Another Pay-to-Play Site

Diane Havens · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008, 14:04 (GMT) Post subject:

Wouldn't you love to see JS with his own talk show?

Melba Sibrel · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008, 16:01 (GMT) Post subject:

Why not Tennessee, J.S.? You hate me, don't you?

Haneen Arafat · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008, 16:45 (GMT) Post subject:

And do you, Mr. Gilbert, have some issue with workers from the "fast food segment"? If it were not for customers complimenting my mic technique during my youthful days as a Sonic carhop, I might have never had the encouragement to pursue this career. And as we all know, having people say, "you have a good voice", is the most important thing in this business.

---

But back to reality for one moment--I actually have another site to ask about--and some of you, ahem, are on it: Voiceoverdirectory.com. Anyone, anyone?

Gracias.

Diane Havens · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008, 17:32 (GMT) Post subject:

Haneen --

Very nice people -- seem to be short staffed and so ...er, disorganized?

I dropped my membership fast.

Dina Monaco-Boland · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008, 19:30 (GMT) Post subject:

I've booked a couple of gigs through them... I was happy with them

J.S. Gilbert

1. I sure didn't mean to bring down an entire industry as important as fast food. If it weren't for the extreme availability of greasy, high caloric food, I might actually not have topurchase a new wardrobe every year (with a one to two size increase) And now with "late hours" being offered by so many of them, I can get my burger and hot apple pie on into the wee hours.

The fact that many reality show contestants and voice talent seem to make the move straight from the "hospitality industry" to stardom only reinforces that the training one gets in the fast food industry can indeed prepare them for much greater things.

As for Tennessee, it isn't me that keeps piling on the restrictions exempting Tennessee residents from taking part in various programs, games of chance and so forth. At least the state government isn't forciong you all to wear helmets when you ride the bus and apparently it still is legal to smoke anywhere in Tennessee, including an elevator.

Now if you guys want a talk show, maybe I'll just have to put together a little 5 - 10 minute audio podcast once in a while. Are you sure you really want this???????

Any topics or suggestions for what I should say on the first couple of shows?

J.S. Gilbert

While I was busy completely hijacking this thread, I thought I would answer the question regarding the pay-for-play sites.

The sites with the largest number of members and most SEO seem to attract the most attention. If you're looking at using the vo directory, then it is primarily one more way for you to be found. Make sure to use lots of searchable terms in your profile. Names of people you can impersonate, word asscoiated with voiceover, etc. Also realize that it's not always about the auantity of leads, but the connections you can make that may make something valuable or not. I picked up one client from the Vo Directory and did 11 jobs for them, which yielded a nice profit picture.

I advocate putting together a busness and marketing plan and determining your fixed and variable expenses, marketing expenses and so forth to detemine what might be appropriate for you. It's the reason why some people still take out nice big ads in phone books and others have stopped altogether.

Also something to be aware of is that by joinging these sites, you also provide the site with a "new doorway" for people to discover the site. For example, as a member of Voice 123, every search on my name or similar site searches that reference me ion some fashion will invariably lead to Voice 123, becuase it comes up 1st or 2nd in Google when you search me. If the searcher then visits Voice123 and becomes familiar with the site as a result of looking for me and then determines that it makes sense to investigate other talent as a result, the value of being on such a site may be diminished for me.

Simply put, I am not contacted to do the job, but become one of many people who are offered the opportunity to audition. Having access to certain web analytics, I was unable to confirm this completely, but I can say that after examining a persiod of data collection and examining the click stream (where people come from and go to after visiting a particular website), it would seem that there are a number of members of TOS and voice123, who may be more responsible for traffic going to those sites than anyone would imagine. There are some people with very strong web presence who seem to attract many Google searches on their name, which lead back to several "online casting and community sites".

Doing some research, one of the names that comes up very high in numerous search engine searches is D.C. Douglas, although a Google on his name only, Voice123 doesn't come up anywhere in the first 5 pages, adding the word voice to D.C. DOuglas, we see that voice123 comes up as the 5th reference on the first page. Despite his name coming up super high in search engine searches that relate to voiceover, it would seem that little traffic is driven to a Voice123 site at all, with searches winding up mostly at his home page.

