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VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!
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Scott Pollak
The Gates of Troy
Joined: 01 Jun 2010
Posts: 1903
Location: Looking out at the San Juan mountains
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 Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 5:47 pm Post subject: New Facelift for an Old Website |
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So I FINALLY got my mega-talented wife to put a fresh coat of paint on my terribly outdated website.
My goal is to keep it mega-simple. I know clients don't want to waste time reading a bunch of horse-hockey so I trimmed verbiage down to the bare essentials. I wanted to keep it ultra-clean and try to maintain the feeling of quiet professionalism and class that my old site somewhat had. We still need to tweak a font here and there, so it's about 90% done, but your comments are appreciated:
www.voicebyscott.com
(If you've been to my site before, reload your cache)
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Scott R. Pollak
Clients include Pandora, NPR Atlanta, Wells Fargo, Cisco, Humana, Publix, UPS, AT&T, HP, Xerox and more.
www.voicebyscott.com |
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ricevoice
Cinquecento
Joined: 28 Dec 2007
Posts: 532
Location: Sacramento, CA
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| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 6:01 pm Post subject: |
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Looks great Scott, nice and clean... cool contemporary feel too.
Personal preference: I like having demos on the home page... they're presumably coming to your site to hear you, so shouldn't they be able to do that as soon as they land there without having to click on another page?
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Chris Rice - Noisemaker
www.ricevoice.com |
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Jeffrey Kafer
Assistant Zookeeper
Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 4931
Location: Location, Location!
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| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 6:29 pm Post subject: |
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Looks good, but a couple of things:
1) +1 for demos on the main page. I don't want to click to find them. Your demos sell your voice, get them front and center
2) The wix.com banner and such screams amateur. Any way you can get this hosted somewhere than doesn't do that? Same with your domain redirect. Just keep it at www.voicebyscott.com
3) Reconsider an all flash site. Since iphones and iPads don't support flash, you're leaving a good amount of viewers in the dark.
4) Don't auto-play your demo, especially if you have verbiage that says "Click to play demo"
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Jeff
http://JeffreyKafer.com
Voice-overload Web comic: http://voice-overload.com |
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Scott Pollak
The Gates of Troy
Joined: 01 Jun 2010
Posts: 1903
Location: Looking out at the San Juan mountains
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| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 6:52 pm Post subject: |
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Good points, guys. Thanks for those. I'll consider some changes.
Jeff, funny thing about the Wix screaming 'amateur'. My wife and I actually ran our own web-design biz out of our home for about 5 years or so, but we got out of that fiasco years ago. I'm not sure that part of it bothers me that much, really. I think a client may be more interested in your sound than whether it's a wix-hosted site or not. And as long as the site LOOKS professional, then again, I'm not really sure having Wix on there is much of a detriment.
Just my thoughts.
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Scott R. Pollak
Clients include Pandora, NPR Atlanta, Wells Fargo, Cisco, Humana, Publix, UPS, AT&T, HP, Xerox and more.
www.voicebyscott.com |
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Jeffrey Kafer
Assistant Zookeeper
Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 4931
Location: Location, Location!
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| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 8:35 pm Post subject: |
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It may not be as amateur as a Geocities account, true.  But there's something to be said for your website actually living on your domain.
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Jeff
http://JeffreyKafer.com
Voice-overload Web comic: http://voice-overload.com |
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Dan-O
The Gates of Troy
Joined: 17 Jan 2005
Posts: 1638
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| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 9:00 pm Post subject: |
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Last edited by Dan-O on Thu Oct 17, 2013 5:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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whalewtchr
Cinquecento
Joined: 18 Feb 2010
Posts: 582
Location: Savannah, GA
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| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 9:53 pm Post subject: |
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Hi Scott
+2 on Demos at landing page
+1 on not hearing your audio (Safari)
+2 on your own url address
+1 on wine...just did not mix with e-learning, documentaries and training
Good Luck!
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Dan-O
The Gates of Troy
Joined: 17 Jan 2005
Posts: 1638
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| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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Last edited by Dan-O on Thu Oct 17, 2013 5:33 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Jen Gosnell
A Hundred Dozen
Joined: 14 Jan 2010
Posts: 1290
Location: Portland, OR
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 1:09 am Post subject: |
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Hi Scott!
I like the simplicity of the site and think you are very much headed in the right direction there. Give them the basic info and let the demos speak for themselves, right?
| Dan-O wrote: | | I assumed once I clicked the demo title the audio would automatically play. I hadn't noticed the play buttons at the top of the CD. |
Me, neither. I only figured it out as quickly as I did due to reading Dan's comment. My general impression was, too many clicks to get the audio to play. By this I mean beyond having to click to a secondary tab to get them.
I agree with the others that a secondary tab would not be my first choice of placement for demos. I think they should be front and center, baby! If they do like your demo, they'll want to click to another tab for more info. Don't make it harder for them to hear how great you sound.
