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How I earned more money in ONE WEEK than I usually made in a whole month and how you can, too.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012 Posted inALL,BUSINESS,CHATTY TUESDAYS

Hey you!

Two months ago I made one change to my business and it helped me make more money in ONE WEEK than I usually made in a whole MONTH.

You see, I first opened my online store for my Photoshop Actions back in October. To be honest, I had never sold anything online before – and I had no clue what I was doing. So I took the lazy route and made a website that lacked a certain professionalism and “oomph”.

A few months later, one of my good friends brought it up to me that I should consider revamping the online store. UGH!

Honestly, I wasn’t very interested in changing the website because as you know – putting a website together is hard, stressful and time consuming!

But I knew she was right. The website didn’t show off just how amazing my Photoshop Actions really are. So I spent some time thinking about the right way to present my online store to the world, and I created a brand new website. It looks HOT. (you can see it here!)

After improving my website, my sales multiplied by FIVE. That’s a lot, don’t you think? (Pretty significant if you ask me.)

This experience helped me learn such a valuable life-changing lesson:

Your website and the way you present yourself to the world online MATTERS. 

Be honest with yourself. Does your website represent you and your business the way you want it to?

If not, let me tell you about the THREE WAYS you can take charge of your website and truly shine online. You can hear all about it in this video:

See? Now that you know the three necessities to a successful website, you can keep people on your page for longer which will in turn increase demand for you as a photographer! And an increase in demand? Well, that leads to an increase in price.

And don’t forget to leave me a comment below letting me know which companies you use for your website – and which of the three concepts mentioned in the video you need to work on the most!

Big hugs!

xoxo

P.S. Isn’t it ironic that this Chatty Tuesdays just so happens to land on the launch date of my new website? Big post about it coming soon! Melissa Love and I have been working so hard, we hope you LOVE it!

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Posted inALL,BUSINESS,CHATTY TUESDAYS

  • http://www.paperbirdphoto.com Alicia, PaperBird Photography

    I love this post because it is *so* important! I am currently using Portfoliositez and I love them!

    I try so hard to make it easy and great for clients but I know I still have a lot of work to do… it never ends, ha.

    Thanks for a great post =)

  • http://www.bethanygipson.com Bethany

    You’re new site is AWESOME! Love getting your emails each day. Ireally feel like you offer something different from all of the other action/photo blogs.

  • http://www.shawnabielatphotography.com Shawna

    Alex, I literally JUST posted a similar question on my FB page last night!! I asked what everyone preferred – FB albums or blog posts (I thought about getting rid of my blog). Most said definitely FB albums, but also frequent blog posts (which appears more professional). I’ve decided to do a “featured blog” at least once a week to be sure I get both covered. I use bludomain.com for my website host, and I do really like it! I think it offers a lot of clean and simple templates. I’ve been using blogspot.com for my blog, and honestly need something else! It’s so limited! I would love to hear what others are using for blogs! Thanks for inspiring us all! Love the new website!

  • Jill

    Hi, Alex! The anonymous question you’re answering is from me! I am a family & child portrait photographer from Pennsylvania, and am beginning to take the plunge into Wedding photography, by the way! :)

    I was so torn on whether or not I should spend the money on a professional website, since I was unsure on how important is really was, or how much use it would really be to me and my business.

    After watching this video, and really putting myself in the shoes of my clients, which is such a simple concept, I completely agree with you 100%, and feel like a complete idiot that I’ve gone two years and have not gotten a website!

    You cannot reflect who you are completely with a Facebook “website”. It is not the colors that are my brand. It does not showcase a lovely “about me” section that I think is super important. It makes it difficult to find out my prices and services, & you’re right, it does make you wonder WHY the photographer does not have a legit website.

    SO that settles it, I am going to now work on launching my very own ProPhoto website that I have been researching and fantasizing about for months.

    Thank you so much for answering my question, and helping me see how important it really is.

    & I will make sure the first three things I do for my website are make it clear on who I am and what I do, make it easy to navigate, and make it 100% a direct representation of who I am; both as a photographer, and as a person.

    <3

  • http://www.bloggakpphoto.net AKP Photography

    I loove your new design Alex its soo much more you :D!!

    I use wix.com for my website/portfolio, i dont have my own domain yet cause im not sure if i like the site that much – but i havent come across anything better (for me) yet :)

  • http://www.krista-johnston.com Krista

    I haven’t really started my business yet but I have already redesigned my website 3 times. All I ever hear is stuff about branding and it terrifies me so I am spending all of my time on that instead of focusing and learning my photography. If someone could do me a favour and look at my homepage and tell me what you think of me????

