Best Practices for a Photographer’s Portfolio

I’m a web designer by day, and lately I’ve been accumulating notes on some web design snafoos on photography portfolios. The online portfolio is something that should get clients excited and inspired, and help them connect to you on a personal level. Here are some best practices to follow when building your site that will help you achieve these goals:

1. Organize your images. Your portfolio should make it clear to the potential client what kind of work you do; having multiple galleries with a spectrum of work in each will just be confusing. They want to see your aesthetic, and they want to see it based on the type of photography (weddings, portraits, commercial, etc.).
2. Do not resize their screen. It may seem like a good idea to force the user’s window to be as big as it can be, but this is incredibly annoying for the user. Best practice is to never do something for the user that they didn’t choose on their own.
3. Do not play music automatically. Falling in line with number two, turning on music automatically will annoy the vast majority of users, since it’s not something they chose, and it’s often difficult for them to figure out how to turn it off quickly. If you really want to have music playing, make sure that the on/off button is visible on the page, and the user won’t have to click multiple times to get there.
4. Do not force the portfolio to open in a new window. Same reason still: don’t force the user to do something he or she didn’t choose.
5. Be succinct on your About page. Well I guess we should start with: you should HAVE an About page. On it should be some brief sentences on who you are and why you do what you love. It should also help you stand out from the crowd – why do people want to work with you? What makes you different? But this page should be no more than two paragraphs long, and definitely shouldn’t scroll.
6. Make sure the Contact page is clickable from any other page. You want people to be able to get in touch with you. I also recommend that you include your email address and phone number directly on that page, and don’t force users to always submit a form to get in touch.
7. Your navigation should be easy to use. This is a more subjective guideline, which you can test by asking a few people to check out your site on their own and giving them goals. How difficult is it for them to get to your second gallery of images? How difficult is it for them to find information about you or your prices?
8. Use gender-inclusive language. What if a groom is perusing your site, and finds language about how this is the bride’s day, how you make bride’s dreams come true, and you request the bride’s name on the contact form? There are many grooms out there whose responsibility it is to find their wedding photographer. Similarly, same-sex couples may value the effort in same-sex language.
9. At least mention where your pricing starts. This is an item that’s up for much debate, but potential clients will value having at least an estimate of what your price range is.
10. Don’t write obviously-for-SEO language. If you start getting keywordy, you start looking spammy. Plus, search engines will notice anyway (in a bad way) – they value content that is obviously written for your user to read.