Websites for the Entertainment Professional (Beginner)

Why you need a website for your career in the Entertainment Business. Why WordPress is best solution. Why trust Chris Rogers (Qualifications). Best Practices.

Is name available. What to do if your preferred name is taken. Get name, host and email from 3 different companies. Separation of church and state/3 branches of government. Demo using buy from namecheap.com. Enter login/passwords onto your word.doc.

Be sure to use Approved Host. Look for free SSL, for Sandbox/Development area, phone support, chat, how much hand holding do you need. Avoid EIG. Demo using SiteGround. You can also buy G Suite here, but DON’T! Separation of church and state/3 branches of govt. Put Login/Password on Password word.doc.

G Suite (for The Business), Old/Previous email address (for Friends and Family), Spam/Disposable email address (for likely spam-inducing companies/registration). We go into more detail in Mobile Devices/Home Office class.

Install/configure G Suite for your Business email. Give this to your agent, mgr, yada, only people in the Business. Put Login/Password in Your Website Password doc. This is very confusing, so be patient.

Move Business contacts to G Suite email. Ask them to delete all your other email addresses from their Add Bk. Put Login/Password on the Passwords doc.

When signing up stuff and they demand an email address. Demo signing up for Yahoo email address. Send your website bkups here. Put Login/Password on word doc. 

Create WordPress.ORG (AND .com for Jetpack) account thru your Host. Put Login/Password on word doc.

How to Log In. Click “Remember me” if on your home computer. Dashboard. AKA Back end. Put Login/Password on word doc.

Airplane analogy. Don’t freak. Let it make sense to you (from ER).

You can’t do WordPress without learning Jazz Hands. 😉

Basic settings/configuration. Hide from search engines & turn off comments for now.

Search/install/activate Theme Twenty Sixteen (not 2016).

Customizing Theme Twenty Sixteen settings.

In Customizer. AKA Favicon. Create site icon and drag site to Browser Bar.

Create all pages at once with dummy content. Bacon Lorem Ipsum.

Create top menu (Primary) Navigation bar.

Customizer/Widget/Sidebar. Make all pages full width, except for Blog. Put Search at bottom.

Install Jetpack & activate Gallery only. Explain different versions of Jetpack. Put Login/Password in YOUR NAME GOES HERE Entertainment Website Passwords Word doc.

Activate thru Jetpack.

Photoshop, Gimp, Pixlr. 1920×1080, 8×10/portrait, 10×8/landscape. This is covered in much more detail in the Video/Graffix class and Social Media class.

Create separate galleries for each type of pictures.

Constant or Rotating pictures at top of each page.

Install Google Doc Embedder plugin, save resume’ as pdf, upload to Media Library, create download link.

Upload clip to Vimeo and YouTube. Copy url to your website. I have created placeholder video file if you don’t have one to use. This is covered in more depth in the Video/Grafix class.

Vimeo compression pg for how to compress video clips for web.

Difference between YouTube and Vimeo. This is covered in more detail in the Social Media class and Video/Grafix class. Upload 1 clip to each.

Email, phone, contact form using JetPack.

Drink water. Take breaks every hour. Look away from screen.

Use # as placeholder.

Create post, 1 category, turn comments on for this page only. Add Search and “Subscribe to my blog” widget. Change Uncategorized to Misc or something like that. Enable Gravatar Profile Widget.

Short and long version.

Hobbies/Skills/Volunteer/Passion pg that employer would use to talk about in interview or what you want to be known for.

Create menu and link to your pgs. Open your Social Media pages in another Browser window, copy, paste into menu. Delete extra characters at end.

Create Home pg content. Create/insert table, link to imdb, Actors Access, yada. VERTICAL table. Copy/paste images from my site.

Install at top of all other pages with links to Casting sites. HORIZONTAL.

Create account, upload photo, same as site icon?

Add Paypal button to front page using Widget. Record your Login/Password in the Word doc.

For serious musical theatre geeks.

Walk thru ALL settings. Make recommendations.

Show comparison of new paid model.

Jetpack – free/easy. Google harder, overkill.

So foreign language speaking people can hire you.

Yoast – free and paid. Also Jetpack paid.

See my list of Favorite plugins thru Search box on Plugins pg and .ORG profile – chrogers2000

Use Jetpack. Make sure host is cool with it.

Your web host may have special/unique plugins you might want/required to use. Good idea to have them look over your site now to make sure no problems.

It is possible to make more money with Affiliate Marketing, but do it on a separate website, not your Entertainment Professional website. Too distracting on top and side, so we will put an Amazon ad in the footer.

Sign up for an Amazon Associate account.

Amazon ad in footer. If you are good at this and willing to put the time in to learn Affiliate Marketing, it is possible to make some money here. Just outside of the scope of this training. There are tons of free videos on YouTube.

1 click solution. Rationale to upgrade to Jetpack or File Vault?

Send site backup to your spam email or dropbox. Don’t rely on your host. 1 click solution. How often does host do it? iThemes Backup Buddy or Jetpack Paid.

Jetpack – XML Sitemap.

Demo: How to google a problem, YouTube, WP Beginner, WP 101, Ask Web Host, Meetups, CY Membership soon. WP Beginner YouTube channel subscribe.

Excerpt Lesson 55 text goes here. Ribeye corned beef sirloin bacon bresaola shankle chicken. Cow bresaola meatloaf kielbasa prosciutto turducken chuck filet mignon sausage. Ask feedback from host, Friends and Family, strangers to view your site, view on cell, ipad, Mac and Win. Last step ask Mgr/Agent to view.

Jetpack Site Verification. Uncheck “Discourage Search Engines”.

WordPress Meetup, WordCamp, FB groups, CY Membership Site coming soon.

Closing comments. Thank you. Please give feedback.