21 Tips for Designing the Perfect Photography Website
Common mistakes, essential features, and expert tips for designing a photography website that actually brings you clients!
Whether you’re a photographer designing your website yourself, or you’re hiring a website designer to help, these tips will help you as you start planning the structure and content for your site.
I’ve been designing websites for creatives for over 8 years, with a large % of my clients being photographers - from wedding photographers and food photographers, to travel and commercial/brand photographers. Through viewing, updating and creating hundreds of photography websites, I’ve definitely discovered some classic pitfalls and things people miss out, so I wanted to share my expert insights in this post.
I’ve also been recently coming at this from the perspective of a photography client myself! Myself (and several of my friends!) are getting married this year, and in my own search for wedding photographers/videographers, I’ve learned SO much about what a potential client is really looking for on these suppliers' websites.
Right now I’m actually redesigning the website of my OWN wedding photographer! This has been such an amazing project to work on because of this unique perspective I have being her client.
So anyway, let’s get into my insights & learnings below…
Table of Contents
*Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links where I get a small commission if you make a purchase, so thank you in advance for your support! Please know I would never recommend anything that I don’t personally LOVE myself.
Is it worth having a website as a photographer?
If you’re wondering whether a photography website is really necessary, below are a few compelling reasons why you may want to consider one. Of course, designing a website involves more cost than setting up a simple Facebook or Instagram page, but if you want to start taking your photography seriously as a business, I’d definitely recommend it!
Appear ‘legit’ and build a brand for yourself
There’s something about having your own website with your own domain name (eg. byrosanna.co.uk) that comes across more professional than just having a social media page or using a free portfolio site. It shows that you’re taking your work seriously, so clients feel like they can take you seriously and trust you.
It also helps you to build a name for yourself and your brand, making you more memorable for people to recall.
Full control over the design and your content
Social media pages don’t give you much control over the upload quality of your images, the layouts or how your work is being displayed. They also have the ability to remove your content whenever they like, or shut down your account, because they control the platform.
Share your portfolio all in one place
Being able to send one simple link (your website address) to people and have them view all your best portfolio images, and your photography services all in one place is really useful and convenient for your clients.
Which website platform should I use as a photographer?
There are loads of hosting platforms out there that you can build your photography website on, but I personally use and recommend Squarespace* for my clients.
One of the main reasons why I use Squarespace is as I mentioned, most of my clients are creatives, and many of them don’t enjoy the tech side of running their own website (they just want to create!). Squarespace is incredibly simple and intuitive for my clients to use and manage their websites themselves, and is designed with creatives and photographers in mind to make the most of beautiful imagery.
I also have a full in-depth blog post about Squarespace vs WordPress in case you’re looking into using a self-hosted platform for your photography website, and you can learn about how much it costs to build a Squarespace website in this post too.
The 3 biggest mistakes I see on photography websites
There are lots of ways I think many photographers could improve their websites, and I’ll be sharing some more tips below, but here are the 3 top mistakes I see people making:
Not sharing where they are based (location)
When I was searching for wedding photographers/videographers myself, I found this incredibly frustrating from a client’s perspective! I know photographers worry that if they say their location (eg. their nearest town or city), it will make it seem like they only offer services in that area, but it doesn’t. You can make it clear that you serve other areas within the content on your website.
By not sharing your rough location, it hinders local people from finding you (and lots of people will start their search locally because it’s an easy place to start!), and means you’re missing out on much easier, less-competitive SEO too.
I’ll share more about this in the tips below!
Too little information (too minimal)
It’s definitely important to make your photos take pride of place on your website, but so many photographers make their websites far too minimal in terms of other information and content. You’re not helping to answer your clients’ questions or build trust if you have barely any text on your website! (You’re also hindering your SEO as well).
It’s easy to make this mistake when designing your own website, because a lot of templates tend to be very minimal looking.
In the ‘tips’ section below, I share some advice on what you can include in the content on your website.
Slow loading website (due to not optimising images!)
Gorgeous high resolution imagery is what your clients want, but this is NOT okay to be uploading to your website. Large image files take longer to load, so will severely slow down your website if you haven’t optimised them.
This affects the user experience of your clients browsing your website, and is terrible for SEO as well. I’ve shared some tips for optimising your images below!
Okay, we’ve talked over the top 3 mistakes - now we get onto some of my best tips for ensuring you’re crafting the perfect photography website…
1. Understand your ideal photography clients
Getting inside of the mind of your ideal clients is important so that we can understand what they really want to see on your photography website. It’s not just about whether you’re trying to attract brides for wedding photography, or hotel owners for interior photography… it’s also about understanding their values, their style, and the vibe of people you want to work with.
What examples of work will they want to see?
What kinds of questions will they have about the process?
What design styles and colours are going to resonate with them most?
These are the kinds of questions you can use to guide your website build, when you’re clear on who you’re trying to attract.
Try doing an ideal client profiling or avatar creation exercise to help!
2. Get clear on the goal of your website and your priorities
This might sound obvious (‘the goal is more clients!’), but different people can have subtly different priorities when it comes to the purpose of their website.
