Curate your portfolio ruthlessly
Show only the work you want to be hired for. 15–25 images across 3–5 galleries is ideal. If you want wedding work, show weddings — not landscapes. Quality and relevance matter more than volume. Remove anything that doesn't represent your best or your target niche.
Generate your photographer layout
Use Canvas Builder to generate a photography-focused website: full-bleed hero image, gallery grid, about section, and contact CTA. Specify your photography niche (wedding, portrait, commercial, editorial), brand colours (usually minimal — black, white, or one accent), and style (dark, editorial, clean). Download the Bootstrap 5 HTML.
Optimise your images for the web
This is the single most impactful step for photographer sites. Resize images to max 2000px on the longest side. Compress with quality 80–85 in Photoshop or Squoosh. Use WebP format for 30–50% smaller files than JPEG at the same quality. A 5MB JPEG becomes a 200KB WebP — your site loads in 1 second instead of 8.
Create distinct galleries by niche
Organise your portfolio into clear galleries: 'Weddings', 'Portraits', 'Commercial', 'Editorial'. Each gallery should have 8–15 images. Avoid generic labels like 'Portfolio' or 'Work' — they don't help visitors or search engines understand what you do.
Add your booking and pricing information
At minimum: a clear 'Book a Session' or 'Enquire' CTA in your nav and footer. Better: include starting prices or package ranges to pre-qualify enquiries. Best: embed a Calendly booking widget for immediate session scheduling. Every extra click between 'I want to book' and 'booking made' costs you clients.
Optimise for local SEO
Target '[photography type] photographer [city]' in your homepage title. Add LocalBusiness JSON-LD schema. Create a Google Business Profile with your photography category. Get listed on wedding directories (Easy Weddings, The Knot) if applicable. Add alt text to every image describing the content, not just '[client name] shoot'.
Tools You'll Need
- →Canvas Builder (HTML generation)
- →Squoosh or Photoshop (image optimisation)
- →Calendly (booking)
- →Google Business Profile
- →Netlify or Cloudflare Pages (hosting)