Building a photographer site

Establish your professional photography business online to showcase your work and attract new clients.

Last updated October 30, 2024

A photographer website displays your work, answers common questions, and attracts new clients. In this guide, we'll cover tips for creating photo galleries and how to use goal-oriented design to engage clients.

Note

This guide focuses on site design for professional photographers working with clients. If you're looking to display your photography, but don't work with clients, our Building a portfolio guide may be more relevant.

Start with a photography design

While all Squarespace sites have the built-in design tools to make an exciting, dynamic photographer site, you may want to start with a design from the Photography category of the template store. These photography-centered designs highlight your photos and help clients get in touch with you.

To get started, visit the template store and select Photography in the menu on the left. This filters the designs to only show photography-focused templates. Click Preview on any design, or click Start With to create a new site using that design. To learn more, visit Choosing the right template.

Find more inspiration for your site from our Squarespace Collection collaboration with Magnum Photos. You can start your version 7.1 site with templates that draw from the creative visions of photographers Olivia Arthur, Jacob Aue Sobol, Sabiha Çimen, Bruce Gilden, William Keo, and Steve McCurry.

Tip

Join the Artists and Photographers club on the Squarespace Forum to interact with Squarespace users like you and get inspired by their websites for your own design.

Show your work

Displaying compelling examples of past work helps attract future clients. You can show off your stunning images in multiple ways, whether you're making a solid first impression with a single image, highlighting your best shots, or organizing full sets into browsable galleries.

Banner images or image blocks

Use a banner image or image block to showcase a single image. With banner images, you can add other content overlaying the banner or let the image stand on its own. With image blocks, you can pair the image with text in a number of dynamic layouts. These are great options for your homepage to introduce some of your best work to visitors in a striking way

Use gallery sections to display sets of images in a cohesive layout. Gallery sections support a variety of designs so you can give each set of images a distinct look or feel. You can add gallery sections to any page type, including portfolio projects, making this a great option for showcasing images along with other important content.

Portfolio pages

Use portfolio pages to organize multiple photo projects in one place. You can use this to sort your images by project or topic, so prospective clients can easily browse your work and find the types of images they're looking for. You can make use of all of the above elements in portfolio projects, including banner images, image blocks, and gallery sections.

Image size and presentation

While you want clients to see great, high-resolution examples of your work, the size of each image and the number of images on a page will affect that page's load time. To avoid issues, we recommend formatting your images for display on the web and limiting the number of images per page. If you have a large photo set, it can help to divide this between multiple pages. This ensures that your photos not only look great, but load quickly, even on mobile devices.

Promote your business with engaging content

You can use the Marketing Kit in the iOS Squarespace app to showcase your work or explain what your clients can expect during a session.

Then, export your content and share on your site or on social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook.

Encourage contact

If your site's goal is to book new clients, you can use the features below to make it easier for anyone who likes your work to contact you or sign up for a service.

Acuity Scheduling

Acuity Scheduling is our complete online scheduling solution, which you can integrate into your site with a scheduling block. Acuity Scheduling includes all the tools you need to book appointments with new clients, schedule shoots, send reminders, and more.

Call-to-action buttons

A call-to-action is a link or button that encourages visitors to contact you. You can add a button to your site header, or to content areas with a button block.

Contact Form

Form blocks add customizable forms to any content area on your site. While an email address is great for general contact, the form block encourages visitors to answer questions and provide detailed information, helping you avoid unnecessary back and forth. A form block is great for your homepage, or you can create a standalone contact page. You can also create a project connected to a form submitter's profile, where you can collect a deposit, review upcoming project milestones and send invoices.

Announcement bar

Announcement bars display a clickable banner at the top of your site. If you're running a seasonal special or other promotion, this is a great way to highlight that information for visitors.

FAQ

Potential clients generally have questions about your services, prices, and other details. You can answer these questions before they ask with an FAQ. Add a text block to a layout page then format the text with headings to make your questions stand out.

Optimize for search engines

If you depend on search engines like Google to bring new visitors to your site, following a few SEO best practices can help your site rank higher. Adding alt text to images might help them appear in search results and makes your site more accessible to potential clients. If you're based in a specific region, you can promote your physical location to help Google promote your site in local searches.

Print and ship your work

You can print photo products on-demand and drop ship them by connecting Printique. While we work with third-party services to ensure Squarespace extensions work properly, extensions fall outside our scope of support. We can help with connecting or disconnecting your extensions. For all other questions, contact the extensions provider directly.

Next steps

These steps are just the start of creating an enticing photographer site. You can use the following guides to build out your site and show clients why you're right for them.

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  • Get help from our community

  • Get help from our community on advanced customizations.

  • Hire a Squarespace Expert

  • Stand out online with the help of an experienced designer or developer.