A search on my name brings up the first page with the first site as TOS and the 7th site as voice 123 and only one reference of the top ten for me relates to a different J.S. Gilbert. Adding voice to my name, Voice123 moves up to the fourth choice. Although my name in genreal comes up far less frequently overall in general searches for voice talent, it would seem that I drive more of these searches to TOS and voice123 from my name.

(You can all thank me later)

Other names that drive some significant traffic to Voice 123 and/or TOS include Connie Terwilliger, Erik sheppard (very high and V123 is #1 when Google is searched by his name alone), Ashley Miers, Bobbin Beam and others.

Just something to be aware of. No doubt it's best to have your own site or some other site that you might prefer traffic to visit if your name is searched.

Just something I thought I would share. Hmmm, that could have been a podcast.

Melba Sibrel

Connie Terwilliger · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008, 21:04 (GMT) Post subject:

Hmmm - thanks for the analysis J.S. It is an interesting question you have raised. I have been thinking that the links are a good thing, but I will give this some more thought.

The fact that the links go directly to the talent's personal page with demos is a good thing - but it is easy for someone to be enticed away from that page - especially with a link that says "Hear similar voices."

Diane Havens · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008, 21:35 (GMT) Post subject:

Actually, when I googled my name today, there was a link that went directly to one of my demos here -- the one with the "more info". And I'm only Standard. Both my V123 page and my Voices page always come up hits one and two.

My "standard" listing at VO directory also comes up on somewhat early on. I may give them another try someday as a paid member. I never got that far with them -- the lack of customer service put me off at the get-go, and I asked for my money back. They graciously accomodated me.

I did notice on more generic type searches for female VO, using common search terms, Bobbin Beam's name is all over the place -- all leading to her personal site, not V123. Wow.

Time spent experimenting with google searches is time well spent.

Oh, JS -- I DID hope you could get a TV talk show, you know, on cable or something -- but I guess a podcast now and then would give us all a good fix of you for the time being.

J.S. Gilbert · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008, 23:47 (GMT) Post subject: #1 of all the Diane Havens

Diane,
What's really interesting about your Google search is that despite you havig a somewhat more common name, sites referencing you specifically pop up in the #1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 potiion on a google search of just your name. Despite the fact that there is aprominent doctor, athlete and musician all name Diane Havens, you beat them all out in Google. (apparently sites referenceing them aren't accesed as much nor benefit from SEO.

Oddly enough, adding the word voice to your name in the Google search references different pages, but doesn't help you out that much, as you still only seem to occupy the top 6 of 7 spots on the search engine.

Diane Havens · Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008, 02:35 (GMT) Post subject:

Yeah, JS, now if I could only bump that lady with the lawsuit. I hope when I launch my new website it will show up as well.

And thanks for googling me -- I always feel a little tickle when someone does that.

Claire Dodin · Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008, 11:24 (GMT) Post subject:

J.S. that's interesting your google theory.
Out of curiosity I googled my name and was happy to see that my own voice website is in first position and my theatrical website not far behind. I'm unlikely to bring clients to v123 or TOS as these links get lost in 19 google pages of links, including one that said "Claire Dodin - nude pictures"

. I clicked on it to see what the hell that was and it turned out to be a virus that tried to download itself to my computer!

Colin Campbell · Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008, 17:17 (GMT) Post subject:

What client would seek a voice by searching on their name? If they already have names, they should have at least some idea of who to hire.

Melba Sibrel · Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008, 17:41 (GMT) Post subject:

Yea, Colin. 'Tis a bit Catch-22, isn't it?

Regarding J.S.'s assertions above about searches for particular names possibly driving business away from the individual by bringing it to places like v123; I remember getting a call from someone at v123 several years back offering some kind of incentive if I had my clients (for whom I do VO production already) contact and book me through v123. I asked why I should put a server between myself and my clients with no additional services like a project upload site or payment escrow service. There was no good answer she could give me. I could only assume it was an attempt to increase hits to their site.

But I was assured my happiness was their greatest concern.