In honor of All Hallows Eve, here’s a fun little voiceover radio spot I recently completed for a client in Antigua. Promoting a Halloween Party at a local area club… The return of Madame Gincha, which is a character you may recall from my Characters Voice Over Demo. Audio mixed with a few character pics of me over the years.
Professional Voice Over Videos & Female Narration
Part 1 of an Interview with Marketing Expert, Cindy Malouin of Malouin Marketing
Professional Voice Over Talent Debbie Grattan chats with Marketing Expert Cindy Malouin about how professional voice over videos can be used to enhance overall marketing and improve visitor engagement with voice over talent websites.
Through her strategic marketing services, Cindy helps organizations build, grow and protect their businesses, while enhancing their images with both clients and referral sources. Cindy is the proud recipient of numerous marketing awards. She has a proven track record of consistently producing high-quality,results-driven marketing programs.”
Professional Voiceover Talent, Debbie Grattan: I know you have written on this topic before, but let’s review what are the top reasons for having professional voice over videos on your web site?
Cindy Malouin: The most important reason is that people engage with video. By having video on your web site, people are able to get a sense of your personality. And you can have a personal conversation with the visitors who are coming to your web site—it gives you that opportunity. There have been studies done about different learning styles and it’s estimated that 60% of people are visual learners. So it means that they retain and they engage more if they’re presented with something in a visual manner, such as a video. If you’re able to do that on your web site, you’re going to be able to engage your visitors to hear more of your message.
Professional Voiceover Talent, Debbie Grattan: Which would explain the popularity of sites like Youtube.
Cindy Malouin: Yes, exactly. Right now, the first instinct for a lot of people is to go to Youtube to watch “how-to” videos and get more information that way. There truly is a prevalence of people going to those types of sites and learning in that manner.
The other important reason to have video on your web site, specifically on the home page, is for search engines. Search engines love video content. So you actually rank higher with search engines if you have video on your site.
Debbie Grattan: I thought that search engines just searched for written content.
Cindy Malouin: Video content, specifically links to Youtube and other video sites, work great with search engines and help you reach higher in search results.
Debbie Grattan: Is there a bit of trepidation for people to go into video—how hard it is for people to actually put something together to have on their web site?
Cindy Malouin: It’s really not that hard at all. People can be very intimidated by creating a video and thinking it has to be a big production, but it doesn’t have to be. Honestly, anyone who has a video camera can produce videos. If we’re talking about professional voice over talent or someone who focuses on doing a lot of female narration voice overs, it is important to portray yourself in a very professional, polished way. You don’t want it to come across as amateurish, so whether you decide to shoot a video on your own or actually hire a videographer or production company, the bottom line is that you need to make sure that you’re coming across polished and professional.
Debbie Grattan: Can you speak more about that: professional versus casual? With video we’re trying to put our personality forward, so how formal should we be, especially as a female narration specialist trying to gain clientele?
Cindy Malouin: You want to be formal in the sense that you want to demonstrate your capabilities as a female narration voice over talent. You want the audio to be clear, you want to present your personality and your persona, and you also want to come across as friendly. It’s an opportunity for people to get to know you without actually having a sit-down meeting with you. You want to have your personality shine through.
Read Part 2 of this interview, “Marketing Your Voice Over Services With Video.”
On Breaking Into Radio and TV Commercial Voiceovers
Radio and TV Commercial Voiceovers
People often ask me about how to break into radio and tv commercial voiceovers. Lately, my standard tidbit of advice has become “google it” because you can find all kinds of good information on the internet about how to get into the radio and tv commercial voiceover business. But, when I first got my start in the voiceover business, the internet didn’t even exist (as far as most people knew), and “google” was just a really big number that I vaguely recalled from a high school math class I often snoozed through.
The truth is, just like in any business, it takes a significant amount of time and effort to build and maintain a career as a successful voiceover actor. This holds true for radio and tv commercial voiceover work, as well as most types of narration jobs. Looking back over the years, I see many, many in-person connections that were made with recording studios, production companies, talent agencies, and clients. And, even before that, there was the training, in both stage acting and as a voiceover actor specifically, that allowed me to get to a level where I could be hired repeatedly to deliver my voiceover services.
Talent Debbie Grattan offers some helpful suggestions
But, like most things in life, just because something looks (or sounds) easy doesn’t mean that it actually IS easy. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone called me during the past 20 years and said, “My (pick one… friend, spouse, neighbor, dog) thinks I have a really great voice and that I should get into the voiceover business as my new profession. Can you tell me how to go about doing that?”
