There are a lot of things you could put on your photography website.
Fancy galleries. Moving text. Instagram feeds. Videos. Awards. Testimonials. Approximately 47 photos from your favourite wedding.
But good photography website design isn’t about adding everything you possibly can.
It’s about creating a website that makes it incredibly easy for someone to understand what you do, connect with your work and take the next step. Because your website isn’t just your portfolio. It’s part of your business. And after designing websites for photographers for years, I’ve found that some of the simplest things are usually the ones that make the biggest difference.
So if you’re designing your own site, customizing a template or wondering why your current website isn’t really doing much for you, these are the things I’d focus on first.
1. A homepage that immediately tells me what you do
I love a beautiful homepage. Give me the giant editorial image. Give me the gorgeous typography. Give me all the white space.
But please also tell me what you do.
Someone shouldn’t have to scroll halfway down your homepage before realizing you’re a family photographer in Vancouver or a brand photographer in Austin.
One of the most important parts of photography website design is balancing beautiful visuals with clear information.
Your homepage should make it relatively obvious:
What do you photograph?
Where are you based or where do you work?
Who do you work with?
That doesn’t mean your opening headline has to read: Vancouver Family Photographer Serving Vancouver Families
We’re not writing for robots. You can still have personality and beautiful brand messaging. Just make sure the practical information exists somewhere prominent too.
Your visitors need it. And Google does too.
2. Navigation that doesn’t make people think
Your navigation is not the place to get wildly creative.
If I want to learn about you, I’m looking for About.
If I want to see what you offer, I’m looking for Services or the actual name of the service.
If I want to contact you, I’m looking for Contact.
Calling your contact page Let’s Make Magic Together might sound cute, but now your visitor has to figure out what that actually means. Keep the personality in the page. Keep the navigation simple.
Good photography web design should make moving through your website feel almost effortless.
3. Separate pages for your main photography services
This is one of my biggest recommendations.
Let’s say you photograph:
Weddings
Engagements
Families
Brands
You could put all four into one Services page.
But if they’re important parts of your business, I’d much rather see dedicated pages for them.
Why?
First, your potential client gets an entire experience specifically about what they’re looking for.
Someone interested in brand photography doesn’t have to scroll through weddings and families before finding the information relevant to them.
But it also gives Google significantly more context.
A dedicated brand photography page can talk about your process, location, experience, portfolio and everything someone might want to know about that particular service.
That’s much stronger than one paragraph buried on a general Services page.
If you’re still figuring out the actual structure of your website, read my guide on how to create a photography website next.
4. Enough copy for people AND Google
I know photographers love image-heavy websites. And I do too.
But a photography website cannot be twelve beautiful galleries and six mysterious sentences about preserving fleeting moments.
Google needs context. And more importantly, your potential clients need context.
They want to know what it’s like to work with you.
What you photograph.
Where you work.
What your approach is.
What makes your experience different.
What happens after they inquire.
Good photography website design gives your images room to breathe while still giving your words enough space to do their job.
I always think of it like this: Your images create the feeling. Your copy creates the understanding.
You need both.
5. A portfolio that shows what you want to book
Your portfolio doesn’t need to contain every beautiful photograph you’ve ever taken.
It should show people what they can expect if they hire you.
If you want more editorial weddings, show more editorial wedding work.
If you’re moving toward branding photography, start giving that work more space.
If you don’t want to photograph something anymore, you probably don’t need to dedicate half your homepage to it just because you have great images from three years ago.
Your website should point toward where your business is going.
Not just document everywhere it’s been.
This is one of those photography website design decisions that seems small but can completely change the type of work your site communicates.
6. Clear calls to action throughout the website
One of the easiest mistakes to make is assuming people know what to do next.
They don’t always. Imagine someone reaches the bottom of your About page.
They like you. They connect with your story.
And then…
Nothing.
Don’t make them scroll back to the navigation and figure out where to go.
Give them the next step.
That could be:
Explore the Portfolio
View the Experience
See My Services
Check Availability
Get in Touch
You don’t need a giant BOOK ME NOW!!! button every six inches.
Just gently guide people through the website.
A good website should feel like there is always a logical place to go next.
7. Photography website design that works on mobile
Your mobile site deserves just as much attention as your desktop site.
Possibly more. People are finding photographers while sitting on the couch scrolling Instagram, saving something on Pinterest or Googling from their phone.
So please actually open your finished website on your phone.
Click everything.
Scroll every page.
Submit your own contact form.
Check your image crops.
Make sure the text isn’t microscopic.
Make sure buttons aren’t sitting on top of photographs.
And make sure the gorgeous desktop hero image hasn’t cropped someone’s head off. 😂
This is actually one of the reasons I love designing in Showit: I have a lot of control over the mobile version rather than simply hoping the desktop layout translates perfectly.
If you’re still deciding which platform to use, I recently wrote about how to choose a photography website builder and what I’d look for before committing to one.
8. Basic SEO built into the website
SEO shouldn’t be something you suddenly remember three months after launching your site.
You don’t need to become an SEO expert.
But you should think about what you want each page to be found for while you’re creating it.
That affects things like:
- Page titles
- Headings
- URLs
- Meta descriptions
- Copy
- Image alt text
- Internal links
For example, your page doesn’t need to be called:
/services-2
when it could be something meaningful like:
/brand-photography
Little decisions like that help create a clearer website for both users and search engines.
If you’re not even sure whether Google can currently find your website, start with my free 5-Minute Google Guide for Photographers.
9. Your personality
This one isn’t technical, but I think it matters.
There are a lot of photographers. There are also a lot of beautiful photography websites.
Your website shouldn’t feel like it could belong to literally anyone.
Your personality can come through in your copy, your colours, typography, image choices, layout and the little details throughout the experience.
You don’t need to invent a wildly unique design concept just for the sake of being different.
But you also don’t need to strip every ounce of personality out of your website because you’re trying to make it look “professional.”
Professional doesn’t have to mean boring.
The best photography website design feels cohesive with the photographer behind it.
10. A really easy way to inquire
Finally, please make it easy to hire you.
Your Contact page doesn’t need to ask someone for their mother’s maiden name and what they had for breakfast. 😂
Ask for the information you genuinely need to determine whether the inquiry is a good fit.
Name.
Email.
Type of photography.
Date, if relevant.
Location.
A little information about what they’re looking for.
Done.
You can gather more details later.
The goal at this stage is simply to make taking that first step feel easy.
Your photography website doesn’t need more stuff. It needs more intention.
This is probably the biggest thing I want you to take away from this.
Good photography website design isn’t about how many animations you have, how trendy your fonts are or whether you used the coolest layout you saw on Pinterest.
It’s about creating an experience.
Someone arrives.
They understand what you do.
They connect with your work.
They learn why you’re the right person for them.
And they know exactly what to do next.
That’s the job.
The beautiful design is what makes that experience feel like you.
And if you love the idea of starting with that strategy already built in rather than staring at a completely blank screen, that’s exactly why I create Showit website templates for photographers.
The structure is there.
The strategy is there.
You bring the photography, brand and personality.
