Need to advertise website & set prices! What and How much?

In order to get my photography business more active, I have recently gotten more serious with my website. I finally made a usable website design that seems to be getting positive feedback. Now I need to get it exposure and create a pricing schema that will get people to hire me.

http://www.vegashender​sonphotography.com

First, I need better exposure: What are the best and least expensive ways? I also could use some SEO optimization help from anyone who could suggest improvements.

Second, I need to put together an attractive pricing layout for my services that will draw customers. This is what I currently have for my primary styles:

Events:

1. $75/hour, $200 for 3 hours, $60 each additional hour - Includes CD/DVD of photos from event with exposure and color correction

2. Mobile Mini Studio with backgrounds and lighting for parties and other events: $75/hour, $200 for 3 hours, $60 each additional hour - Prints and picture cds available


Portraits: 4 offerings:

1. $0 sitting fee ala-carte session - they choose the prints they want or a picture cd

2. Hourly rate $75/hour, $200 for 3 hours, $60 each additional hour - includes CD/DVD of exposure/color corrected photos, plus 5 retouched photos and $20 print credit per hour

3. $399 full studio option - includes makeup artist, 3 hours of shooting in pro studio, 15 retouched photos and all photos on CD/DVD

4. For schools: $10 per student & $5 per group - special discounts on prints for students


My current rates are also in the pricing section of my website: If anyone has any ideas to modify or completely makeover my prices, please let me know.

Thank you!

2. Hourly rate $75/hour, $200 for 3 hours, $60 each additional hour - includes CD/DVD of exposure/color corrected photos, plus 5 retouched photos and $20 print credit per hour

Way too little. $75 - $20 credit = $55. Including the CD with that? Charge for it.

The print credit effectively costs me less than 1/4 the credit cost, which means I net $70.

Could you please give reasoning as to why I should charge more? I'm concerned about getting even less portrait work if I charge too much.

1. $0 sitting fee ala-carte session - they choose the prints they want or a picture cd

what happens if the client doesnt purchase any prints? You'd just have wasted a few hours of your time photographing and editing the photos.

With that kind of price your going to attract that kind of customer, who expects everything for nothing.

I offered $25 sitting fee and no bites on that. I know the kiddie candids and similar places often have $0 sitting fees and I'm trying to match that option.

is this your main source of income?

Not really, but I do want to expand a little bit and get more consistent business. Why do you ask?

Too cheap.

You can use Alt text on those images.

you need a better pricing structure. 75 an hour is pretty decent income but think about prep time before the client gets there and then what about the time it takes to retouch a photo after they leave. All of that is time you need to spend before and after the shoot that you are not getting "paid" to do. Your prices must include that extra tiem as well.

what i dont understand is how your hourly rates are structured. You say $75 dollars an hour, and then say $200 for three and then $60 per hour after that. So you really dont charge $75 an hour. you charge 75 for 1 hour, 150 for 2, 200 for 3, and 260 for 4. It just seems way to complicated.

Weddings, Do you really only want to charge $75 an hour plus mileage?? seems a little on the light side to me. Up the prices to a flat fee (500-1000) include some prints and offer some prnits ala carte if you are going to shoot a wedding by yourself. Also dont offer the images on a CD. If you want to sub out and this is what it looks like on your site then dont post your prices. If you had a bride come to your site and like your work and then want to hire you for a wedding then you would be stuck at $75 an hour. Also make sure all your hyperlinks work. the PDF link did not.

You have a good start, just adjust your pricing structure to a simpler setup.

Okay, I simplified the pricing and removed those cumulative discounts. Is that better?

Weddings yes, I'm only doing the non-one-time-only things by myself. The rest I am doing under subcontract, usually as second photographer, and that's why I can't charge those high fees. I don't have the equipment to certainly shoot full weddings as primary.

I fixed the pdf link on all pages; I must've forgotten to edit it when I moved the pdf to its own folder.

Hints on SEO.

Google, the undisputed king of search has a while ago changed how it searches. It now ignores keywords. Thanks to porn and spammers. It now searches actual content. But keep the keywords for other search engines.

New rules to follow for best results... Title you pages as descriptively as possible. ---web site name, your name if you want, Types of shooting you do.

Be as descriptive as you can at the top of your main page. Google now reads the first 200 or so words and pulls keywords from there to put you in the results. It reads the source document(html sheet) not what we see on screen. But judges only what will appear...if that makes sense. But it is not intuitive. So it only read so far then moves on. So keep your style sheet info at the bottom , along with every thing that is not required to be at the top. This will allow google to read more content and less html, getting you better results.

Get yourself linked to from other sites. But be picky about who. Google can read what sites you are linked to and judges them. Be careful here. Don't do all the links at once. If google thinks you are scamming them,
they will ban you from results. A google ban is the same as paying for a site but never publishing it. It is NOT what you want. Id like to see a link trade spot here at PTON. Few of us are competting with each other, and it would be an easy way to get yourself linked.

Google applied for a patent for some technology. But they had to reviel some of how they search in the description. So it is not that a big of a secret anymore. Read this about google SEO.... http://www.buzzle.com …rials/6-10-2005-71368.asp

2 Things about your site.

1 Expand the frame so you don't have to scroll to read all the words. Scroll bars are not what you want to see in the center of a page. I dont know if it is there for every body. But My screen is like 1600X1100 and the box only covers half of the screen so there is no need for a bar, but I have one. Most of this info should be on a separate page. not the home page. Keep the home page for mostly SEO items. People who want you will look for your info. Keep it easy to get to, just not on the home page.

side note on the info it self.... Have a friend write it for you. It is easy for them to write with out getting all gushy as we do when we write about our selves. Optional--have it written in the 3rd person removed format...ie: no "I", "he", or "they" style. I dont want to destroy your text so I wont go into it farther than this.

2 Change some of the pictures on the home page to show variety. Not 4 pictures of the same thing/same couple. Make each image a different topic. But coordinate them with colors that are in the image if you can. If not a simple variety will do fine.

I can only do so much about expanding the frame with the existing template. I did adjust the wording to reduce scrolling and created a temporary second page.

Otherwise, I took some of your advice about SEO, especially about repositioning scripting and other data towards the bottom and bringing the text up. I'm also going to make some more pictures/splashes for the main page to add to the variety.

The re-text looks better. The scroll bar kills me though. But I may be overly sensitive about it.

I would limit the amount of splashes for the main page. People will not wait for them. Have 3-5 good ones that change quickly. Most people have the same shots in their gallery anyway. That is where people hang out the most.

The number of splashes is at 5 now. Most of the photos are not in the portfolio section. As a result of multiple gripes from people on another forum, I have changed the intro splash into flash format to avoid the "annoying fade effect that flashes." I may do the same with the slideshows in each portfolio section in the future.

I figure there's about an equal amount of text to read as there are splashes to view now, roughly.

I still need to get better awareness of my website: Plus, what about the pricing? Is it better now than before? What else can be improved? I've tried to justify $100/hour for portrait photography, but I don't think I'm worth that much (I wouldn't pay me $100 for my work).