Actor website: what to include, what it costs and how to set it up

An actor website is a simple site at your own name that puts your headshots, resume, reel and contact route in one place, so anyone who hears your name can check you out in under a minute. You don't strictly need one, but it is cheap, it is the one page about you that you fully control, and it is what turns up when a casting assistant or agent types your name into Google.

Casting director Amy Jo Berman puts it plainly: "actors do not need their own websites to achieve their career goals," and "a website in and of itself is not going to get you a job." She still thinks actors should have one, because it lets casting professionals "see what you want them to see in the order you want them to see it" (Casting Frontier). Spotlight's guide makes the same point from the other side: a personal site helps industry professionals find you, but it should add to your casting profile, not replace it (Spotlight).

So the order of work is: casting profiles first (they are where submissions happen), then a website that collects everything and points back to them. If you have no headshot or resume yet, start with the headshots guide and the acting resume guide; a site with nothing on it does you no favors.

The sources agree on a short list. Spotlight's advice is to "only include necessary information with a minimal design," so a visitor can see quickly who you are, what you do and how to reach you (Spotlight).

1. Your name and a current headshot, large, at the top of the home page. Berman's advice is a headshot that matches how you look now (Casting Frontier).
2. Your reel or best clip, embedded so it plays on the page. If you have no footage yet, leave this out rather than posting something weak; the demo reel guide covers where footage comes from.
3. Your resume, readable on the page and as a download. Keep it current and clearly organized (Casting Frontier). Arlo's free resume builder exports a PDF you can upload.
4. A small photo gallery: a few more headshots for different types, plus production or behind-the-scenes stills if you have them. Berman also suggests photos that show special skills (Casting Frontier).
5. A short bio in plain language: where you trained, what you have done recently, what you are working on now. Spotlight also suggests a news page and any press or reviews of your work (Spotlight).
6. A contact route: your representation if you have it, and a professional email (see the privacy section below).

Links to your Actors Access, Casting Networks and IMDb pages and your active social accounts belong in the footer or contact page (Spotlight, Casting Frontier). A blog is optional; the Casting Frontier piece quotes a coach who prefers short "microblog" updates about current projects and classes over long posts (Casting Frontier).

Most new actors do best with a single scrolling page instead of five thin pages behind a menu. In order from the top:

• Header: your name as it appears on your resume, and one line such as "Actor, Los Angeles" plus your union status if you have one.
• Hero: your primary headshot beside the embedded reel or clip.
• Credits: your resume as on-page text (it loads faster than a PDF viewer and reads on a phone), with a "Download PDF" link under it.
• Photos: a grid of extra headshots and stills, each opening full size.
• About: the short bio, with training and recent work.
• Contact: representation, a contact form or professional email, and links to your casting profiles.

Templates are fine as a starting point. Spotlight's advice is to look at sites you like, note what works, and adapt a template so your site does not look like everyone else's (Spotlight). Check the finished page on your phone: that is where an agent between meetings is most likely to open it.

The domain. Use your acting name, the same one on your resume and union card, if it is available (Spotlight). A .com at your name is the easiest to remember; add "actor" (yournameactor.com) if the plain name is taken. Turn on auto-renew: Spotlight's author advises renewing before the domain lapses and setting it to renew automatically (Spotlight).

The builder. A drag-and-drop builder is enough. Spotlight names Wix, Squarespace and GoDaddy as options with templates and step-by-step guides (Spotlight). Prices as listed on the builders' own pages on October 27, 2026:

• Squarespace Basic: $19 a month billed annually, or $25 a month billed monthly. Annual plans include one free custom domain for the first year (on the cheapest domain pricing tier); after that the domain renews at the standard rate (Squarespace).
• Wix free plan: no credit card, but the site lives at a username.wixsite.com address; a Premium plan lets you connect your own domain and remove Wix branding (Wix).

A free subdomain is fine while you test a design, but put your own domain on it before you print the address on a resume. Budget the first-year price and the renewal price; a cheap first year that doubles at renewal is still a cost you have to carry every year you act.