I was trained as an actor on stage starting in college and later performed in many productions in and around Southern California over a 15-year period (all back in the 80s and 90s). Add to that several television appearances, commercials, and even movies. I believe that my acting skills are really the foundation that has allowed me to make a pretty good living as a female Voiceover actor through the years. Here is what you can do if you’re interested in getting into the voiceover business:
Starting Place: Find a Good Radio and TV Voiceover Acting Workshop
I feel the key to getting started in the radio, and tv commercial voiceover business (and this is always what I tell any aspiring new voice talent) is to take a good quality professional voiceover acting workshop like those offered in the major markets of LA, Chicago, and New York. I studied with Kalmenson & Kalmenson and Voicecasters in LA, two of the best around at the time (and I believe still to this day).
Not only will you learn some of the fundamentals of the craft of voiceover acting, but you’ll get to find out what’s involved and required to be successful in this type of business. It’s important to learn this early, so you can decide if you are really up to putting forth the investment of time and effort it will take to truly make it long-term.
There’s a lot more to it than most people realize, especially in this day and age, with our new technology standards. I probably spend less than 20% of my time actually recording audio tracks these days. The rest of the time is devoted to running a business, editing projects, marketing, submitting auditions, invoicing, updating my website, doing social media networking, keeping track of clients, returning phone calls and emails, and simply taking care of all the little details that one must take care of as a business owner. It’s a full-time job just to do all of that stuff! Luckily I have some help from my husband, who has pitched to varying degrees over the years and is currently keeping my website high in the search engines and implementing internet marketing strategies to bring in even more business.
Many people naively think that just because they have a good-sounding voice, they can buy some equipment, build a decent home recording studio, and break into the business. While that may still be possible for a lucky, talented few, most just don’t have the foundation to do this work and create a lasting successful income. It sounds easy when you hear a voiceover actor in a commercial and think, “I can do that!” But, to actually be able to give a director exactly what they want in a session, and get to the sound they are looking for with no reference to copy or imitate, and get it in the time needed, and do that over and over again for many different clients… That takes a skill set that can only come (except for those very talented few) through hard work, dedication and experience.
Just getting to a point where you are in a position to book a job, with all of those foundational elements handled and in place, is enough to allow only those that are truly motivated and equally talented at making a go of it.
If I sound a bit discouraging, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to rain on anybody’s parade. I’m just very aware that there are an awful lot of websites and slick promoters out there who will tell you that becoming a voiceover actor is easy. That anybody with a good voice should go for it, and if you just pay this nominal $1000 (or $4000) fee we’ll get you all set up with some classes and a great demo that will allow you to make scads of cash in no time at all!
As the saying goes…”If it sounds too good, it’s probably been voiced by a pro voiceover actor.”
Making decent money in this profession (consistently) will require a great deal of commitment, training, dedication, and luck. It’s a tough business. Even tougher now than it was ten years ago because there is so much competition. If you are up for that challenge, I say, “best of luck, go get ’em,” and I’ll wish you much success. And maybe I’ll “see” you at the next audition.
Debbie Grattan is a professional female voiceover actor who has been doing voice over work for over 20 years. She’s been a “go-to” artist for many production companies and recording studios across the US for several years. Check out Debbie’s Radio and TV Commerical Voiceovers Demos and request a Custom Voiceover Acting Audition or Quote for your upcoming project.
Affordable Voice-Over SEO Tips for Voice Talent
Part 3 of an Interview with SEO Expert, Jason McDonald of JM Internet Group
Female Voice Talent Debbie Grattan chats with SEO Expert Jason McDonald about some very affordable voice-over solutions that commercial voice talent can use to improve their Search Engine Ranking (see links to parts one and two of this interview at bottom of page).
Dr. McDonald has extensive online journalism and teaching experience. In charge of eg3.com’s SEO and PPC strategy, he built eg3.com into the oldest and largest web portal in embedded systems with over 25,000 monthly users and over 35,000 registered eLetter subscribers. He also teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area at AcademyX, DeVry, and Stanford University (Continuing Studies).
Commercial Voice-Over Talent, Debbie Grattan: What do you think is the biggest mistake that people in the commercial voice-over business (or any small business) make when trying to improve their Google search ranking?
Jason McDonald: Oh, that’s easy. They don’t try. I would say 90-95% of small business owners do nothing when it comes to improving their SEO. They have no strategy. They don’t make it a priority. They don’t try to understand it.
Debbie Grattan: Or maybe they just don’t know what they don’t know?