Example 1: A fashion photographer who works with magazines and high end brands will typically get their clients through networking and pitching (my friend Olivia does this well!). Their website is mainly there to act as a portfolio to link to and to show they’re ‘legit’/trustworthy/serious about their work, rather than as a marketing tool. It’s unlikely their clients will be using Google to search for them and filling out contact forms.
Example 2: A wedding photographer is likely to have their clients comparing them between a few other options, based on their portfolio and information on their website while they are doing research. They want their clients to easily find them on Google, and fill out their enquiry form.
Example 3: A brand photographer for solo female business owners might be focusing on a specific location, so will want to join local business groups and have their website to show up in Google. Their ‘goal’ for the website might be to have potential clients book a ‘discovery call’ with them.
You can see how these 3 examples will require 3 different focuses in the content and the design of the website, because their priorities and goals are different.
3. Design a streamlined navigation & user journey
Make it easy for your website visitors to quickly view all the information they need by putting the most important pages in the main navigation menu of the website.
Below are two examples of simple navigation structures for photography websites:
You also want to make sure that you have plenty of ‘call to actions’ (ie. links and buttons that direct people to a specific page) around your website that make it clear what steps you want to visitor to take next.
So they’ve scrolled to the bottom of your About page… now what? Where do you want them to go next?
4. Curate photo galleries that share your highlights
Don’t upload every photo you’ve ever taken to your website portfolio gallery. Carefully select and curate a mix of images that represent the very best of your work. Quality is much better than quantity, because you don’t want to overwhelm your potential clients.
It’s also important to remember that you will attract more of the work that you share.
So even though a project might have shown off your skills well, consider whether you actually enjoyed it or definitely want to attract more of the same?
Eg. You’re a portrait photography with a light and airy, outdoorsy vibe, but you did some great images that had a much darker style. You’re allowed to love those images, but ask yourself is that the style you want to do more of in the future? Is that what you want to become known for?
5. Optimise your images before uploading!
As I mentioned in the ‘mistakes’ section, uploading large image files to your website can seriously slow it down and cause issues with loading and SEO.
Make sure you’re exporting your website images in a web-ready resolution (72dpi), and making the file sizes under 1MB in size (ideally under 500kb if you can!). You still want to have your images be around 2000px in width (for use as large banners on your website), but they don’t need to be large than this in width.
You can do this easily in Photoshop, and this is the best way to retain as much of the quality as you can, but there are also image compressor tools that can help you too.
6. Create galleries for different services / clients
If you offer a range of different photographer services (eg. as well as family photography, you offer portrait photography and newborn photography), it’s a good idea to create separate galleries for these different themes, because they may attract slightly different clients, and it makes it easier for people to get an idea of what it will be like to work with you on one of those specific services.
7. Write content that answers your clients’ questions
This is why (unless perhaps you’re the fashion photographer example I mentioned above with a specific type of client), I am not a fan of photography websites that just display a portfolio gallery, a simple about page with a bio, and a contact page.
I’m all about clean, minimal style but you also have to give your potential clients something to work with. How do they know what types of services you offer? How do they know what your process looks like and what to expect? You could be missing out on a whole host of potential clients who hopped off your website because they couldn’t find the information they needed.
8. Keep your content ‘scannable’
When I say ‘your website needs more content/information’, I don’t mean that you need to paste paragraphs and large chunks of text on every page. Just like with your photos, quality is better than quantity.
Yes, your potential clients want to see key information and answers to their questions, but they’re not going to read 1000 words about your story of how you got into photography - sorry!
Break up large chunks of text by using headings, subheadings, bullet points and pull quotes, and other design features that don’t require people to read a lot. Make it easy to scan for the busy brain!
9. Share what sets you apart (why should they hire you vs. someone else?)
While your photography might be able to ‘speak for itself’, it’s still important for your own brand-building that you’re able to communicate what sets you apart and why people should hire you.
Perhaps it’s something to do with the equipment you use, the style and lighting you’re known for, your personal friendly service, or your storytelling ability. Help your potential clients get to the place of thinking ‘wow, I need to work with THEM and no one else will do’.
10. Let them know your pricing 👀
I have always been an advocate for putting your pricing on your website - whether that’s pricing packages or a ‘from’ price or price range. And since approaching this from a client perspective recently in my own search for photographers, it remains a hill I will die on.
Learn more about the pros & cons of sharing your prices on your website here.
11. Tell people where you’re based (even if you work outside that location!)
You can easily explain in the copy on your website that you serve other areas outside of your local town, city or county, but making this location clear is SO important for a couple of reasons.
First, MOST people - when searching for a wedding/interior/brand/family/food etc. photographer - will search for people local to them, because they might not know where else to start AND it’s obviously easier for them if they’re local (less travel and travel fees for everyone!). Plus a lot of people prefer supporting local business owners anyway.
Second, trying to get your website ranking at the top of Google when people search for ‘family photographer UK’ is a lot harder than if someone searches ‘family photographer Exeter’, because you’re competing with EVERY family photographer in the UK.
So please tell people where you’re based, even if you work with people in other areas as well. It makes life easier for everyone!
