Online Branding for Bellydancers
5 Tips for a Better Online Presence
After looking through the social media and websites of hundreds of bellydancers for over 20 years… I have a gripe.
Belly dancers are terrible at online marketing.
If you want more gigs, more classes, more workshop sponsorships, you need to make it easy for your target audience to find you and book you.
In my day job, I am a digital marketer for B2B (Business-to-Business) companies. I help them use marketing to systematically grow revenue in a way that isn’t spammy or smarmy. Over the years the most prevalent challenge I see within these organizations is their content, messaging, and digital presence is company-centric and not customer-centric. Years of drinking the corporate KoolAid will do that.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen way too many dancers make similar mistakes. They write their materials for other belly dancers, using verbiage that isn’t easy for non-bellydancers to understand. I visit many dancer’s websites that are not up-to-date, assuming that their Instagram page will be enough for them to get teaching opportunities and gigs.
Let’s take a look at a few common marketing mistakes and how to fix them:
Your website is broken or does not exist anymore.
I can’t tell you how many websites I’ve landed on that are either gone or show an error when I click a link from a bellydancer’s social media profile. At the very least, forward your domain to your public social media account so it’s easier to contact you.
You don’t have a press kit.
A basic press kit includes materials that promoters, sponsors, producers, and other clients can use to promote their event with you in it. It should include:
2-3 recent high resolution photos of you, including:
Headshot
Vertically oriented photo
Horizontally oriented photo
Biographies. Yes, more than one. You need to provide a short (1-2 sentence), medium (3-5 sentences) and long (no more than 2 paragraphs) about you. These can be hard to write, but they are very necessary. Here is a link to my own press kit with examples. Kamrah also has a great example of a press kit here.
Your bio or about page is written in bellydance-only language.
Remember that non-dancers will be reading your website and marketing materials, so you want to make sure they understand what you’re talking about. A common bellydance bio tactic is to list a ton of styles you perform or a ton of teachers you have studied with, but the wedding planner looking for a dancer doesn’t know what this means and it may come off as overwhelming. You can most definitely include them, but you need to provide context to let the reader know this piece of information is an accomplishment.
For example,
Majda Anwar has deeply studied with world-renowned bellydance teacher Suhaila Salimpour and the Salimpour Institute of Dance.
Majda Anwar has been privileged to tour with prestigious theatrical bellydance productions such as Bal Anat and House of Tarot.
Make your location easy to find.
You need to share where you are based. If you want local gigs, your website and marketing materials need to reflect that you are local. Doing so will also help tremendously with SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO is the practice of improving a website's visibility and traffic from search engines. Your clients need to be able to find you. Let visitors know where you are from so they can quickly decide if they are in the same area to engage with you. Ciana’s website is a great example of a website oriented towards local gigging. In addition to local gigs, put your location so workshop promoters can gauge flight costs - make it easy!
Your information is out of date.
I get it. We’re all busy. It’s hard to keep our content up to date across all of our social media accounts, website, gig sites, and any other online presence we might have. But you need to make time for it. Here are a few tips to make this easier:
Schedule a weekly (or monthly) time where you can make edits.
Set a reminder on your calendar for your marketing updates.
Use platforms that make it easy for you to edit your website such as Squarespace, Godaddy, or Wix.
Hire a website manager or marketing manager to help you. You can find affordable options on sites such as Upwork or Fiverr.
Marketing yourself as a bellydancer is not just about getting gigs—it’s about building a strong, professional presence that elevates you and the art form. As bellydancers, we have to be our own agent, marketer, costume designer, producer…which is exhausting. But don’t let outdated or missing information stand in the way of your success. I know this type of stuff can be hard, but there are so many tools out there that can help you build your brand.
Which dancer websites have you visited that are #goals? Do you have some tools or tricks that have helped you keep your website and marketing up to date? Share below!