder people that like to pick up the phone and talk.
Erikka: I think the younger people, like my boyfriend's five years younger than me, but he likes to get on the phone and we joke about it. Like <Laugh>
Anne: Good. Good. I like that.
Erikka: I'm like no, text me. <Laugh>
Anne: I like it when people want -- sometimes it's just easier, you know, especially when you've got a potential client and they've got questions.
Erikka: Oh yeah. Agree.
Anne: Sometimes that's just hard to go back and forth with, with email and or even text. It just becomes easier to pick up the phone and call, which I think is, you know, by the way you are a, a voice actor. So allowing your voice to be heard over the phone.
Erikka: That is an excellent point because I have had people say, gosh, I love your voice, just when we're having conversation. You know? And it just kind of sells it a little more. Like I'm glad I hired you. <laugh> Take that opportunity. Absolutely.
Anne: Wow. So definitely get your websites up, make sure you've got the important information above the fold. Write a great bio. And if you aren't a great writer, hire somebody. There are people that write bios.
Erikka: They do. Yeah.
Anne: And I would say the last thing we wanna say, I think that's super important is make sure your website is backed up, because you are entrusting and paying a hosting website to make sure that your website is available. However that data exists over there on the website. So God forbid, something happens to that hosting service or you lose their data, you'll have a local backup of it, and you need to back up your database and your assets. A lot of them will offer, I think, backing up. You can do that through their web interface. And then download those backups to your computer. I highly, highly recommend that. And especially if you decide you wanna move hosting providers. You wanna make sure you can get the most recent data from your website off of that website and transfer it onto the new one.
Erikka: Back up, back up, back up, redundancy.
Anne: Ah yes. Good conversation, Erikka.
Erikka: Yeah, that was great. I love it.
Anne: Good stuff. I could probably talk all day on websites.
Erikka: I know. I know. Oh and yeah. One more thing about bios. I wanna throw out there. Sorry to backtrack. One thing that can be helpful too, especially if you're trying to keep things short is you can have more than one version of your bio. Like I have like a short one, and it's like read more. So it'll like lead them deeper into the website.
Anne: Absolutely, great idea.
Erikka: So that way you can have sort of the teaser, but if you do wanna write a book, you can 'cause it'll help you with Google, but you can keep it short.
Anne: That's exactly what I do actually. That's a great, great idea.
Erikka: Yeah.
Anne: So fantastic.
Erikka: Wooho. Yeah, BOSSes.
Anne: All right, guys. So I want you to take a moment, BOSSes, after you take in all of the website information, but I also want you to imagine a world full of passionate, empowered, diverse individuals that give collectively and intentionally to create the world that they want to see. This can be you and you can help make a difference. Visit 100voiceswhocare.org to learn more. Also big shout-out to my sponsor, ipDTL. You too can network and connect like BOSSes like Erikka and I, and find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys, have an amazing week, and we'll see you next week. Bye!
Erikka: See ya!
>> Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your host Anne Ganguzza. And take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at voboss.com and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies, and new ways to rock your business like a BOSS. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via ipDTL.