12. Make it easy for people to contact you
Technically, for most businesses, just having a contact form (with no other contact details available) on your website is actually against the law (in the UK at least!). This is mainly because you can’t necessarily rely on a contact form to always work - sometimes there can be technical issues which mean messages don’t get sent through.
Have you ever sent off a contact form enquiry to a business and wondered if it ever got through? It’s always a bit of a concern, so I’d always recommend sharing your email address on your contact page alongside your form in case people suspect it isn’t working.
13. Ask where they found out about you
If a contact form isn’t trustworthy, you might be wondering - why bother? Couldn’t you just display your email address?
You definitely could, BUT a contact form does help to guide people to provide the information you need, such as wedding date (for wedding photographers) etc.
One piece of information I would always suggest collecting from a contact form is where the person found out about you! Having people fill this in on your form is so helpful to see what marketing activities are working well for you.
14. Add the legal necessities
I mentioned about the contact details being a legal requirement above, and while I am not a lawyer and would always advise speaking to a legal professional for official advice, there are a few other things I make sure my clients are aware of as well, such as needing a privacy policy and a cookie consent manager*.
These are requirements for most businesses that collect data in some form - whether that is via a contact form on their website, or via their website analytics.
15. Make your testimonials stand out
No one reads essay long testimonials on a website. They’ll read a relevant, well laid-out case study OR they’ll scan over a highlight testimonial with one or two sentences.
So if you have some beautiful testimonials but they’re longer, try and pick out your favourite statement that will resonate to new clients the most!
16. Use colours and design that make your images the main focus
I love using cool effects, animations and overlapping elements on some of my clients’ websites, but I avoid doing this too much on photography websites.
From the perspective of a potential client looking for a photographer, I find that too many colour or ‘interesting’/moving elements can cause a distraction from what I really want to see - the quality and style of the photography.
But your website doesn’t have to be a white minimalist showcase! You can still use colour in an intentional way that works with the images, not against them.
17. Check it looks great on mobile too
Some website design platforms either don’t offer much control of how your website will look on mobile devices, or make it really complicated, which is why I love Squarespace* for its mobile responsive features.
You have flexibility to adapt the layout to look great on desktop and mobile, but not so much flexibility that it feels too complex or difficult to get right for different screen scaling.
18. Don’t forget about SEO
There’s so much that goes into ‘SEO’ (search engine optimisation), from optimising your images, to understanding what keywords your clients are searching for, creating quality content, and adding ‘meta data’ to your website.
Squarespace* makes the latter really easy, and is technically structured with SEO in mind too, however writing search optimised content for your website, and working on your off-site SEO (eg. marketing and PR) is up to you.
It’s another reason why very sparse, minimalist style websites with very little text aren’t a good idea if you want to be showing up on Google - you need good quality, relevant content on your website to give Google as much context about what you do as possible!
I have a guide on how to optimise your Squarespace website for SEO here.
19. Include at least one photo of you (on an ‘About’ page)
I get it - you prefer to be behind the lens, not in front of it.
But honestly with a service like photography, where you’ll be meeting your clients in person and relying on a good relationship together, you need to have a way for people to get to know the face behind the camera before working with you. It develops trust and is incredibly important!
A professional portrait shot is definitely best (seeing as you’re in the photography biz yourself!), paired with a good quality about page is ideal.
20. Keep your portfolio up to date regularly
You want your website to be fairly low maintenance (anothe reason why I love Squarespace*!), but you don’t want to just ‘set it and forget it’ when it comes to your portfolio work.
People want to see up to date, fresh, recent work so they can better imagine working with you, and you’ll want to make sure you’re always showcasing your best stuff too.
21. Design for style and functionality
Realistically this is the value that working with a website designer can bring to your website design project. My signature 3S’ approach is Simplicity, Style, and Strategy, and ensuring that all 3 are prioritised on your website.
You don’t just want your website to look great, you want it to be easy for your clients to navigate, easy for you to keep up to date, AND actually working to convert your website visitors into clients as well.
Want to work with me? Check out my Squarespace website design services here.
Photography Website FAQs
Does my photography website need a blog?
There are two reasons why a photographer might want to add a blog to their website:
To use as a portfolio of case studies to share real projects (these can go into more depth than a gallery/portfolio page of your highloghts)
To enhance their SEO by publishing well-researched, relevant and high quality articles focused around their keywords. I teach how to do this inside my course, Blogging with Purpose!
That being said, I’d only encourage doing this if you genuinely enjoy creating written content, because creating well-researched SEO blog posts, or documenting case studies of your work, can take time and effort.
How many photos should I have on my photography website?
As mentioned above, it’s important to be selective about the photos you share on your website because you want to curate a gallery of your highlights, rather than overwhelm clients with everything you’ve done. I know it can be difficult to do this (when you’ve usually already been through the culling process with a client!), but quality is better than quantity.
Should I have my testimonials on their own separate page?
In my opinion, no one ever reads separate testimonials pages. It’s much better to scatter testimonial ‘highlights’ throughout your website to catch peoples’ eye as they scroll past, rather than requiring them to click on a different page. It can also be a nice idea to create case studies as blog posts or individual pages where relevant too.
