Website for photographers and videographers

Found by the name of a film, a client or a genre

A client looking for an advertising director types the genre and the town, then looks at what comes up: an agency's website, two freelance directories, three YouTube channels. A website whose films are locked inside a player with no words around them doesn't exist for that client — Google reads text, not pictures.

Every film you paste a link to or describe gets a page of its own: its title, the client, the year, your role, its description, its publication date, the built-in player and the VideoObject structured data Google reads. A photo series gets its own page once it has four of your photos. Your website has its sitemap and its robots.txt; your Google listing is kept up to date on the Pro plan.

Directories have their place. An Irish directory such as PicturePerfect.ie lists photographers for free and sells the top of its searches; a listing puts you on a page beside every other photographer in your county. Your own website is the one place where a client sees only your work, with your prices and a way to get in touch.

• A page for every film, and for every series once it has four of your photos
• A Google title written for each page: the film, your trade, your town, your name
• Three service pages from the day the website goes live, specific to your trade

Enquiries arrive during the shoot, not after it

The brief always arrives at the wrong moment: in the middle of a session, a night shoot, a deadline. A missed call is a brand writing to the next studio; a buried email is a quote that goes out three days too late.

On every film page, the call-back button takes the visitor's phone number and, if they like, their email address. The request lands in your pro area, in the list of things to deal with, marked as a call-back request; if they left an email address, the client gets a message confirming that you will call them back. A photographer can also let clients book the session itself, day and night, deposit included.

The deposit that holds the date, and the quote nobody haggles over

A shoot is locked in weeks ahead: equipment hired, crew booked, location secured. A date cancelled the day before is paid for twice, and a portrait session missed on a Saturday can't be sold again.

Each of your services carries its own price — an amount, “from” or “on quote” — and a session is paid online at the moment it is booked, the full service or a deposit, at 3% per payment and nothing else. For a film, the call-back request lets you price the job after talking it through, before committing to anything.

One rule before you publish a price: the CCPC tells businesses that prices shown to consumers must include all applicable taxes, such as VAT. A family booking a portrait session reads your price as the price they will pay.

Views people can see, reviews that reassure, clients who come back

A brand chooses a director on two proofs: films that look like what it wants, and clients who were happy with theirs. A music video that did well on YouTube proves nothing if the visitor has to leave your website to see how many times it was watched.

Every film page shows, on the player, the view count you enter. On the Pro plan, your Google reviews come back into Traxo, every client gets a review request by email two hours after their service, and a loyalty points programme brings back the people who already come back: the family who book portraits, the company that orders product films.