Why should I have a website ?
Let's face it, in today's modern world people use the Internet for almost everything. We buy things, take classes, do our banking, pay our bills, and we do research! A web site is a great way to promote yourself and/or your products to a wide variety of people from around the world. You can list your current local class schedule, events you will be hosting or performing at, information on your rates and rules for private parties and workshops, you can sell your videos/cd's/products, and you can put anything else that you want people to know on there. Many people have their biography, resume, skills (sword, cane, shamadan, debke, etc...), classes, events, and something fun that they like to let people know (their view on the history of dance, their opinions on styles, how to do certain beginner moves, articles they have written, articles/media they have been featured in, etc...); the possibilities are endless. No matter what you decide you want on your site it's an easy way for people to find out information about you as a dancer whether it's local people looking for classes or someone on the other side of the world looking for someone to do a workshop in their community.
What should I put in my website?
What you put in your website will differ based on what you are trying to promote. If you are trying to promote yourself as a teacher you will want to have information about your classes (What style(s) you teach, where you hold classes, how much you charge, etc...). If your promoting yourself as a performer you will want to have information on you abilities and availability ( how long you've been performing, where you perform, how much you charge for private parties, how much for workshops, what style(s) you perform, who did you study with, etc...). You will want to keep your website related to what your trying to promote. Most websites I've seen are for dancers who both perform and teach so I'll give a brief overview of what most of these dancers put into their site. I'll go over these in more detail later.
1. Biography (most dancers tell their personal story of their experience and involvement in Middle Eastern Dance, sometimes telling about previous experiences with other dance forms as well).
2. Classes (Type of class, Location(s), Time(s), Price, and contact information)
3. Performances (Where and when can you be seen performing in restaurants, shows, etc...)
4. Booking Information (How to book you for private parties / shows / events / workshops, how much do you charge how long is the performance, styles / types of dances you perform, rules that you have, etc...)
5. Links (Starting with links to local information such as site's for other local dancers, other local performance venues, local organizations, local shops, etc... then usually a section for links to non-local sites and maybe an additional section separating that into international sites.
6. Contact Information (Your e-mail, phone, address of location you teach at, etc...)
7. Picture Gallery (You and/or your troupe/friends performing at local events and shows in professional costumes)
What Should Go Into My Biography
Your biography is your story. It's all about you and your experiences with dance. Some people like to include pretty much their entire life story however, I think it's more important to focus on your dance history, specifically the parts that focus on Middle Eastern Dance. You should include how long you have been dancing and how long you have been teaching and/or performing as well as who you have studied with. Make sure you tell specifically your involvement with this type of dance and don't focus on the others you may have studied. One of my biggest pet peeves (and one that many dancers feel the same about) is when you read a biography and it says the dancer has been dancing for 15 years but it neglects to mention that only 2 of those years were in Middle Eastern Dance and only 5 months of that was spent in performing this dance. Be honest and upfront about your skills and experience because if your not it will come back and bite you on the rear. If someone hired you and expected a dancer with 15 years of Middle Eastern Dance background they would very easily be able to tell that you have not been dancing that long and they will be upset that you misrepresented yourself so poorly. Another thing that you may want to put into your bio is who you have studied with. Now this is also an area that I feel strongly about. If you put who you've studied with that doesn't necessarily mean that ever single person that you took an hour long workshop with should be mentioned. You should list your main teacher(s) that you have studied with in weekly lessons first. Then you may want to list separately the workshops that have really influenced you and then if you really think that you have to have it in there you can list "workshops I have attended" as the very last and least important part. For example you might say something like this I studied with Cassandra for 3 years and Margo Abdo O'dell for 2. I then studied with Aziza for 2 years and Suhaila for 3. I was really inspired by a workshop I took with Delilah that focused on veils and by a workshop I took with Nadia that focused on canes. Or you might list it differently like this
Dancers I've Studied With:
Cassandra 3 years
Margo Abdo O'dell 2 years
Aziza 2 years
Suhaila 3 years.
Workshops That Have Really Inspired Me:
Delilah (Veils)
Nadia (Canes)
There's many ways to list your credentials but don't make it sound like you may have studied with a workshop teacher for years if you only spent 2 hours in her workshop.
Contact Information
It is very important to list contact information. This is vital in being hired. Whether someone want's to ask you a question about classes or performances or hire you to dance at a wedding you need some way for them to get in touch with you. You should always include your name (stage name) and an e-mail address (if your building a website you have to have an e-mail it's ridiculous not to). You should have a telephone number which people may contact you by and you can list a mailing address if you have one (DO NOT LIST YOUR HOME ADDRESS). If you teach out of your home do not list you home address but do list your city and state when someone want's to take lessons from you you can provide an adress to them at that time. It's good to have multiple ways of contacting you so that people can use the method most conveinient for them.
