Indie Film Marketing: How to Design a Website for your Film
Creating an Image for Your Project: Design a Website!
Most filmmakers and artist do not even think about marketing or distribution when creating a new project. This is where many projects fail. The first line of defense in creating a brand or image around your project is YOUR WEBSITE. Now how do you Design a Website? Designing a killer website for tour film is one of the most underestimated part of the indie filmmaker’s marketing plan.
Distributors, film festivals, production companies and even the general public (who is more savvy than ever these days) looks at a website as a sign of the quality of the project they are being sold. If the website sucks, then impress people get is…
“…more than likely the film or project doesn’t have great production value or good story telling and I should just move on.”
Now, I know what you’re going to say,
“But Alex I’m not a technical person and don’t have the money to hire a web designer.”
I hear you, I can’t write code if my life depended on it but I built this entire website by myself in under a week. IFH.com is much more complicated your basic film site so don’t worry. I show you how I did it.
WordPress, Beaver Builder & BlueHost, the Great Equalizers.
Below is my secret sauce on how I build ALL of my websites. Quick, cheap and well designed (I hope you agree). This option has a bit more time in the learning curve but in my opinion well worth it.
If you plan to get more sophisticated with email collection, building a fan base, selling productsandall around building an online world for your company and associated projects, then the below option is the way to go.
Bluehost Hosting
I just love these guys. Their customer support, live chat and reliability in by far the best in the industry. My sites have never gone down. If you call their customer service line, they’ll walk you through the entire process.
WP Beaver Builder
Without this remarkable WordPress plugin I’d still be bumping around the web trying to figure out how to put a killer website together. This plugin is a drag and drop addition to the WordPress infrastructure. All the reliability of WordPress and the ease of dragging and dropping to create your website. Check out our Beaver Builder Tutorials here.
WordPress powers over 25% of ALL websites on the internet. It’s plug-n-playability is remarkable. I love its backend. Super easy, robust and elegant. There are thousands of FREE and paid plugins you can add to your site to give you more functionality at a click of the mouse. You can choose from the over 10,000 FREE themes to give your website a pro look instantly and with NO CODING!
Click here to watch over 40 IFH tutorials to help you master WordPress.
Conclusion
The WordPress route is the best long term plan. Once you understand the basics and with the AMAZING Beaver Builder drag and drop plugin, you’d be up and running in a few weeks.
Good luck and to make sure you are always thinking on marketing your baby throughout the creative process. It’s called show business for a reason.
BONUS: TOP TEN Online Filmmaking Courses
- Werner Herzog’s Filmmaking MasterClass
- Filmmaking Hacks: Filmmaking Master Course
- Directing Actors Film Workshop
- USC Film School’s ONLY Online Course: Directing the Actor
- Film Lighting MasterClass
- Recording Sound for Indie Film
- The Art of Micro-Budget Filmmaking
- Cinematography MasterClass
- Film Festival Hacks: Submit Like a Pro
- Self-Distributing Your Film Online
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Affiliate Disclaimer: I do earn a commission if you choose to purchase Wix.com, Bluehost or WP Beaver Builder. There are many other options you can take when building a website, but again this is my recommendation based on my experience with these companies. If you do purchase through my affiliate link (which doesn’t cost you anything), thank you so much for your support!
