how to create a photography website

How to create a photography website: 8 easy steps

Bryn Glover,

A website is an essential tool for any photographer who wants to showcase their portfolio, attract new clients or build a professional online brand. So, how to start a photography website?

Having a well-designed and user-friendly website can significantly improve your credibility and your reach. It can also provide a platform to manage bookings, take payments and share albums, or anything other product you sell or create.

If you want to know how to start a photography website, this is the place to start. Take a look at the steps below to get going.

Table of Contents

Step 1: Define your goals and plans

Before we dive into the technical side of website creation, it’s important that you take some time to define your goals.

Think about your market and consider how you fit into it.

  • What type of photography do you specialise in? Portraits, landscapes, weddings, wildlife?
  • Who is your target audience? Couples, families, businesses?
  • What is your website for? Booking clients, displaying work, selling prints?

Having a clear understanding of your goals, audience and marketing strategy will help you to tailor a website to your specific needs.

If you want more help defining your goals, you can take a look at our how to create a business plan page for some easy-to-follow tips.

Step 2: Choose a website builder platform

There are several ways that you could approach building a website. Each offers a range of features, with different levels of customisation.

Broadly though, the options fall into three categories: website builders, ecommerce website builders, or custom CMSs such as WordPress.

A website builder like Squarespace might be the perfect choice for a photographer, especially if the main aim of your site is to host your portfolio. 

Squarespace prioritises design and aesthetics and has become a favourite for people working in the creative industries. You can check out our best website builder page now if you want to compare Squarespace and other platforms, such as Wix or GoDaddy.

An ecommerce website builder like Shopify might be more appropriate if the main of your website is to sell products. As the name suggests, ecommerce builders tend to offer the tools you need to sell online. Visit our best ecommerce website builders page to compare top choices.

The final option is to use a custom CMS, such as WordPress. Often, these platforms will provide a much higher level of customisation, if you know how to use them. We recommend this option if you have a lot of online experience already, or if you have the budget to hire a developer that can help you out.

Best website builders for photography

You’ll want your photography website to reflect your creativity and skill. The builders below have been picked as the best options for making sure your site looks perfect online. They also provide ecommerce functionality if you’re interested in selling your products to customers from your website platform.

Squarespace

Ideal for creative professionals
£ 12 Monthly
  • 200+ professionally created templates
  • Gallery and ecommerce functionality
Full Review
Our Pick

Wix

A great all-round website builder
£ 9 Monthly
  • 800+ templates to choose
  • Great for ease-of-use
Full Review

WordPress

Greatest level of customisation for experts
£ 3 Monthly
  • Huge range of plugins and tools
  • Excellent customisation for the experienced
Learn More

Step 3: Choose a domain name and hosting plan

Your domain name is your website’s address, and it also reflects your brand. You can take a look at our how to choose a domain name guide for more in-depth advice but, in a nutshell, you should make sure that your domain name is: short, memorable and easy to read.

Once you have a name chosen, you’ll need to choose a hosting provider. It’s worth bearing in mind that many domain registrars also offer this service.

You might not be sure what hosting is, but the best way to think about it is as a storage platform for your website. A hosting plan will make your site is accessible to users. 

When it comes to choosing, consider how many visitors you expect to visit your site, what level of security you need, as well as how much storage space you’ll require. As a photography website, it’s likely that you’ll be storing a lot more media than some other types of websites will need.

Take a look at our best hosting providers page if you want more tips on how to choose, and which brand is most suitable for you.

Step 4: Design your website

Your website’s design is crucial if you want to make a lasting impression on your visitors. It should be visually appealing, clear, and easy to use.

Here are a few design tips:

  • Choose a clean and uncluttered layout that helps your photos take centre stage.
  • Make sure your website is responsive and that it looks good on all devices.
  • Promote your best work to showcase your skills as much as possible.
  • Make sure it is easy for users to find their way around your site.

Most website builders offer pre-designed templates, including options tailored to photographers’ websites. Make sure you choose one that suits your style; you can then customise it further to make sure it feels on-brand for you.

Remember to keep your design, style and branding consistent across your site to create a cohesive experience.

online photo gallery

Optimise for mobile

Even though most of your website-building work will take place on a desktop or laptop computer, the chances are the majority – or at least a large portion of – visits to your site will come from mobile.

 

As of March 2024, around 61% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices. This percentage has increased over the years, from around 37% in 2015 and just 6.1% in 2011. Based on that increase, website owners could expect to see the vast majority of their users visiting on mobile devices by the end of the decade.

