15 Professional Portfolio Website Templates For Photographers

Website templates make it easier for photographers to customize their website. Here are themes to help you create the perfect online portfolio.

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It’s no secret that an outstanding online portfolio can open doors for people in the creative industry, which is why it’s important that your portfolio shows off your work in a way that will impress your industry colleagues and intrigue prospective clients. When it comes to your portfolio, every detail matters. Professional website templates can help you curate your work with precision and code-free customization in a way one-size-fits-all options simply can’t.

Ways Professional Photographers Benefit from Having a Portfolio Website

Photography is a visually-driven industry. There aren’t many other industries where clients focus on the end result with as much laser focus as they do in photography. As a result, having an online presence in the form of a personal portfolio website is an absolute must for photographers wishing to catch the attention of new clients. In addition to increasing visibility, a personal portfolio website:

Builds Credibility on your Behalf

The presence of a portfolio website helps you take your appearance from ‘amateur’ to ‘professional,’ which includes the ability to charge more for your time. That’s because the mere act of having an up-to-date portfolio website speaks to its owner’s commitment to their craft. Unlike other industries, the inherently creative nature of photography means that customers expect the website to act as an extension of the photographer’s brand, communicating their style and method as part of the web experience.

Allows you to Control your Brand Image

Your website is a place online that’s entirely yours. As part of your website experience, you can control every element: the work featured, the look and feel of the design, and the flow of information. Unlike other websites like photographer catalogs, which tend to be void of personality, this is a space where you can give your prospective clients a taste of your creative working style.

Grooms Qualified Leads

The reason it’s essential that your photography portfolio website encapsulates your style is that it acts as a funnel for potential clients entering your site. Communicating your creative vision and showcasing the areas of photography you specialize in saves you time. By expressing the type of client you hope to attract, it helps weed out irrelevant inquiries while simultaneously encouraging clients that are in your target audience.

These are just some of the reasons why having a personal portfolio website is key to your success in building your brand as a professional photographer.

Branding
  • Variety of visual design

  • Branding integration

  • Interactivity

  • Mobile-friendliness

  • Navigation

  • Gallery features

  • Ecommerce capabilities

  • SEO optimization

While individual portfolio needs vary, this list of elements covers most of the portfolio applications to ensure a satisfactory user experience, integration with other online destinations, and website discoverability. Let’s cover each of these elements and how they contribute to a stronger portfolio.

Variety of Visual Design

A photographer’s portfolio is different from other industries in being visual-driven, so it’s important to look for layouts that offer horizontal breadth for optimal display and including full-screen designs. It’s also good for templates to feature customizable layout features that allow you to remove or add elements for your specific needs.

Branding Integration

Your portfolio website template should allow you to prominently display your logo on the website and to easily register associated accounts like custom email and domain associated with your personal brand.

Interactivity

Interactivity means the capability of the template to support features that website visitors can interact with. These include everything from contact forms to video backgrounds. Interactive elements can be an effective way to engage your visitors and express your brand.

Mobile-friendliness

The measure of a mobile-friendly design is how well the content shows up on devices other than a desktop computer, such as smartphones and tablets. This is an important consideration as your customers are highly likely to be viewing your website on a smartphone when looking to secure a photographer for the job they have in mind. Mobile-friendliness is also sometimes referred to as mobile responsiveness, which means that the website design auto-conforms to the device and optimizes content display accordingly.

Navigation

Ease of build-in website navigation is essential to getting customers to stay on your website. A non-intuitive navigation, like a hard-to-find hamburger menu or abstract scrolling features, can detract from the functionality of the website and lead to visitor dropoff. Generally, websites that allow you to scroll up and down are said to have vertical navigation, while ones that allow you to scroll from side to side are referred to as having horizontal navigation. A website can also contain both when a feature like a gallery allows the viewer to scroll in a different direction than the rest of the site.

Client Galleries

Client galleries are a visual organization feature that allows photographers to share and sell photos directly from online galleries. The ease of access also helps deliver a better client experience than a cloud drive or an email chain, while serving the same purpose. Using a client gallery, a photographer can proof, sell, and enable client download of photos all from their website.

E-commerce Capabilities

Similar to galleries, a website’s e-commerce capabilities allow you to integrate sales into your website. The benefit of selecting a website with e-commerce capabilities is that it allows you to sell services and merchandise. Lastly, it brings an element of automation to bookings of basic photo services, meaning you can focus your attention on other things. E-commerce features on a photography portfolio are as unique as the photographers behind them, so a degree of customization is essential when choosing your template.

SEO Integration

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps your content get discovered by search engines. Not only is it important that photographers optimize each image for resolution, but they should also be adding relevant meta tags that help search engines classify and display your content. For example, if a potential client searches for “fine dining food photography in my area,” using tags and meta descriptions that help identify this content as part of the website design will help ensure that your work shows up alongside other relevant food photographers.

When Paying a Little more is Worth it with Professional Website Templates

When it comes to professional website templates, website templates on Format are loaded with features that make running a business as a creative professional easier without worrying about plugins and widgets. These templates feature quality written code that is optimized for speed and performance. In addition, purchasing a theme is still drastically less expensive and time-consuming than building your own website from scratch, while being able to maintain a high degree of customization over the end result.

Featured Format Professional Website Templates

Your website should be as unique as your work. Check out some of the most popular Format’s professional website templates below:

Format Website Template Surface
Format Website Template Polarize
Format Website Template Mode
Format Website Template Iris
Format Website Template Range
Format Website Template Sierra
Format Website Template Shift
Format Website Template Meander
Format Website Template Exhibition
Format Website Template Rise
Format Website Template Exposure
Format Website Template Sharp
Format Website Template Kiln
Format Website Template SPruce
Format Website Template Gloss

As you can see, professional website templates are not one-size-fits-all. Right layout and features can help frame up your portfolio in the best light, which is worth the investment in a paid template. Armed with the perfect template, you can rest assured your photography business is putting its best foot forward with potential clients and website visitors.

Once you’ve selected the perfect website template, try these tips to grow your business:

10 Ways to Promote Your Portrait Photography Business

Creating a Brand Identity and How to Brand Yourself

How To Get More Photography Clients

Contributor

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    At Format, we are a passionate group of individuals at the intersection of technology and creativity, united by one purpose: helping photographers succeed. Our team is dedicated to providing photographers and creative artists with the tools and resources they need to share their work and grow their businesses.

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