livebooks blog

One of the best feelings in the world as a photographer is capturing memories and emotions for your clients that they’ll be able to look back on for years to come.

And as the artist who created it, you’re bound to feel personally invested in every single image you’ve provided to your clients.

However, this doesn’t mean all of the photos are website-worthy.

When it comes to showcasing yourself and your work online, there are a few key things you should remember, including quality, efficiency and branding. If you aren’t sure how these factors play into choosing the right photos for your photography website, we have some tips to help you:

1. Place Yourself in a Client’s Shoes

When someone browses the web for the ideal photographer for their needs — whether it be wedding photography, newborn images, or their annual family photos — they should see photos that speak to your brand and niche.

This requires you to know your photography business well enough to know who your ideal customers are and what you want your company to be remembered by.

If your ideal customers are expecting mothers looking for a maternity and/or newborn photographer, and you aren’t all that interested in weddings, high school senior portraits or commercial photography, focus primarily (or only!) on the photography areas you want to do more of! Cut back or avoid placing photos on your website altogether that are from projects you aren’t interested in doing more of in the future.

2. Choose the best images out of your entire portfolio.

Just because you have thousands of images on file from dozens of sessions doesn’t mean they all belong on the web. Take some time to look through your past photography sessions to find the absolute best 2-3 images from each session.

You may love all the images you’ve ever taken, but challenge yourself to hone in on the ones that are sharp in focus, have great composition, beautiful colors, emotion, and/or the right amount of lighting — no matter how “long” it took to capture or edit them. Focus on quality of work, not amount of time spent to create the image.

Why? First, your potential clients want to see your best work and there’s no need to overwhelm them with hundreds of photos. Second, the more photos you have on your website, the more your site load speed will be slow. This ultimately hinders the user experience and will hurt your website’s search engine optimization as well.

3. Ask for a second opinion.

If you really struggle with attempting to be unbiased in your photograph selection for your portfolio, narrow down as much as you can and then ask a friend or family member to give you their thoughts. You may be surprised to see which ones they love most!

Optimizing Your Images

Have your top choices for your website portfolio, but want to make sure they don’t take up too much space and slow your site down? Head on over to our other post, SEO Best Practices for Website Images to learn how!

Showcase Your Work on a Beautiful Website

liveBooks offers stunning, customizable website templates for wedding industry professionals and creatives.

Impress your potential clients with a visually stunning website that is ready for search engines and looks great on any mobile device!

We’ve also got a top-notch support team who’s here to help you every step of the way. Start for free today!