Should creative businesses show prices on their website?
At least a range or a starting-from figure. It filters out the wrong enquiries and reassures the right ones.
Blog
Creative businesses, creative problems
Because they show their work beautifully and sell it badly. Among the creative businesses in the 55 digital audits I ran, the portfolio was immaculate and the route to buying was missing: no process page, no pricing guidance, no case studies and no clear call to action. A photographer with more than thirty years of commercial experience had a homepage with no text for Google to index. Keep the portfolio, and add a process page, a starting-from price, two or three case studies and the search basics.
What goes wrong on creative businesses' websites?
The portfolio trap. A photographer with ambassador status for a major international film brand, work published worldwide and over thirty years of commercial experience had no meta descriptions, no search strategy and a homepage with no text for Google to index. Anyone searching for the kind of photography he specialised in would never find him, so his reputation travelled only by word of mouth. An illustrator had a beautiful portfolio but no way for a potential client to understand what commissioning a piece involved: no process page, no pricing guidance, no case studies. There was no bridge from liking the work to buying it.
How did Covid change what creative websites had to do?
It forced digital offers onto sites built for something else. A theatre company lost a year of programming in a single week and moved to digital performances and workshops, which was brave and necessary, but its website was still built around a physical venue, with the digital offer bolted on. An arts education business that had delivered in person for years had to rethink how its online workshops were presented, priced and sold, on a site never designed to do that.
Why does admiring the work not lead to buying it?
Because nothing tells the visitor what to do next. The pattern across every creative business I audited was the same: no clear call to action, no process explanation, no pricing guidance, no case studies, and no testimonials placed where they would influence a decision. The assumption was that good enough work would find its buyers. Some will; most will admire the work, leave, and go to a competitor who made buying obvious.
What should a creative business add to its website?
Structure around the portfolio. A process page that explains how commissioning works, what the client provides, how long it takes and roughly what it costs, with at least a range or a starting-from figure, which filters out the wrong enquiries and reassures the right ones. Two or three case studies covering what the client needed, how the work was approached and what they got. And the basics, meta descriptions, page titles and heading structure, so the work is found by people searching for it and not only by people who already know the name.
Related evidence: 55 digital audits. Here’s what I found.. Earlier in this journey: When manufacturers go digital.
Questions people ask
What should a creative case study include?
More than the finished work: what the client needed, how the job was approached and what they got. That is the bridge between admiring the work and commissioning it.
Not sure where to start?
Most clients begin with a conversation. No pitch, no hard sell.
Just a straightforward discussion about where you are and whether I can help.
Book a free 30-minute call