Jason McDonald: I guess you could say that, but it’s really that they don’t make the effort to even find out what they don’t know. This is a learn by doing art. It’s a lot like physical fitness. You have to get started and you have to be realistic and give it time. We’re not all going to run marathons, but we can all walk around the block once a day. So making an effort is the most important thing to do and the biggest mistake is to do nothing.
Debbie Grattan: So, to help people, can you recommend some affordable SEO voice-over resources?
Jason McDonald: One of the reasons I got pulled into doing training is there aren’t that many good resources out there. I think the reason for that is because the SEO industry is currently dominated by these sort of geeky, nerdy people who speak a secret language and who don’t make this accessible to the average person.
My personal mission isn’t to be the innovator in terms of the latest esoteric thing. I want to be the popularizer, the guy who makes it easy to understand.
A helpful and affordable voice-over resource for any commercial voice-over talent is to go to Amazon and buy a couple good books on the subject. I have a book on Amazon, Peter Kent wrote “SEO for Dummies”, which I think is an excellent resource to have in your library. Get a few of the good SEO books and begin implementing the information. That is probably your most affordable voice-over strategy for getting up to speed with your SEO.
Secondly, finding a few people like myself, teachers or mentors who make this easier to understand and follow them on Google+ or Twitter. Maybe take a class or two, which seems to help most people quite a bit. Get yourself into the learning curve and start wrapping your mind around the concepts.
Debbie Grattan: I know you offer classes on SEO and have a helpful website, and what else can you recommend for affordable voice-over SEO solutions?
Jason McDonald: Yes, my website is www.jm-seo.org or Google “Jason McDonald SEO.” There’s also an official Google SEO Guide. It was written in 2010 so it’s a bit dated, but it contains probably a third of what you need to know.
Debbie Grattan: Can you sum up everything here in a nice little nutshell? Maybe focused on voice talent who wants to be more visible?
Jason McDonald: First of all, it’s like any area of knowledge. If you want to become a good cook, you have to start cooking; you have to start paying attention to how people cook. You have to read some cookbooks. You have to be a critic about what you eat. You have to make it a priority that you want to understand this and have the humility that you’re not going to understand it fully right away. It’s going to take some time. So, the first thing is attitude – that you WANT to do this and you’re going to make it a priority to succeed at it in the long run.
The second thing is, put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Where do they go to find commercial voice-over talent? What are the steps that they would go through to identify somebody they would like to hire? Then reverse engineer that process. So, if they go to google, what keywords are they going to type in? If they go to Facebook, what kind of Facebook page are they going to “like” and want to interact with? As the saying goes, the customer is always right and that definitely applies when it comes to SEO and social media. Wherever your customers are hanging out is where you want to be.
From there, the quickest, easiest, most important thing is: Know your keywords and put your keywords in your title tags on your website. If you do that, you will be ahead of 80% of the people in your industry. It’s pretty easy to get that accomplished. I have many people who take my classes and we fix that one problem, and they rejoice! They suddenly do so much better on searches. It’s a simple thing that can make a huge difference.
Debbie Grattan: Is that something you can do on your own – without HTML and without having knowledge of building a website?
Jason McDonald: Sure. For most of your web software, whether it’s WordPress, Dreamweaver, or on Godaddy, there is somewhere in the software that deals with “Title of the Page.” Create a good title that includes some of your highest priority keywords. Or if you have a web designer, tell them what you want it to say. You can go to any web page on the internet and look at the very top of the browser and whatever is at the very tippy top – that is the title (on this webpage that you are reading, the Title starts with “Affordable Voice-Over SEO…” Find it now so you know where to find the Title in your browser). If the title does not have the keywords, you’re dead in the water. It’s very simple to see on any website.
Debbie Grattan: It seems like it’s such an easy thing to do and people who are serious in any business would take advantage of this!
Jason McDonald: Unfortunately, most people don’t understand it and aren’t taking advantage of it and we’re still so early for most small business people that the good news is, if you just make minimal effort, you’re ahead of 70-80% of everyone else right away. It’s true that once you get the minimal stuff handled, then it gets more complicated. But most businessesowners are just not very competitive in terms of SEO so there’s a big advantage for those who take the time to figure it out.
I always emphasize to people to stay positive, stay motivated. People can become discouraged about learning SEO. I find that part of my job as a good instructor is to be a good motivator. I keep reminding my students, “this is doable!” That attitude is so important to success and I always want to impart that to the people I work. For various reasons, the SEO gurus try to discourage people from understanding this but once you get it, you kind of just go, “Oh this is actually pretty easy!”
