Building a photographer site

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Building a photographer site

Last updated July 16, 2026 17:34

Establish your professional photography business online to showcase your work, attract new clients, and make sales.

A Squarespace site comes with all the tools you need to build a visually stunning showcase for your photography. You can also book sessions, collect information from prospective clients, answer common questions, and sell prints and services.

Follow this guide to get started building your site and learning how to use Squarespace’s image and commerce features.

Note:This guide focuses on site design for professional photographers working with clients and selling their photographs. If you're looking to display your photography, but don't sell your photographs or services, Building a portfolio site may be more relevant.

Build a site to showcase your work

Get started with Blueprint AI Builder to create a custom template tailored to your specific vision. You can also visit our template store to start with one of our curated photography templates, which use demo content to highlight useful features and design options.

With the flexibility of Squarespace’s pages, sections, and blocks, you can build basic, informative pages to make your photography stand out, or create bold, avant-garde designs that complement your art. Most pages and sections have prebuilt layouts for common website needs, but you can add blank pages or sections if you prefer to build from scratch.

You may also want to create an About Me page to let customers know your story, and group your pages in dropdown navigation menus to organize your work into different categories. For inspiration for your site’s content, generate text with Squarespace AI as a starting point.

Squarespace includes a variety of features for showing off your images in all different combinations and designs. You can use:

  • Image blocks - Add individual images in customizable shapes to any block layout.
  • Gallery sections - Add sets of images that you can automatically rearrange into different layouts.
  • Auto layouts - Add sets of images paired with text and button links.
  • Portfolio pages - Organize sets of images into different projects with thumbnail navigation.
  • Section background images - Add an image as a background or banner to set the tone for the page or highlight a favorite image.

For more detailed steps, visit Building your first Squarespace site.

Tip: Find more inspiration for your site or start with templates from our Squarespace Collection collaborations. You can also join the Artists and Photographers club on the Squarespace Forum to interact with Squarespace users like you and get inspired by their websites.

Add a custom domain

Register a custom Squarespace domain to give your site a unique identity, help customers find your photography, and establish a professional online presence. You can select from common top-level domains like .com or .net, or pick one more focused on your field like .photography, .gallery, or .pics. If your site is on annual billing plan, it comes with a free custom domain for the first year.

Squarespace domains automatically include Whois privacy and SSL certificates, and with a domain hosted at Squarespace, you can manage your website and your domain all in one place. Set up a custom email address with your domain to give your correspondence with clients a professional feel. If you already own a domain elsewhere, you can transfer it to Squarespace.

After upgrading your site, open the Domains panel and click Get a Domain to get started.

Manage images with the asset library

Reuse your images almost anywhere on your site with the asset library. Most images you upload to your site and stock images you license are stored in the asset library.

You can also upload multiple images at the same time directly to the library. Put images in a folder to help organize your content. Rename and edit images to help ensure consistency throughout your site.

Promote your business with engaging content

You can use the Marketing Kit in the iOS Squarespace app to showcase your work or explain what your clients can expect during a session. Then, export your content and share on your site or on social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook. It might also be helpful to create a Bio Site link hub.

Your Squarespace site includes built-in tools and features to engage your audience beyond showcasing your photography:

  • Use Squarespace Email Campaigns to send regular newsletters and update clients and customers on your latest work, special offers, or other news.
  • Create a blog page to give further insight into your photography, offer glimpses behind-the-scenes of shoots, and demystify the editing process for clients.

Before sharing your work online, you can create a watermark to overlay each image. This both helps protect your ownership of the images and gives your business’s name more visibility when images are shared elsewhere.

Book clients

When you’re ready to start booking clients, set up these features depending on your needs:

  • Acuity Scheduling - Acuity Scheduling is our complete online scheduling solution, which you can integrate into your site with a scheduling block. Acuity Scheduling includes all the tools you need to book appointments with new clients, schedule shoots, send reminders, and more.
  • Manage projects - Use form blocks to collect leads, then create projects linked to each client’s profile, where you can collect deposits, send proposals and invoices, and review upcoming project milestones.

Sell, print, and ship your photographs

Set up an online store to sell prints, photography services, and other products. You can generate passive income by selling stock photography. Offer discounts and gift cards to keep customers engaged.

You can also print photo products on-demand and dropship them by connecting Printique or another print on demand extension.

Encourage contact

Visitors to your site who like your work may want to get in touch, even if they’re not ready to book your services or make purchases yet. Use the features below to make yourself accessible to prospective clients or guide them to important information:

  • Contact forms - Form blocks add customizable forms to any content area on your site. While an email address is great for general contact, the form block encourages visitors to answer questions and provide detailed information, helping you avoid unnecessary back and forth. A form block is great for your homepage, or you can create a standalone contact page. You can also book clients for projects with form blocks.
  • Call-to-action buttons - A call-to-action is a link or button that encourages visitors to contact you. You can add a button to your site header, or to content areas with a button block.
  • Announcement bar - Announcement bars display a clickable banner at the top of your site. If you're running a seasonal special or other promotion, this is a great way to highlight that information for visitors.
  • Custom email with Google Workspace - Create a professional email that uses your custom domain. You can link it on your site so prospective clients can contact you directly.
  • Link to social sites - Connect your social media accounts to display social icons and link visitors to other places where they can find you and your work online. You can also push blog posts and products from your site directly to your social media profiles.

Sell access to your photos

To create galleries that only specific clients can access, or to offer exclusive sneak peeks to fans of your work, create Member Sites. With Member Sites, you monetize content on your site by putting specific pages behind a paywall. Any type of page can be added to a member site, making this a great way to monetize different kinds of content, like a blog page or videos page highlighting behind the scenes work at shoots.

You can also put individual blog pages, course pages, and videos pages behind paywalls with Digital Products.

Optimize for search engines

If you depend on search engines like Google to bring new visitors to your site, following a few SEO best practices can help your site rank higher.

Adding alt text to images might help them appear in search results and makes your site more accessible to potential clients. You can use Squarespace AI to identify images on your site without alt text and generate alt text for them as a starting point.

If you're based in a specific region, you can add your physical location to help Google promote your site in local searches.

Next steps

These steps are just the start of creating an enticing photographer site. Review the following links to build out your site and show clients why you're right for them:

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Building a photographer site