  • http://www.meredithsledgeblog.com Meredith Sledge

    OH MY GOD. I’m obsessed with your blog! WOWOWOWOWOWOW. Insanely beautiful design! I want whoever did it to do mine! One day.

  • http://www.michaelkormos.com Sophie

    Loving the new blog design. Gorgeous, and can’t seem to tear myself away!! Mission accomplished. :)

  • http://girlwiththepinkleopardbag.com Christine

    Thank you for the wonderful tips. I believe I have done the things you mention already, but there are a few aspects of my site that I know I need a professional to help me with. You’ve inspired me to seek someone out ASAP.

    Love your new site, by the way! It looks very classy.

    :)

  • http://www.lauraruizphotography.com ruiz

    Good video. BTW did you add a ‘contact’ link to your website ;)

  • http://www.thecreativ.co.uk Karolina

    I loved it!!
    Thats is something worth thinking about… specially about the brand identity.
    I am currently using http://www.online-dreams.pl/ this guy, he is quite helpful specially that I did the design myself, and he made it all work.
    We are now working on redesign of thecreativ and on one more website. :)

    Now I need to rethink everything I`ve done so far ;) thanks hehe
    xxx

  • Liz Beadon

    Your new layout is AWESOME! Keep it up big sista! <3 I miss you lots

  • http://samanthakurtz.com Samantha

    I made my website with wix.com and bought my domain through godaddy.com. I highly reccommend Wix! It’s great for photographers because it has Flash Player incorporated in it, which makes your photos look 10x better. Wix makes making a website quick and easy by giving you the options like premade templates or designing your whole page from scratch. You can make a free website to see if you like it, and it will have your websitename.wix.com, and if you do like it you can upgrade at any time.

  • http://www.judieannphotography.com Judie

    Alex as usual, you totally Rock! Thank you so much for this, I really needed to hear this because I have been in such a slump about my blog site. I am going to start making changes now!! You have been such an inspiration!

  • http://www.alibeephotography.com Ali, Ali Bee Photography

    First off, I am so excited for you Alex. This new website is awesome. There is so much to look at and I love the idea that it leads you straight to your blog since that is such a huge part of who you and your business are!

    Okay about this post. I really like my website. I use Wix, which can be free (with ads) but I pay a small amount each month so it doesn’t have the ads. Just a few months ago I made some changes to it. I wanted a cleaner look. I’m a very organized person, so I thought that fit who I was and how I wanted to represent my business. I definitely think it’s easy to find everything on my website, but something I struggle with is clarity. I pretty much have 2 dreams when it comes to photography. I dream of being a fine art photographer where my work is in galleries and well known. But I also dream of being a creative portrait photographer. Where people will hire me to take their photograph in a creative setting. So with my website, I am showing both my portrait work, and my fine art work. The only thing that clarifies that I do both is if you go to my portfolio tab, you can click personal or portrait. Personal being projects that I have done for myself, and portrait being portraits I’ve completed for either school assignments or for clients. Is that enough clarity?

    One day I hope to change my website again and make it more me. With Wix it is hard to edit it ANY WAY you want. You can do a lot to make it your own, but there are some restrictions that make it hard to make it exactly how you’d dream it to be.

  • http://www.alibeephotography.com Ali, Ali Bee Photography

    Oh, by the way… Your new website not only shows how fabulous of a photographer you are, but also how much of a classy, business woman you are!

  • http://www.shawnabielatphotography.com Shawna Bielat

    For those of you using wix, is it actually free?? I saw the post about paying a small fee to get rid of ads on your website – how much is the fee? I just paid a good amount for my website so that’s kind of a blow! lol I’m in LOVE with the pro photo websites though. One day, one day. Alex your designer hit the nail on the head for your website design! So YOU!

  • http://www.belleandbeaublog.com Holly

    Your new website TOTALLY ROCKS Alex!! x

  • http://www.asmartartzphotography.co.uk Andrea Moorcroft

    Hi Alex
    just caught up with this blog post! I have actually been spending the last week or so relooking at my website again and having a re-jig. The site I use is clikpic and it is a template website with an annual fee but just to get the basic is not much at all and you can customise it a lot. I am in the process of splitting the business up so that I can focus more on one aspect, so am thinking about getting a 2nd site for this. Not sure if I will use Clikpic for this one though as I want something quite soft and floaty and cool social media buttons that are easy to see.
    Thanks