Be sure to read Part 1 & Part 2 of this article to see additional suggestions from Dr. Jason McDonald on what commercial voice-over talent can do to improve search results.
Part 1: Professional Voice Over Marketing SEO Tips for Voice Talent – Part 1
Part 2: Professional Voiceover SEO Marketing Tips for Voice Talent – Part 2
Professional Voiceover SEO Marketing Tips for Voice Talent – Part 2
Professional Voiceover Actress Debbie Grattan chats with SEO Expert Jason McDonald about how professional voiceover talents can improve their website ranking through SEO (search engine optimization). Check out Part 1 of this article first.
Part 2 of an Interview with Voiceover SEO Expert Jason McDonald of JM Internet Group
Dr. McDonald has extensive online journalism and teaching experience. In charge of eg3.com’s SEO and PPC strategy, he built eg3.com into the oldest and largest web portal in embedded systems with over 25,000 monthly users and over 35,000 registered eLetter subscribers. He also teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area at AcademyX, DeVry, and Stanford University (Continuing Studies).
SEO Expert Jason McDonald: The fourth thing you need to focus on has a way to add inbound links to your professional voiceover website. Easy pickings for that are Google Places, your local listing, Bing, being a member of various associations, Chamber of Commerce websites, etc. Make sure you’re getting other websites to link to your site. I always recommend people create a habit of asking for inbound links every chance they get.
Professional Voiceover Talent, Debbie Grattan: Just to clarify… Inbound links are different than reciprocal links. Is that right?
SEO Expert Jason McDonald: Yes, that gets a little bit complicated. It’s like a politician getting votes — you definitely want to get other websites to link to your website without always having to do a reciprocal link. One of the mistakes many businesses make is they don’t have a systematic always-looking-for-links strategy. So they think, oh, I need 10,000 links, and they just give up because it’s overwhelming. If you just have ten links and your competitor has three, then you win. It’s always relative. You don’t have to run faster than the bear, and you just have to run faster than the guy you’re hiking with!
Professional Voiceover Talent, Debbie Grattan: I get it!
SEO Expert Jason McDonald: Finally, we reach number five, where we get into social media. At least think about doing things with Google+, a little on Twitter, and posting to Facebook. Google looks at what’s called your social mentions. Is your website being talked about? That social part of the search can be essential.
Debbie Grattan: What is a good social media strategy for a professional voiceover talent? Is this really something we need to focus on?
SEO Expert Jason McDonald: The short answer to should social media be important? is: Absolutely! You’ve got to fish where the fish are. You’ve got to go to the area where people might be in the mindset for engaging with your type of service. So for instance, to the extent that this is a business relationship, that’s where LinkedIn is probably your more important social media platform because that is more geared toward business. Even if you go with the minimal stuff – at least have a LinkedIn profile. Try to build your connections so that when someone starts to think, “Oh I need a voice for an upcoming professional voiceover project,” they easily think of you. Social media can help you stay top of mind with your clients and prospects.
The first thing to do is identify which platforms make sense for your business. Where can you come into contact with your target customers? LinkedIn is a good platform if you have a more serious professional business service to offer.
Facebook is sort of weird because, on the one hand, it’s the largest platform, but on the other hand, the mood people are in when they’re on Facebook is more about fun, family, and friends. So to the extent that you can have a persona for your company on Facebook that’s about those things, it can be a good platform. Some businesses are very Facebook-friendly. Others are not. So, Facebook is a bit of a question mark for this industry.
The next one I see a lot of potential for with professional voiceovers is YouTube. What’s cool about YouTube is it can be sort of a supporting role for a website. So if I land on your website and I’m curious about you as a professional voice over talent, YouTube’s got the platform installed. I can click on a YouTube video inside of a webpage or blog post, and I can really get to know you and what you can offer. Even something as simple as, here’s Debbie with her headphones on, recording some stuff… Even though you’re an auditory service, the picture’s worth a thousand words. The engagement’s worth a thousand words.
The other thing I think about YouTube that I don’t think people fully appreciate is human beings are wired for facial recognition, face-to-face contact – there’s something very powerful about looking into a computer screen and seeing another person looking back at you and saying, “I’m a professional voiceover talent, and this is how I do it.” It’s very personal.
You get a feel for a person through a video that you cannot get otherwise. Not only your completed projects but also some behind-the-scenes footage of you doing your job. It’s very interesting because you get a good sense of the artist and see them enjoying making their art.
Debbie Grattan: That’s a great point. That’s something I hadn’t thought of.
