Branding Online. Now.

[PierceVoice]

You're here on this forum, and that's good.

Contributing to message boards & creating blogs are some of the most effective ways to get your name out there in 2008. Keep your eyes peeled for highly visited and searched for blogs that focus on the places and people you want to present to. Then... write! Post relevant articles and show some professionalism with personality. Be a player on the board and get respect. You'll eventually meet some people.

MAKE SURE your signatures include your website and a tagline that helps you stand out from the pack. This goes for boards and email. Even if it's to a buddy, never hurts to just set your mail to auto sig.

Have you ever contributed to publications? A few are mentioned on Voice-Overs.com, several more are out there. Ever heard of Radio and Production magazine? RAPMAG.COM. They take audio submissions for a disc sent with their magazine every month (these tracks usually focus on the production, but there's no reason you can't submit a work and credit the writer, producer, and of course the VOICE). Working to write articles on the business for publication can be tasking, but as soon as one gets published... I promise the satisfaction will be paired with other benefits.

Another great place to blab is radio-info.com. (so sue me, I know more RADIO hotspots than other flavors... that's why I want YOU to share suggestions for us all!)

Ever post to YouTube? Viral videos are not only amazingly effective in getting your name passed around, but are also simple to do (did ya catch the fat kid jamming at his computer to techno?). Research when you can about what videos work and why. Think about how you can create a piece that showcases your voice talents while entertaining to an extreme. An example is: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-FRYiCIXxd4

Online presence in 08 will be especially crucial as the flow continues and new ways to market yourself are introduced.


Now, YOU:

[Julie Williams]

One thing I did, that I hope will help SEO... is I put all my demos on You Tube... with just a graphic that would show up while it plays. Then I tried to do good keywords that relate to my sound.

WIll that help?

And does it help most people to post here? For me, since voice-overs.com is my domain, I'm assuming it won't really add a lot... but if I put voiceoverchocolate.com in my signature, will it help my SEO when I post here?

[PierceVoice]

Julie,

You appear several times when searching your name on Yahoo! and Google (though I wish I could shake the latter's first offering of some sort of porn site! I assume that's not you...). It could only help when a potential client goes looking for some background on their potential voice and finds a multitude of far and wide hits-- certainly something with industry cred, as is the goal.

As for your YouTube postings, at least one showed up in the first couple of pages of my searches of your name (trying to pop up high on that wonderful "VOICE OVER" search is not as simple, of course). This means it's registering, which gives another access point to hear more of and learn about you. The better the stuff the first page looks, the better you do.

As for Voice-Overs.com, I find that on Yahoo! it shows up for one of my top come-backs on my name.... can't hurt!