Don't need a full site yet? Your Actors Access custom link is a free-standing public page with your photos, media, résumé and representation (Actors Access Help Center). Until you build a site, that link is a reasonable thing to put on your resume and social bios. The Actors Access guide explains the profile.

Don't upload a large video file to the site builder. Host the reel on YouTube or Vimeo and embed it; Berman suggests YouTube or Vimeo, kept unlisted if you want it seen only by people you send to your site (Casting Frontier).

• YouTube unlisted: anyone with the link can watch, but the video does not appear on your channel's Videos tab or in YouTube search (unless someone adds it to a public playlist), and viewers don't need a Google account (YouTube Help). To embed, open the video, choose Share, then Embed, and paste the code into your builder's embed block (YouTube Help).
• Leave "Allow embedding" checked in YouTube Studio; unchecking it turns off embedding for the video. Avoid anything that triggers an age restriction: YouTube says age-restricted videos "can't be watched on most 3rd party websites" (YouTube Help).
• Vimeo specific domains: Vimeo lets you list up to 50 domains where a video can be embedded; sites not on the list get an error (Vimeo Help Center). Add your own domain so the reel plays on your site and can't be lifted onto someone else's.

Label each clip with the project title and put your strongest clip first, the same rules as the reel itself. If a clip came from an audition, keep it off a public site unless the production has said you may share it.

A website is public to everyone, not just casting. Three rules:

1. Use a professional email on your own domain (name@yourname.com) rather than a generic free address; Berman recommends exactly this (Casting Frontier).
2. Don't publish your phone number or home address. Berman advises against a public phone number for privacy reasons (Casting Frontier). A contact form keeps your address off the page entirely.
3. List representation first if you have it: agency name, agent or manager name, and the agency's office line, so the people who book you go through them (Casting Frontier). The acting agent guide covers how to get one.

Minors' sites need extra care: a parent should own the domain and the inbox, keep the child's school, neighborhood and schedule off the page, and route every contact through a parent or the child's representative. The child actor guide covers permits and trust accounts.

A website does most of its work through the places that link to it. Link it from:

• Your resume. Put the address under your name on the PDF and printed copies (Spotlight).
• IMDb. With an IMDbPro Basic or Premium subscription you can set a vanity URL in the form imdb.me/yourname, a short address that lands on your IMDb page; it is managed in the "Vanity URL & other external websites" section of your IMDbPro page (IMDb Help Center).
• Casting Frontier. Its premium profile can link to any website you choose (Casting Frontier).
• Casting Networks. Premium members can create a custom profile link. It can be changed only once every 90 days, and old links stop working when you change it, so pick it once and use the same one everywhere (Casting Networks Support).
• Actors Access. Your custom link begins resumes.actorsaccess.com and shows photos, media, résumé and representation but no personal contact information (Actors Access Help Center); link it from your site's contact section.
• Social bios and email signature. The same address, every time.

You don't have to submit a new site to Google. Google says it "automatically looks for sites to add to our index," that you usually don't need to do anything beyond publishing, and that it can take a few weeks to notice a new site or changes to one (Google Search Central). Google also suggests adding the site to Search Console to check for errors and send it your most important URLs (Google Search Central).

What helps a name search most is simple: your full acting name in the page title and the main heading, the same spelling everywhere, and links to the site from your IMDb page and casting profiles. Spotlight's guide notes that the builders include guides on setting the keywords that describe your site, so it appears when people search them (Spotlight).

• Out-of-date photos or credits. Update the site whenever your headshot, reel or representation changes; Spotlight suggests regular updates and a news page so you can add items without redesigning (Spotlight).
• A home page that is just a photo and a menu. Put the headshot, reel and contact on the first screen.
• Autoplaying video or music, splash pages and slideshows that make a busy reader wait.
• A dead domain during a redesign. Keep the old site live or show a "coming soon" page, then point the domain at the new one (Spotlight).
• Monologue or script text pasted onto the page. You don't hold the rights; link to your reel instead, and practice material lives on Offbook.
• Training you can't name. List classes you have actually taken, with the teacher or school. If your training section is thin, Arlo's LA Acting Class Price Index shows what classes cost and on-camera classes give you reel-ready practice.