Which direction to go....

I'm at in point in my photography business where I have several roads to go down and just not sure which one I should pursue next. If I had the appropriate funds I would just get them done and over with, however in an effort to not get in debt with this business, I am paying for everything with cash which takes a lot of patience on my part (something I'm not very good at).
All of these options require a lot of money, which is going to take a lot of time to build up and I hope to have meet all of these in 2 years but I'm just not sure which one I should do next:

1. Pursing starting hospital newborn photography - I am a nurse on a L&D floor which gives me great headway, the hospital stopped doing newborn pictures for families about a year ago and since then hasn't had anything. I've recently approached my director about me coming in on my days off and doing pictures for family on an appointment only basis, and not just the lame-o pictures hospitals usually take but really quality ones with the family interacting with the newborn. I think this could be HUGE and bring in a lot of money.

2. Redoing my website- I have a smugmization person in mind but its going to cost around 1,000 or more, something that is going to take me a while to save up (plus I have a hard time spending money on a websit when that money could go towards a nice piece of glass)

3. Going up in gear - I have some great gear but I know I still want to update, I really want to have all profession grade camera & lenses in 2 years and I know this is even pricier than redoing my website.

4. Advertising - I've checked local magazines and such and if I used about $2,000 I could get my company name in a local childrens magazine, theknot.com website, and get all the supplies I would need for a booth at the wedding show in september.

All these options are just stressing me out, I'm an indecisive person but I also like to have a plan.

Someone please give me advice!

The trouble with giving you great advice is that all of your options depend on your local market. How many photographers are there, how many photographers BETTER than you are there, and what are their prices and marketing exposure that you're trying to compete with. The only thing sounding off base to me is the website personalization, but I code everything myself, so I would never consider paying $1000 for that sort of thing.

Gear is nice and it can make your job easier, but how much easier it makes your job vs. what you're spending in cash is the deciding factor. If you're not taking great pictures with your gear now, upgrading won't help. If your gear is annoying you the same way a 10 year old computer would annoy you, it might be a worthy investment.

Advertising is the only way to get more work, but word of mouth is the most effective, and people even get turned off from large ads because they figure if there isn't a price in the ad, they probably can't afford it. So that's my 2 cents. Probably not helpful, but hopefully a little bit of reinforcing.

I would really like to learn how to code for myself, but it seems to be such a pain, it took me a week and MANY hours to get my navabar the way it is now. I know a lot of clients seem to pick a photographer based on their website and according to googleanalytics, I have a high bounce rate so I'm wondering if redoing my website might be worth it in the long run. I dunno.

Here is my opinion on the current state of websites as a marketing tool...

1. They need to be pretty
2. They need to be capable of viewing on mobile devices

The more I see people using their cell phones as though they were computers, the more important it was to me to NOT use flash. Yes, flash is pretty, and you can do some nice things with it, but if your customer can't see it on their phone, they may never get back to it. It's worth googling css templates if you have even the most basic knowledge of how to design a web page. The trouble with hiring a web designer is they may be able to make you a fantastic site that no one can get to without a home PC and downloading a crapload of adobe updates.

And yes, it can be a pain to learn to write css/php/html/flash, etc. but if you have someone that can physically sit next to you as they teach you so you can ask questions, it's a much more comfortable process. Of course I was writing c++ and Java when I was about 10 years old, so I'm probably not qualified to answer the "how hard is it to learn to write a website" question.

stop!!

write a plan, or you'll never get anywhere. marketing plan, business plan..or you're just burning money. I can easily throw 50000 into marketing and spam the market with ads..from every which way of the globe...or spend thousands on a new L lens...or meet and greet with a bunch of new clients... and do up my website all nice and fancy...and have it go nowhere because i:

Don't know what I'm doing it for (a clear picture of my business)

have no way to quantity the amount of money I am spending is making me a decent return.

That's what having a plan is for - to show you where, how and how efficiently to ...make the best ROI.

Karl Johnston wrote in post #10259681
stop!!

write a plan, or you'll never get anywhere. marketing plan, business plan..or you're just burning money. I can easily throw 50000 into marketing and spam the market with ads..from every which way of the globe...or spend thousands on a new L lens...or meet and greet with a bunch of new clients... and do up my website all nice and fancy...and have it go nowhere because i:

Don't know what I'm doing it for (a clear picture of my business)

have no way to quantity the amount of money I am spending is making me a decent return.

That's what having a plan is for - to show you where, how and how efficiently to ...make the best ROI.

I completely agree with your statement which is why I'm here because I have no idea which direcion to head towards first- all these are included in my dream for my business- but just trying to understand What should be priority.