Child website?

[Kitkat67]

Hi everyone. Fairly new to this industry. My daughter is 5 and with an agency and on spotlight. She completed her 4th film at the weekend and her co-star, who has been an actor for 18 years suggested she gets
Her own website. Is this normal for kids? What sort of stuff would you put on it? Any advice appreciated

[Kitkat67]

Cool so no one knows!

[TalyaB]

I'm not sure having been in four films by the age of five is normal! (In a good way.). Well done to your daughter, and to you for supporting her. I wouldn't know about the website thing, but if you think people she doesn't know might be interested in following your daughter's career and even, if the films are feature/popular, other things about her, then her own website sounds like it could be a good idea.

[pg]

There is no need for her to have her own website. If she has Spotlight entry and an agent they will be promoting her to the right people. I think I would want to know from the actor friend what he/she thinks the purpose of it would be?

Your daughter will probably already have an IMDB entry - so her name will be searchable.

Any industry professional would look for her in Spotlight.

I would ask yourself the following questions

1. What is the purpose of having a website? What would you hope to achieve by having one?
2. Do you mind who is looking at it? Spotlight and your agent will (hopefully) have safeguards.
3. What would you intend to have on it?

[TalyaB]

I assumed it was for the public/general interest - not for the purpose of getting work.

[riverdancefan]

I wouldn't have a webpage for my DS
however I have purchased his domain names both in .co.uk and .com to keep for if he ever wants to use them in the future. He is nearly 14 so a lot older that your DD.

If he decides he doesn't want them in the future, or they no longer become relevant ... they haven't been that pricy to keep in reserve and I can give them up.

[begolina]

You might want consider also how much does it cost and how time consuming it will end up. If is not of a good standard might be counterproductive. If you just want to keep update a large number of family and friends on your dd latest news, you could think to use something like twitter (if she has been in 5 film already at such a young age I would def buy the website address as Riverdance suggests).

[amanda]

Crikey Riverdancefan - You are really on the ball! That's something that it never occurred to me to do! Our children might be glad to own the right to their website names whatever field they go into. What an interesting present that could be.
How do you do it and what does it cost?

[Flosmom]

The are many companies that will register a domain name for you. I use DreamHost because they also offer hosting (which you need when you want to put a domain name onto an actual website) but you can just register the name - assuming no-one else has it yet. Bear in mind that the suffixes are many and varied these days, but you might just want to focus on .com and .co.uk with a splurge to .net or .biz if you are limiting your spend.

The most important question about a website is 'why?'. Who do you want to visit it and what do you want them to do as a result of their visit? The answers to these questions will drive your decision and the design.

If you can't answer the questions, don't start to create a website yet.

If you can, make sure you build a website that meets your aims. You'll need to think carefully about what is displayed and how, especially if you want people to find it via google. A badly designed website is a turn-off.

You might also want to think about your YouTube channel, if you haven't already done so.

If you go ahead, you can build a decent site on Wordpress. There is a range of style thenes and plugins to give you the look and functionality you want. You don't need to know HTML to build it these days, but it might be a useful skill for when your pages don't do what you want them to.

Or you could consider a page on Star Now or KCCP.

Hope this helps

Deb x

[riverdancefan]

Crikey Riverdancefan - You are really on the ball! That's something that it never occurred to me to do! Our children might be glad to own the right to their website names whatever field they go into. What an interesting present that could be.
How do you do it and what does it cost?

Lol
It was something my cousin mentioned a couple of years ago- he owns a company that builds amazing websites and sorts out how to advertise yourself properly - well I say company , it's him and one another but he's very very good and gets some brilliant clients
I know I'm lucky as when the time is right he will
Do it all for free for DS.
Just not now - I haven't got enough to say about him apart from he never picks his clothes up off the floor and I'm nagging him to do homework .

Amanda - Google and see what's available - the more common names are usually gone but there are loads if variations
There's much more to it all than I ever thought - I'm lucky to have a cousin in the business .
X

[Panda]

I've got both domain names of my kids. But it's not for acting as I cant really see any of them going into it seriously or as adults. However being self employed I realise there are many businesses who get work using the name of the person (either a direct website, or the website points to another), so should in the future they be architects, authors, photographers etc a whole load of possibilities, then it will give them a head start for their business. It only costs about £8 a year, depending on the . name to purchase a domain and just sit on it.

[Kitkat67]

Thank you very much everyone. I had never considered a website but this actor we were working with mentioned it. Just thought I would ask is this is a normal thing. Obviously not. She has an agent and is
On spotlight. She also has a Starnow page. I thought that was plenty but thought I'd check. Thank you

[francescasmum]

We have a website for our dd. We have family living all over the country who can't get to see her perform locally and friends/relatives who live in different parts of the world, Spain. Iran, Australia, (Wales) etc who would never get to see her work. We upload clips of her work, some of which are not available elsewhere. Her/our contact details are not on there, only a contact page which sends messages to our business e-mail address, not personal.
It's a place to put everything on, because spotlight has her credits, u-tube/vimeo has some of her work, Star Now has photos but this is a place to put it all together. Friends/family/collegues can look at it if/when they want rather than us sending links continuously and appearing PUSHY. We do send links with casting submissions sometimes as part of her CV and she has been given work through this link.
We initially set it up for family reasons but as much of the work dd has undertaken has been mainly with adults who generally have websites who often pass around their details and ask about other work dd has done, we have found it very useful, it seems to break the ice, some people are nervous about working with children (especially if they do not have any themselves) and feel more relaxed knowing a bit more about her, it gives them a talking point and puts them at ease (and probably confident about her ability).

[Kitkat67]

Wow that is brilliant