Suggestions for self-promotion please?

Join an agency. When a pro photographer needs a model he goes to an agency.

If you insist on staying independent you need to win a beauty pageant, get featured in Playboy, or get some similar high-level exposure to be asked-for.

Do a lot of free stuff. Like the other poster said, go to all the photographers in town and promote yourself, go to all the "trunk shows", fashion shows, openings etc...and network with the designers.

If you have the time, be an intern at an agency. Go to all the places where you would get "seen". Must have photo cards on you at all times.

A lot of Industrial shows/expos hire models. Register with agencies that handle that kind of work.

If you live in ny or LA, do some extra work.

Go to local colleges and universities and find the art classes/photo classes and let them know you're available for photos.

Good luck.

First of all, acquire a website. Then read how to attract business.

The following article will prove helpful to you in streamlining your SEO metatags in order to attract more Net traffic by higher search engine placement.

The most effective way to advertise on the Internet is

to first set up a website and publish its domain name

on major search directories such as Google.com,

Yahoo.com [at http://www.google.com/addurl/?...... and

MSN.com since 85% of Internet shoppers rely on these

search directories to provide them with goods and

services. In a sense, these search directories are a

very large Internet Yellow Pages.

Nevertheless, should your website or opening webpage

fail to contain "generic" keywords, then anyone using

such "generic" queries will not be able to discover

your website. Your domain name [URL] of your website,

in a sense, will be invisible, undiscoverable.

You may want to consider some simple algorithms which,

when observed and committed in designing of a website

with placement of various critical metatags that can

surely achieve a high search engine presence and

increase Internet traffic to your website. These

metatag strategies work well with published webpages

at Google and Yahoo.

Design: Should you create an extensive Flash-based

website, make sure to fill-in the property entries

such as the Title, Description and Keywords. Failing

to do so, leaves no hard HTML or ALT resource that can

be readily indexed by search robots. Also consider the

Internet audience and their incoming setup. For

example, if they are on analog/dialup, Flash webpages

take too long to load up and therefore analog users

will likely lose interest and discontinue entering the

Flash site. On the other hand, anyone on hi-speed DSL

lines, will welcome Flash pages which load quickly. So

before designing a pure Flash websitge, ask the simple

question, "Who's my end user - is he on dialup or

DSL?" And if you had to choose between these two users

for maximum marketability, then select analog users

since 80% of most resident users are still analog

Internet subscribers and pure HTML designed webpages

is best for them.

A non-Flash-based website which relies on hard text,

is far easier to be indexed by search robots. Limit

the use of stylized text saved as .gifs since as a

graphic, they are not indexable by search robots.

Avoid use of frames since any number of search robots

are unable to properly classify textual material.

Placement of Metatags:

A ranking or search order does take place with Google

and Yahoo and it begins with the "Title" metag which

should consist of no more than 60 characters separated

by commas. The "Title" should describe in generic terms, the goods and services, followed by a location from which the resource is located, i.e., city, state. The placement of a domain name which is not generic within the "Title" is not appropriate, unless your

domain name is a major recognizable brand name.

The second metatag is the "Description" which is

usually up to 41 words to form a complete paragraph which

best describes one's goods and services. It is not merely a list.

And the very last category - "Keywords" are also

somewhat limited to 15 words which can be plural

and compound in nature. Again, avoid multiple entries

which could be mistaken as "spamdexed entries" which

is defined as the loading, and submission of

repetitive words into a particular metatag category.

"Spamdexing" when discovered on a webpage and reported

to Google's spamreport.com can result in the

elimination of your website from their search

directory.

Here's an example of a very highly-placed website on

Google.com: Begin with the very "generic" search query

"sandwiches downtown los angeles," taking note to not

abbreviate Los Angeles to "LA" and of course, leave

out the parentheses ("). It will bring up some 2.4

million+ search results. Check out where "Nazos.net"

is ranked. It's on the FIRST FRONT PAGE [ranked #5]!

Again, Nazos.net's high web presence was achieved by

proper web design and placement of relevant metatags

according to Google's publication guidelines.

Good luck!