9 Website Fixes We Found Auditing a Working Actor's Site

What was already working

Credit where it is due. The site ranked number one on Google for the actor's name, which many actors never manage because IMDb usually takes that spot. Their Actors Access and Backstage profiles showed up right underneath. The menu was simple: about, headshots, reels, resume, special skills, contact. That is exactly what casting wants when they look you up after seeing your submission (more on that in how casting directors find actors).

So none of the fixes below are about design. They are about how search engines and AI tools understand the site.

1. Google was filing the site as a local business

Every website carries a hidden label called schema that tells search engines what the page is about. This site was labeled LocalBusiness, like a dry cleaner. An actor should be a Person.

How to check yours: open your site in Chrome, right-click, choose Inspect, stay on the Elements tab (not Console), press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac) and search for LocalBusiness. You are only looking here. Nothing you do in this panel changes your real site.

The fix: on Squarespace this label usually comes from the business and location details in your site settings, so clear those out. Then add your own Person schema through Squarespace's Code Injection setting, if your plan includes it. Include your name, headshot, city, your jobs (actor, voice actor) and a sameAs list linking your IMDb, Actors Access, Backstage, Casting Networks and Instagram. That list is what tells AI tools all those profiles are one person.

2. Two pages were still called "new page"

The reel page lived at /new-page and the skills page at /new-page-1. Squarespace does this when you add a page and never rename it. Google reads the address, so give it a real one: /reels, /special-skills. Change it under the page's settings, in the URL slug field.

Then add a redirect, every time. Anyone with the old link, including Google, will otherwise hit a 404 error. In Squarespace this lives in URL Mappings, one line per page: /new-page -> /reels 301.

3. Page titles and descriptions were left on autopilot

Each page has an SEO title and description that show up as the blue link and gray text in search results. Keep titles to roughly 50 to 60 characters and descriptions under about 160, and write them for a person: who you are and what is on this page. While you are there:

• Set a social share image per page. A headshot on the home page, a reel still on the reel page. That is what appears when someone texts your link.
• Replace the default favicon (the tiny icon in the browser tab) with your initials.

4. No real headings, and union status in the wrong place

Search engines and AI tools lean on H1 and H2 headings to understand a page, the way you would skim an essay's title and subheadings. Each page should have one H1: your name on the home page, "[Your Name] Reels" on the reel page, and so on.

The actor had "SAG-E" in the site title because they wanted casting to see union status instantly. That is a good instinct. Keep it visible, just move it into a subheading or the first line of text, so your name alone is the title that search engines match.

Give every page a few lines of real text too, with links to your other pages ("Watch the reel", "See the full resume"). A page with only images gives Google almost nothing to read. If you do not want text cluttering the design, a short blurb behind a "see more" button works.

5. The alt text was written by a robot

Alt text describes an image for screen readers, and Google Images uses it too. Squarespace had filled it in automatically with something like "a woman with long wavy hair against a neutral background." Accurate, but it never says who the person is. Change it to "Headshot of [Your Name], actor" and do the same for every production still. It helps with accessibility and with your name in image search.

6. No llms.txt file

An llms.txt file is a plain-text summary of your site written for AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude. It is a proposed standard, and no major AI company has confirmed it uses these files, so treat it as a cheap bet rather than a guarantee. It takes ten minutes with our free llms.txt generator.

7. Google had no AI summary for the name

When we searched the actor's name, Google showed normal results but no AI Overview. ChatGPT, on the other hand, found and cited the site, IMDb and Actors Access. That gap is common, and the fix is to make your website the source of truth: the most complete version of you, with every other profile carrying a shorter, matching piece. Same name spelling, same headshot era, same city, same credits. Contradictions make AI tools less confident, and a less confident tool is less likely to mention you. We cover this in more depth in should actors worry about AI search.

8. Search Console was already on (and worth reading)

Good news: Squarespace had connected Google Search Console years earlier, so there was history to look at. Four numbers matter:

• Clicks: people who came from Google (not people who typed your address).
• Impressions: times you appeared in results.
• CTR: clicks divided by impressions. For a personal site, 1 to 2 percent is healthy.
• Queries: the actual words people typed. Anything that is not your name is a clue about what to write next.

Whenever you publish or overhaul a page, paste its address into URL Inspection and click Request indexing so Google looks now instead of in a few weeks.

9. The only backlinks were spam

A backlink is another site linking to yours. Real ones (a news story, a festival page, a production's site) build authority. This site had only spam directories, which is normal and harmless, but it means there is easy room to grow. Actors have better sources than most businesses:

• Your headshot photographer. Ask them to link your site when they feature your photos.
• Showcases, screenings and premieres. Write about the night on your own blog, then ask the production or a castmate to share it.
• Be first. When you book something, write about the experience early. The first real page about a new production can rank right after the film's own site and its IMDb page.

Bonus: blog about your special skills

We ran the actor's special skill, stage combat, through Ahrefs' free keyword tool. It came back as an easy keyword with real monthly searches. That is a blog post only a trained actor can write: what the training is like, what it looks like on set. Before you write, Google the phrase and check what searchers want (classes? stories?), then write the version that fits you.

The takeaway

A good-looking site and a findable site are two different jobs. None of these fixes changed how the site looks. Together they change how Google, ChatGPT and casting's second look understand who you are. With a seven-page site you can do all nine yourself over a couple of evenings. If you would rather hand it off, that is what we do.