Advice on my site?

[Mermaid Meara]

I recently created my professional mermaid site. I'd love to know y'all's opinions on it. How's the design and lay out? Mobile version look ok? How are my prices? Any spelling or grammar issues ( I'm a horrendous speller)?

Thanks in advance.

[Mermaid Kelda]

...do you have a link? :p

[maressa]

I recently created my professional mermaid site. I'd love to know y'all's opinions on it. How's the design and lay out? Mobile version look ok? How are my prices? Any spelling or grammar issues ( I'm a horrendous speller)?

Thanks in advance. We need a link my love! <3

[Mermaid Meara]

?? I had the link right at the bottom? I guess it got deleted some how... How odd.

http://www.mermaidmeara.com

[AniaR]

your prices are far too low. ;) that's my only suggestion. :) 75$ for 3 hours? We charge 160$ for 1 hour my dear. And we're on the low end of the spectrum. Bump em up! dont be shy

[SeaGlass Siren]

mine are all aesthetic reasons. nothing important lol

except maybe have the video in another section under photos/images/videos?

[Ayla of Duluth]

$75/3 hours is $25/hour. Much too cheap IMO. I charge $50/hour for a gig within 20 miles of my city, and $80/hour plus an additional fee for gas for anything outside of that.

[AniaR]

^ which I still think is too low. I would not go with hourly rates even in this field. I'd always go with a package rate. A party costs ____. That's fairly standard in all birthday entertainment businesses. You will always have groups that try to exploit the fact you're doing hourly. I say this as someone who has been doing this a long time, and got exploited a lot for the 6 months I did low/hourly rates

[AniaR]

Also, I can't tell from your website where you're located. You have that in there very clearly somewhere. I'd be happy to look up existing mermaid rates for you from your area too, or entertainment rates.

[Mermaid Enora]

It's kinda hard to read some of the words in places where the back ground is a bit darker

[Ayla of Duluth]

You will always have groups that try to exploit the fact you're doing hourly. I say this as someone who has been doing this a long time, and got exploited a lot for the 6 months I did low/hourly rates

I've been noticing that too. Its one of the kinks I'd like to work out, especially since I've been taking more gigs from Minneapolis/St Paul and people down there tend to stretch their time as much as possible, sometimes up to an extra hour.

[Mermaid Meara]

I know my prices are lower than normal but I've already had multiple people ( granted these people are friends and family) say they were to high already and no one would pay that for a newbie. I went ahead and bumped them some what and reworded it.


AniaR if you have the time to check I would be super grateful. I'm in Midland, Texas. I also added my location to my about page ( I can't believe I had forgotten to).


Seaglass Siren once I have more photos and video I will make a photo/video page.


Enora I assume you are on the mobile version. I'm working on getting a background behind everything.

[shimmygoddess]

My 2 cents: Agree with the others..prices are way too low. You can't go by what friends and family say unless they are professional performers and have a clue. LOL. Most people will say 'prices are too high'. Personally I kept my pricing in line with my bellydance performance pricing which most people are perfectly happy to pay. You need to make sure it is worth your while and not just do it b/c 'it is fun and you just want to do it' that is undercutting all the other professional performers in your area. :)

I like the layout and is very easy to navigate. Def should have your located or areas you work with on your main page

[Mermaid Enora]

I was looking at the mobile site.

[AniaR]

So in searching for mermaids in texas, I actually found myself. (http://www.babygaga.com/t-2287768/did-you-know-you-can-hired-a-mermaid.html) lol No idea who this person is, pretty annoyed they totally lied about having my permission to post my stuff, and def misrepresented my stuff -_- moving on.

I also found Mermaid Melissa tags a bunch of her crap with "texas mermaid!" -_- (seriously, it seems searching anything for mermaid right now means going through pages and pages of unrelated mermaid melissa crap)

Laura the mermaid is a mermaid in Texas http://www.lauralwatson.com/mermaid.html I'm not from the USA so I have no idea how far she'd be from you. She charges 100$ an hour. (I still think too low, but a better start than what you had)

Looks like mermaids have worked Texas for ren faires: http://cynthiamermaid.blogspot.ca/2013_05_01_archive.html it doesnt say who they are but I believe those were the prototype finfolk tails

Austin Occasion Kids has mermaids and parties start at 225$ an up https://www.gigsalad.com/austin_occasions_austin2

Scarlet (who I believe is on here) is in Dallas and does parties for 150$ an up https://www.gigsalad.com/mermaid_scarlet_dallas

I'm sure there's more but honestly I'm just tired of trying to get through Mermaid Melissa to find ANYONE else lol

[Mermaid Momo]

The Austin Occasion kids page: Non of those pictures are theirs, there are some sirenelia pics, and some photos from a fellow mer here on the MN. I just find that odd and don't trust the other photos they have either if they took others that weren't from their company.

But for your website (take in mind these are mostly just aesthetics and personal preference that I have for websites)


- I think for your home page either one large centered image or one large centered video would be better than having both a video and image and having them be small and competing for attention of viewers. (or if you want to use more than one image, you can make a centered slideshow that autoplays and put a few in it.)

- Include quickly your location somewhere on the first page so people won't have to look for it.

- I think at least 1 graphic, even if it's small per page adds interest to the page and can break up text blocks

- A gallery would be nice, where you can share photos from gigs (if you can manage to get some and get permission to post them) and videos.

Again though, these are just how I like sites to be set up so that they're easier and more interesting for me to look at for longer than a few seconds.

[AniaR]

I think the Austin kids is an agency they both get work through.

[LauraLWatson]

The $100/hour is the going rate for children's party entertainment here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but the prices are starting to increase, so mine will too (gradually.) Here, people are still realizing that a swimming mermaid is possible, so we're in competition with traditional birthday stuff (princess, super hero, face painters, clowns, magicians.) As word is spreading, demand is REALLY picking up, so prices will too.

Sirenalia is a tail maker who also has a party company, Austin Kids, or something like that. Same people doing two businesses (or more.)

[Mermaid Enora]

Two of the mermaids from Scarborough Faire are Siren Nasreen and Lochlyn-Rose. I'm not sure what the other mermaids are named. They only speak mermaidish and the handlers run you through the lagoon to the gift shop so fast that there's no time to talk to them.
As far as I know Scarborough Faire is the only Renaissance Faire in Texas so far to employ mermaids as part of the entertainment.

[Mermaid Momo]

I think the Austin kids is an agency they both get work through.
Ah, that makes sense, I didn't know they also worked with another agency.

[shimmygoddess]

That is great that the prices in your area are starting to come up! :) When I started dancing professionally, the pricing here was 150-175 for a 20-30 min set. I set my prices at 200. Slowly others raised their prices to 200 too. I went up to $225, and most everyone followed. (There will always be a couple undercutters out there, but most all the dancers here have the same pricing now.)


The $100/hour is the going rate for children's party entertainment here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but the prices are starting to increase, so mine will too (gradually.) Here, people are still realizing that a swimming mermaid is possible, so we're in competition with traditional birthday stuff (princess, super hero, face painters, clowns, magicians.) As word is spreading, demand is REALLY picking up, so prices will too.

Sirenalia is a tail maker who also has a party company, Austin Kids, or something like that. Same people doing two businesses (or more.)