 

If you are using a website builder then mobile optimisation should not be an issue. However, you will want to make sure that the images you are presenting on your site are of high quality, without sacrificing page load time.

Step 5: Add your website pages

Depending on how you want your website to run, there are several pages you’ll either need or want to consider adding. The list below provides a brief overview of each type of page. For more information, you can continue reading the sections lower down the page.

  • Homepage – the hub of your website, perfect for providing users with the most important information they need, as well as navigation options to other important areas.
  • Portfolio or gallery – your online storefront, a place to showcase your best work. Use folders and tagging to sort your photography into the categories your users will be interested in finding.
  • About us – a place to share a little more information about, providing information on how you like to work, where you like to work, and why you’re the best photographer for the job.
  • Client page – a portal for prospective clients to find examples of your new work, as well as a place for past or current clients to find their own images.
  • Contact page – the place for your contact information, designed to make it easy for new or old clients to get in touch with you.
As well as the pages above, you should also consider creating blog posts, where you can provide users with insight into your work, and an ecommerce shopfront, if you’re planning to sell photography or products.

Homepage

The homepage is where you can present yourself and what you do. Whether you’re a solo photographer creating beautiful landscapes, or a team of event photographers capturing couples on their wedding days. Your homepage is the place to let people know.

 

One of the most frequent mistakes photographers can make on their website homepages is to forget about the written content. A lot of people assume that their photography will speak for itself. That may be the case, but it’s better to be safe than sorry!

 

Make sure to include your business logo – if you have one – your name, experience and your expertise. Additionally, make sure that all of this information is clear for everyone to see. 

 

If you’re using your website to attract new business, then having this content front and centre is an excellent way to confirm to prospective clients that you are the photographer they’re looking for.

 

You’ll also want to make sure that the rest of your site is easy to get to from the homepage. This means building a strong and easy-to-use navigation menu. You may also want to include specific links within your homepage to highlight the really important pages.

Portfolio or gallery

As a photographer, your portfolio is likely to be the heart of your website.

When you create your portfolio, you should consider how you organise your photos. With most website builders, you can create categories or specific galleries based on what type or theme of photos you are displaying.

You might also want to use more advanced portfolio options. A wedding photographer, for example, may want to have separate galleries on their site for different weddings they have worked at. You may also want to have these galleries gated so that only people with the right password can view them.

Throughout your online portfolio, you should consider adding titles, captions and descriptions where it makes sense to do so. This will help users to understand the context behind the photographs you display.

If your plan is to sell photos or prints on your site, you may also want to enable ecommerce functionality to work with your portfolio. Many website builders offer this feature, though it is sometimes on a premium plan.

About us

The About Us (or About Me) page is where people can find out more about you or your business.

 

This is a great place to explain your approach to photography, including how you like to approach it, where you tend to work, and what inspires you. This is also a great place to add some personality to attract the right kind of customer.

Client page

Testimonials and reviews from happy clients can boost your credibility. Showcase positive feedback from previous customers on your website to build trust with new ones. You should also include some context, posting reviews alongside the photos you’ve taken, for example.

A client page can be a great way to showcase your work. Fill this page with examples of your work, or links to other areas of the site where people can find it.

A client page is a great way to improve users’ confidence in your abilities. If they like what they see on your client page, they’ll feel more confident that you are the right choice.

 

This is a hugely important part of any website but is particularly valuable for photographers working in competitive fields, such as events or weddings.

Contact page

If you’re trying to attract new business, contact information is vital. Details such as your name, email address and phone number can be added elsewhere on your website – to the footer, for example – but should also be available on a specific page.

 

Having this page, and making sure it can be navigated from anywhere on your website, is the best way to make sure that people know exactly how to get in touch with you.

 

You can also use different tools on this page to help automate certain processes. For example, with various website builders, you can build purpose-built contact forms that make it easy for visitors to get in touch – and easy for you to manage your messages too.

Step 6: Market your photography website

Marketing your website will help you to grow your business over time. There are several forms of marketing or advertising that you might want to consider.

If you want people to visit your site then one of the first forms of marketing you’ll want to consider is search engine optimisation (SEO). SEO is all about making your site visible on search engines like Google or Bing. Done well, it can mean that your site generates traffic and conversions organically.

To increase how you can advertise, you might also want to invest some time in social media marketing. As a photographer, platforms such as Facebook and Instagram can be excellent ways to share your work with a wide audience; by using a combination of paid and non-paid strategies you can build your potential customer base and retain them over time.

You might also want to consider email marketing as a form of customer retention. If you sell prints to the public, this can be a good way to bring customers back to your site to see more. By using filters in your email sends, you can target specific demographics with products you think will be suitable for them.