SEO Expert Jason McDonald: It’s compelling to have it be not too slick but authentic. You could have both of those and do well for a professional voiceover business. I think we feel like if we’re going to do video, we have to be perfect, and sometimes there’s a tension between the slickness of the perfection and authenticity. Authentic is more important on YouTube than slick.
Read the final installment of this interview, and also be sure to check out Part 1 of Professional Voice Over SEO Marketing Tips.
Part 1: Professional Voice Over Marketing SEO Tips for Voice Talent – Part 1
Part 3: Affordable Voice-Over SEO Tips for Voice Talent – Part 3
Professional Voice Over Marketing SEO Tips for Voice Talent – Part 1
Part 1 of an Interview with SEO Expert, Jason McDonald of JM Internet Group
Professional Voice Over Actress Debbie Grattan chats with SEO Expert Jason McDonald about how professional voice over marketing SEO tips can improve voice talent website ranking through SEO (search engine optimization).
Dr. McDonald has extensive online journalism and teaching experience. In charge of eg3.com’s SEO and PPC strategy, he built eg3.com into the oldest and largest web portal in embedded systems with over 25,000 monthly users and over 35,000 registered eLetter subscribers. He also teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area at AcademyX, DeVry, and Stanford University (Continuing Studies).
Debbie Grattan, Professional Voice Over Actress: Can you give me a sense of a big picture look at what the best professional voice over marketing strategy would be for a voice over talent looking to improve their SEO?
Jason McDonald: To begin with, I think you have to divide your customers into groups. That’s Marketing 101, right? Customer segmentation. There is one group of people who have never heard of you or even perhaps the whole professional voice over industry, but they have a need for your voice over service. Those people are generally going to go to Google and do a search. So, I think that SEO (search engine optimization) is a very important part of the overall strategy if potential customers are going to be searching for what you are selling.
Now, the question becomes, “What keywords or key phrases are these people who are searching going to use?” It is imperative that you know what keywords are most often used by your professional voiceover clients and customers, so that you can optimize your site for those words and phrases and get to the top of search results. It takes some time, effort and a little brainstorming to get a good solid list but it’s a critical step.
Finally, once they click over to your website, then you get to phase two, where there has to be something on your website that’s engaging, and that makes them want to kick the tires and find out a little about you. This is where I think a lot of people fall into the trap of not realizing that you have these two groups: 1) People who know you or come through word of mouth and 2) people who don’t know you and are searching. I think that conceptualization is really important to the process of developing a good internet strategy.
Debbie Grattan: We also have another group of people that know me and have worked with me, but maybe only once. What is the best strategy for that group?
Jason McDonald: Exactly. You have people who’ve used you one time or they’ve requested a voiceover services quote and then you’ve got to stay in touch with them so that they think about you the next time they have a need for professional voice over services because they’re busy too and they might forget about you if you don’t stay in touch.
Debbie Grattan: Looking at the list of keywords, what would you recommend for professional voice over actors to focus on?
Jason McDonald: I would use a systematic approach, rather than pulling them out of thin air. There are free tools on the internet that will be helpful for this. The most famous one is Google Keyword Tool, which posts the results of a 24/7 survey of how people search the internet. It will give you the volume of how many people are searching any specific keyword or keyword phrase.
The first thing you’ve got to know is what those keywords are for your business. It’s like going to the Olympics — You have to know what sport you want to get a gold medal in. You have to know what keywords you want to rank high in before you do anything else.
Once you know those keywords, the next important thing to do is get them into the “title tags” on your website. It’s the biggest bang for your buck. Probably the most common mistake that businesses make is that they don’t have good title tags on their website. They’re trying to show up for “female voice over talent”, but their title tag says something like “Home” or “John Smith”. You’ve got to get those title tags working for you.
Third is decent content. Most websites just throw up ten pages and call it a day. Google rewards sites that have lots of content. This is where we need to get in the rat race. You need to stay on your keyword themes and you’ve got to create a lot of content and keep creating it with some consistent frequency. In my classes for my students, I say, “Let’s set a goal of a thousand pages indexed by Google.” There’s usually an audible gasp or groan and people say, “Oh my gosh, how can I ever get a thousand pages?” and I say, “Well, if you get one blog post per day; it doesn’t have to be a ton of content, but you have 365 pages per year right there.”
Please keep reading this interview:
Part 2: Professional Voiceover SEO Marketing Tips for Voice Talent – Part 2
Part 3: Affordable Voice-Over SEO Tips for Voice Talent – Part 3