How Do I Decide who I should use for web hosting?
First you should sit down and think about what you reallly want to do with your site. How many pages do you think you will need (be realistic) 1? 5? 10? 50? 100? if you went with exactly what I've posted under the above section "What Should I Put in my Website?" then you will probably want to look into a package that has 10 pages or you could put multiple information onto each page and go with a 5 page package. When I looked into hosting options I found the most common packages available from any company were 5, 10, and unlimited pages. Also consider whether you want to sell something or not. If your not selling anything then don't waste money on merchant packages that you will never use or at least not use for a while. Many places allow you to upgrade your services to include merchant abilities later when you will need it. So if you only need 5 pages and your not going to sell something then don't go for a big expensive package with all the bells and whistles just look for a simple package that's made for 5 or less pages and no merchant perks (often considered a hobby site) Decide what will go into your site first and then look for appropriate packages according to your needs. Another thing to consider are the free pages available through some places. Personally if you want to use one temporarily until you get a better site up and running I think thats OK but, I don't reccomend them for long term usage. Personally I hate the free hosting sites that I've been to. Your bombarded with pop-up's and banners for things you could care less about. The worst in my opinion is the geocities pages I hate that pop-up window that you have to first minimize and then close. When I come accross a site like this I usually just close it and go to a different site unless I really need to go there. Most people find it annoying and don't want to have to deal with it so don't lose potential customers because of this.
Should I Hire Someone to Build my Site For Me or Should I Build it Myself?
This is really a personal choice but I personally feel that a site you build yourself is better. It has more of you in it and allows people to connect with you. However, there are advantages the hireing a professional as well. So many programs are out there today that make web building as easy as point and click that you really don't have to know anything at all about java, html, and other script languages to build a great site. However, if you still don't want the major hassle consider hireing someone to create the site for you and then show you how to add or edit the information that changes frequently then all you have to do is worry about the upkeep and general maintanance of your site and all the designing can be left for someone else. Keep in mind though, professionals can be very expensive and it may not be worth it.
Appearance and Functionality
The asthetic appeal of your site is very important since you are trying to sell yourself as a performer. People will associate how well your site looks with how they think you will perform even though it's not a direct correlation (it's just how the mind tends to work). If you see two Italian restraunts right next to each other and they have the same menu but one is in a new well designed building and the other is in a run down old building most people will tend to choose the nicer looking building. Now in reality the older run down restaurant may have better food but it's just not as appealing to the customer as it's well designed neighbor. Part of what makes a site apealing is it's over-all functionality your subject matter should be well organized and easy to navigate. Place realted subjects together and leave out unneccessary stuff. Once you have created your site and you think it's both asthetically pleasing and has good functionality then ask some people to look at it and give you feedback, be sure to ask people involved in Middle Eastern Dance as well as those who have little to no knowledge of it. That way you will get honest feedback from different view points and then you will know if you need to improve something or not.
What Makes A Site Appealing?
The number one thing in my opinion that makes a site visually appealing is how well you can read the text. Some people use backgrounds that are too intense and it's actually painful to look at because of the imense strain it puts on your eyes. If your bacground is to busy it will distract the eye and make it difficult to read. Now there are some beautifully done sites that are high contrast such as those with black backgrounds and white text that are OK. The reason they are OK is because they are not ment to be looked at for long periods of time. They list their schedules and information in a neat orderly fashion which is meant to be viewed quickly. There are no lengthy articles to read and nothing that takes a lot of time to look at. If you want to do the black background with white text make sure you keep everything short and to the point so that the viewer does not strain their eyes while reading. Another thing that is often not good with a black background are colored text. Usually people you the color text to highlight something they feel is important but depending on the shade of the color it can make it hard to seperate the color from the background. Some people say that black background with green text is the easiest to read and hurts your eyes the least however I find it it very painful to look at for long periods of time. Back when I had my brand new Apple II E (Very old computer that really only displays in black with green text) I had horible headaches every day. So when just try staring at your site for an hour or so and see how your eyes feel before deciding on that design. When using color on a black backrgound try to use pastel colors only, bright reds, greens, and blues are too hard to distinguish (especially as you get older). Make sure that your text is big enough to read for everyone. When you ask someone to look at your site make sure you ask people who are older, wear glasses/contacts, or use a smaller screen (depending on the size screen you have). This way when you get feedback you will be able to make your site easy to view for everyone. A lot of people like to add music to their site so people can hear the exciting rythyms and melodies that you dance to but, make sure you leave it as an option that people can turn the music off. Some people find the music distracting or don't care for that particular piece, sometimes it's nice to hear once or twice and then you really don't want to hear it anymore. For some people that music also makes the loading of the site go slower (especially older computers and dial-up connections), keep this in mind when your putting pictures and other media files on your site.