Connect your social channels

By connecting your social media channels to your website, you can provide a range of additional experiences to your users. For example, if you know that you frequently update your Instagram profile or Facebook page with recent work, allowing users to navigate straight to those profiles can be another way to promote your professional work.

 

You can add links to all of the social media platforms that you want to connect to in various parts of the site. For example, you may want a static bar in your site header and footer at all times, along with specific links added to images within pages.

Step 7: Start blogging

If you enjoy writing about your photography experiences, or you’re keen to offer tips and tutorials to other people, then you might consider developing a blog for your site.

A blog can be a great way to generate content for your marketing channels, providing post material for social media or email, but also potentially ranking on search engines.

If you go down this route, blogging can also be a great way to showcase your portfolio even more. From a good blog, you might even be able to generate sales if you provide links back to products that users can purchase.

Tips for blogging on your photography website

If you want to add more content, there are some guidelines to bear in mind. Below, we’ve provided a few top tips to keep track of when you start writing.

  • Create content that’s relevant to your photography. If you’re a wedding photographer first and foremost, you might get less value from a blog post about landscape photography.
  • Make sure to use your images. A blog post of text, without any examples of your work, may not be a great way of demonstrating your experience.
  • Think about what’s coming up that you want people to know about. Are you offering a new deal? Are you expanding into a new area of photography? Your blog might be the best place to let people know.

Step 8: Test and launch

Before you launch your website for the first time, you should test it as thoroughly as you can. This means trying it out on different devices and different web browsers to confirm that everything works as expected.

Check for broken links, bad spelling and any other issue that might detract from your users’ experience.

Once you’re happy that your website works as planned, and that performance and design are good, it’s time to launch. You can promote your website or business using the tools we mentioned above, or in any other way that makes sense to you.

Once you’ve launched, you should also bear in mind that a photography website isn’t static. Make sure to update it regularly with new information and content.

How to create a photography website: Final thoughts

Creating a photography website requires planning. Make sure to prioritise site design and user-friendly features. Also, make sure that you can showcase your work in an easy-to-access way.

By following the steps listed on this page, and by investing time in building a strong online presence, you can elevate your photography business to new heights.

Photography website FAQs

What your photography website needs will depend on your goals.

If you are creating an online portfolio to find new customers for your business, then you’ll need to showcase your photographs in the right way using a well-designed portfolio. Many website builders offer the tools and options you need to do this.

If you are looking to drive new customers, you’ll also want to include clear and easy to access contact options on your site. This can be as simple as providing your email address and phone number on the site, or you could take the extra step of adding contact forms that customers can use. This approach will help you to tailor the sort of communications you receive. Once again, many website builders can provide the tools you need to set this up.

On the other hand, if you are creating a website so that you can sell prints of your photographs directly to customers, then you’ll need to invest in ecommerce features. If your goal is to sell online, then as a photographer you’ll want to find a website builder that prioritises design, while also providing the sorts of ecommerce functionality that you need.

There’s no single answer to this question. Generally speaking though, you should have enough photography on your website to make sure you achieve your goals.

For example, if you are selling your photographs as prints, you’ll need to make sure you have each photograph you are selling on your website so that people can see them. You may also want to include additional images, showing what the photograph looks like when it’s framed and when it’s not framed, for instance.

If you are building a portfolio to attract new business then you’ll need to have enough photographs on your site to properly demonstrate your work. If you work as a wedding photographer then you should make sure to include a portoflio of photographs that demonstrates your work across a range of weddings. This will give people a feel for how you work in different styles, with different couples, and at different venues.

If you are landscape photographer, on the other hand, you may want to make sure you include enough photographs to cover the whole range of your catalogue. Make sure to include photographs in different locations, at different times of the year, and even at different times of the day to give a clear feel of how you can work across different styles.

Most photographers will use a range of platforms to post their work. This can help them to attract the largest audience possible.

Of course, many will choose to build a website to act as an online portfoio. The benefit of this sort of site is that it can act as a gateway to their other platforms too.

Many photographers use platforms such as Instagram to post their photography, with options for users to visit their website if they like what they see.

Depending on the sort of photography you create, you may also use sites like Shutterstock, where photographers can post stock imagery. They will receive a portion of the money paid in the event that their photograph is licensed by someone else to appear on a website, for example.

Picture of Bryn Glover

Bryn Glover

Bryn is the founder and editor of WebsiteJumpStart. He has worked in the digital field for over a decade and was editor for Startups.co.uk - the UK's leading small business website - and for NerdWallet UK before launching WebsiteJumpStart to help people and businesses get online with ease.
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