I have to agree with Jeff's comment about the flash leaving out iPhone/iPad users. Who knows what the percentage is of persons in a position to hire using them, but it seems like an unnecessary barrier when there are other elegant and more universally accessible ways of delivering the goods. Not to mention simpler interfaces - even on a flash-compatible mobile device, that's still a lot of clicks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.
In principle I agree with the hosting-related comments, although the Wix banner did not bother me significantly, probably due to its placement. I've seen worse (Geocities, indeed! but beyond that, even). If you have the capability to get it hosted without any extraneous info, I'd strongly consider it. To me, it doesn't scream "amateur" so much as "dinosaur" and based on your goal of modernizing the site I think that's one thing you're trying to avoid.
Here's hoping the facelift brings you all the benefits you're looking to get out of it!
Jen
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jen@jengosnell.com
https://www.jengosnell.com
Skype: jen.gosnell
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Bill Campbell
DC
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
Posts: 621
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 4:56 am Post subject: |
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As a producer who goes to VO talent websites all the time...
The Wix thing doesn't bother me.
Too many clicks to hear the demos
"Spots" sounds cheap, "Commercials" is more professional
I'm a dog lover, I have four right now, but your pet picture logo looks like somebody working from home as a hobby.
Most important...
YOUR DEMOS ARE VERY GOOD!!
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www.asapaudio.com |
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Scott Pollak
The Gates of Troy
Joined: 01 Jun 2010
Posts: 1903
Location: Looking out at the San Juan mountains
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 5:14 am Post subject: |
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Thanks again, everyone. Seems to be a substantial consensus.
1) Will move the demos to the home page
2) Bill, I wanted to use 'commercials' instead of 'spots' but the darned audio interface only allows for very short titling, otherwise it cuts off the words. Notice 'audiobooks' cuts off the 's' at the end
3) Will reconsider the dog. That's always been my branding element so it would be tough to lose it, but I'll think about it. BTW, it's not MY dog, it's a stock photo from iStock.
4) For the past 10 years my site has been hosted under my own domain name at GoDaddy.com. I'll investigate moving the template there or paying Wix extra to have the actual url be voicebyscott.com
Again, thank you all. I'm always hesitant to get too many cooks into the kitchen, but when EVERY cook agrees there's too much salt or not enough paprika, then it means something.
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Scott R. Pollak
Clients include Pandora, NPR Atlanta, Wells Fargo, Cisco, Humana, Publix, UPS, AT&T, HP, Xerox and more.
www.voicebyscott.com |
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todd ellis
A Zillion
Joined: 02 Jan 2007
Posts: 10528
Location: little egypt
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 7:13 am Post subject: |
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+1 on dan-o's comment re: demo's playing. they played fine - AFTER i figured out that i had to do more than click the title. the play buttons MIGHT be a little subtle - OR - i might just be dim.
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"i know philip banks": todd ellis
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Bruce
Boardmeister
Joined: 06 Jun 2005
Posts: 7977
Location: Portland, OR
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 7:49 am Post subject: |
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What Dan said, including I figured out how to make your demos play but it took me a few moments. I'll bet a lot of potential buyers won't spend that much time.
B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005
I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. . |
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bransom
DC
Joined: 06 Nov 2008
Posts: 650
Location: St. Louis, MO
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 8:21 am Post subject: |
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I hate to pile on but +1 to what Dan and others have said:
1. Thumbs down on Wix. (It looks like you're not successful enough to hire a designer.)
2. Playing the demos requires too many clicks and when you roll off the CD case, the play controls disappear.
3. I'm thinking use either dogs or wine but not both.
4. The URL redirects to Wix rather than staying on your URL.
5. The page title, that appears in the browser tab, says "Professional narration, voice..." (it's gone after that). Put your name first, all that other junk later.
6. Here's what it looks like on an iPhone or iPad:
Having said that, overall I like how the site looks (minus the mix of alcohol and dogs). If you recreated this in straight HTML, I think you'd be a world better off.
Bob
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Bob Ransom
"I really need a pithy quote here." |
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Mike Sommer
A Hundred Dozen
Joined: 05 May 2008
Posts: 1222
Location: Boss Angeles
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| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 9:50 am Post subject: |
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I love the site scott looks great!
But you built it in Flash. Flash is out in the world of iPhones and iPads.
HTML5 is the new standard for the next generation of websites.
For the convenience for those that may look you up on these devices, you may want to provide an alternative sub-site for these devices. Or rethink the entire site.
It's a bit of a bitch I know, but the way this whole internet thing is moving, content obtainable via portable devices is paramount. It seem like everyone around me is staring into their hand.
I really like what you have done.
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Acoustics are counter-intuitive. If one thing is certain about acoustics, it is that if anything seems obvious it is probably wrong. |
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