FOR ARTISTS & CREATIVES
What Should a Photography Website Include? A Page-by-Page Guide
A page-by-page checklist for UK photographers: home page, galleries, about, pricing, testimonials, booking, blog and legal pages.
Straight advice on how many images to show, how to choose and order them, curate by client type and keep a portfolio fresh.
The best photography portfolio tips are to show fewer but stronger images, grouped by the clients you want. Open and close with your best work and keep the style consistent. Cut anything you wouldn’t want to be hired for. Give each set a line or two of context, and review the whole portfolio every few months.
Your portfolio is a sales tool. It isn’t an archive of everything you’ve ever shot, and a prospective client will decide within moments if you’re the right photographer for the job.
These photography portfolio tips cover editing and selection for UK photographers who shoot weddings, portraits, families, headshots, commercial work or events. Treat them as recommendations. They aren’t fixed rules, so bend them to suit your own style and market.
Fewer than you think. There’s no official number, and we haven’t found a reliable industry standard to quote. A good working rule, though, is a tight set for each type of work in place of one long scroll of everything you’ve done. Somewhere between 10 and 25 images per gallery suits most photographers. A general overview of your portfolio can be shorter still.
Here’s the test. If an image isn’t clearly one of your best, it drags the average down. Clients remember your weakest picture every bit as clearly as your strongest one, so if a frame makes you hesitate for even a second when you scroll past it, cut it.
Choose with the client in mind and set aside your own attachment to a shoot. Put each image through three questions.
Then ask someone from outside photography to pick their favourites, ideally a person who looks like your target client. Their picks will often differ from yours, and when it’s time for someone to book, theirs are the ones that count because they’re the person paying.
Start strong and end strong, and keep the middle flowing. Your first image sets the standard. Your last is the one people walk away with, so put your two best pictures in those slots.
Through the middle, vary the rhythm. Alternate wide scenes with close details and with people so the set doesn’t feel repetitive. Group neighbouring images by tone and colour so they look as if they belong together. Be careful when you mix orientations, because a run of portrait images followed by a block of horizontal ones can make the layout feel lopsided. And don’t pad with weak fillers. A gallery is only as good as its weakest slot.
For weddings and events you can also run things in the order they happened, from preparation through the ceremony and portraits to the party, provided each image earns its place.
Yes. A bride wants something different from a company marketing manager, and a family booking a mini session wants something else again. Show them all the same mixed gallery and none of them can easily picture you working for them.
Build a separate gallery for each audience, with its own introduction and a clear spot in your navigation. Headshot clients look for consistency and good lighting, plus a quick turnaround. Commercial clients want brand-ready images and usage options. Wedding couples want emotion and a feel for the day. A well-planned photography portfolio website lets each kind of client find the right work fast, and our guide to marketing for photographers explains how to bring those clients to the page in the first place.
Shoot several genres? Lead with the one you most want to be known for. Keep the others on the site, just further back.
Look over it a few times a year, and add new work whenever you have something better than what’s already there. You’re aiming to replace, not to pile up. When a new image goes in, an older one should usually come out.
Don’t let a gap open up between what you show and what you shoot now. Say you’ve moved towards lifestyle family photography but your gallery is still mostly studio work: prospects will book the photographer they can see, which isn’t the one you’ve become.
Pictures sell your craft. Context is what makes people trust you. Add a few lines to each gallery or set saying who the client was and what the brief asked for. Mention the location too, plus anything that shaped the result. Commercial and corporate work gains the most from a short account of the problem you solved.
Give images descriptive filenames and captions, and write proper alt text, so the page is accessible and makes sense to everyone. Google Search Central advises descriptive, context-appropriate alt text along with short filenames that mean something. It also warns against stuffing alt text with keywords.
Only show client work if the client has agreed. If you rely on consent to use someone’s photos, the ICO points out that people can withdraw consent, and after that you must stop using their information. Check that your contract covers portfolio and marketing use, and be ready to take an image down if someone asks. This is general information, not legal advice.
We build portfolio websites for photographers that sort your work by client type. They load fast and make enquiring easy. Our team includes working photographers, so we know what makes a gallery do its job. We agree a clear brief, scope and fee with you before any work begins.
Usually you’re better off splitting them by type of work. In one mixed gallery, it’s harder for any single client to see themselves. Keep a small overview of your strongest images on the home page and send each audience on to a gallery made for them.
Each has its place. A website lets you control how your work is presented and explained, and in what order, and people can book through it. Social media is good for being discovered and for showing recent work. Treat your site as the main portfolio, with social channels as routes into it.
Include whichever shows the work you want to be hired for. Personal projects come in handy when you’re moving into a new style and don’t have paid examples yet. Label them honestly, and swap them for client work once you have it.
That’s your call. A watermark can put off casual copying, but it also pulls the eye away from the picture. Plenty of photographers rely on web-sized files and copyright notices instead, backed by clear terms. Any watermark you do use should be small and discreet.
Set up a few styled shoots, or shoots with friends, in the genre you’re after. Keep only the strongest images and be upfront about what they are. A short, focused portfolio of really good work beats a long one padded out with weaker frames.
A page-by-page checklist for UK photographers: home page, galleries, about, pricing, testimonials, booking, blog and legal pages.
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