For photographers and filmmakers
Photographer and videographer websites that book the date
A portfolio proves you can take a good picture. It does not tell a couple whether you are free on their date, a marketing manager whether you can deliver by Friday, or a parent what a session costs. The website that books work answers those questions right beside the pictures.
- Price from
- £1,400
- Build time
- 14 working days
- Built by
- Coltura
- Growth Care™
- £149 a month
One-off, for a Growth Website of up to 6 pages.
From agreed direction to launch.
Our studio in Didsbury, Manchester.
Optional. Cancel any time, with a month’s notice.
How your customers choose
They fall for the pictures. They book on the details.
Photography and video cover several different markets. Couples choose on style, personality and trust; businesses choose on reliability, turnaround and usage rights; families want warmth and a clear price. All of them fall for the pictures first and decide on the practical answers beside them.
When it is urgent
A date or a deadline this week
Commercial clients are often in a hurry: headshots before a launch, product photos for a new range, an event on Friday. They want to know whether you can do it in time, what it costs, how usage works and how soon the images arrive. A page for each commercial service, with turnaround stated, wins those quickly.
When it is considered
A wedding, often booked a year or more ahead
Couples choose slowly and emotionally. They want whole weddings rather than single pictures and a sense that they would get on with you, and they often enquire with several photographers at once, so the first clear, quick reply has the advantage.
What wins their trust, what loses it, and what they search for
What makes them trust you
- The photographer named and pictured
- The contract and deposit explained before booking
- Delivery times stated plainly
- A sense of how you work on the day
What makes them leave
- A gallery with no sense of what you specialise in
- Having to email to ask whether you are free on the date
- Music that plays as soon as the page opens
- A blog that stopped two years ago
What they type into Google
- “wedding photographer near me”
- “wedding videographer”
- “headshots near me”
- “corporate headshots”
- “product photography”
- “family photoshoot”
- “newborn photographer”
- “event photographer”
Most searches name the job and the area, and most are typed on a phone.
01 / 04
Thirty pictures that sell, and three hundred that slow the page
The most common problem on photography sites is too much. Galleries of hundreds of similar images, uncompressed and loaded all at once, make a site crawl on a phone and leave a visitor unsure what you are best at. A tight selection of your strongest work, followed by a few complete stories, such as a whole wedding from preparations to first dance or a brand shoot from brief to finished set, shows range and consistency without the weight.
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The images still need to look their best. That means correctly sized versions for each screen, modern formats and pictures that load as the visitor scrolls, so the first one appears quickly. For film, embed from a video platform rather than uploading files to the site, with a still frame in front so the page does not wait for the video.
02 / 04
Starting prices, and fewer emails asking how much
Many photographers hide prices in the hope of starting a conversation. In practice, some people who cannot see a price move on without asking, and some who do ask are nowhere near your range. Starting prices for each type of work, with what is included, let people rule themselves in. You still quote each job; you just begin on the right footing.
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For weddings, list the hours of coverage, the number of edited images or the length of the film, delivery time, travel and any second shooter. For commercial work, explain how usage and licensing affect the fee, because that is something every marketing manager has to justify internally.
03 / 04
Venue pages built from your own shoots there
Couples search for photographers by venue. A page for each venue where you have actually photographed a wedding, with your own images from that day and notes on the light, the best spots and the timings that work there, is useful to them and specific to you. It shows what they most want to know, whether you have shot there before, in a way a general gallery cannot.
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Keep it honest. Pages for venues you have never worked at, padded with the venue name, add nothing and make the whole site read as filler. Commercial photographers can do the same with sector pages built around real shoots.
04 / 04
Reviews after the album, and where adverts earn their place
Couples leave their warmest reviews when the photos or the film arrive. Ask then, with a direct link to Google and to a directory such as Hitched or Bridebook if you use one. If clients never visit a studio, your Google Business Profile can be set up as a service-area business with the address hidden.
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Paid search for weddings is hard to measure because the gap between search and booking is long. It tends to suit commercial services such as headshots or product photography better, where a search often becomes a booking within days. Wherever you advertise, send people to the page for that service and count enquiries. With ongoing care, new galleries and venue pages are added each season without a rebuild.
What the website needs
The photography site, page by page
A tight portfolio that loads quickly, with a clear route for each kind of client and the practical answers sitting right beside the pictures.
Homepage. Who you photograph, your strongest work, and a route for each kind of client.
Weddings. Complete wedding stories, your approach, and packages.
Commercial work. Headshots, product and brand work, with turnaround and usage explained.
Portraits and families. If you do them: what a session involves, where it happens and what it costs.
Venue or sector pages. Only where you have real shoots to show.
Enquiry. Date first for weddings and events, deadline and usage first for commercial work.
The enquiry route, and what to leave out
The enquiry route
From “are you free on our date?” to a booking call
- The visitor chooses wedding, commercial or portrait work from the first screen.
- Wedding and event enquiries start with the date, then the venue and the coverage, so you can reply within minutes with a yes or no and a relevant gallery.
- Commercial enquiries start with the deadline, where the images will be used and the location.
- Each enquiry is recorded, so you can see whether search, Instagram or a directory sent it.
Leave it out
What not to put on the site
- Watermarks across every image
- Pages for services you do not really offer
- Stock photos on a photographer's site
- Prices from two seasons ago
Proof and credentials
What a client checks before trusting you with a day they cannot repeat
There is no licence to be a photographer, so clients look for evidence of reliability as much as talent. Some of that proof is about rights and paperwork, which careful couples and businesses ask about.
What to show, item by item
- Usage and copyright, explained
- As the photographer you usually own the copyright unless you agree otherwise. Say plainly what a commercial client is licensed to do with the images, because their marketing manager will need to know.
- A written contract
- A contract for every booking, covering what is delivered and when, the deposit, cancellation and what happens if you are ill. Saying you use one reassures couples paying months ahead.
- Insurance and backup
- Public liability cover, which venues often ask for, and a line on backup equipment and how images are stored safely.
- Drone work
- If you fly a drone on shoots, say that you are registered with the CAA, whose ID rules now start at 100g for drones with a camera, and that you carry the third-party insurance the CAA requires for commercial flying.
The standard of build
There is no demonstration site for a photography business, and one borrowed from another sector would not tell you much. Every site is designed and built from scratch around the business, works properly on a phone and is yours outright. If you want to see the standard of build first, three demonstration sites for invented businesses, a roofer, a dental practice and a wine bar, are on the examples page.
See the demonstration sitesIn our clients’ words
What our clients say.
Questions
The questions photographers ask.
Should photography and video be on one website or two?
Photography and video usually belong on one website, with a clear section for each. A single site gathers your reviews, links and search visibility in one place, and couples who want both can see that you offer both. Separate sites make sense only when the brands are genuinely different businesses with different audiences. If you already run two sites competing for the same searches, combining them with proper redirects is often the stronger option.
Can I keep using my client gallery service?
Yes, keep it. Dedicated client gallery services handle delivery, downloads and print sales well, and there is no reason to rebuild that. The website links to your client galleries clearly so couples and clients can find them, while your portfolio pages stay the place where new clients see your best work. The two do different jobs and are better kept separate.
Can I show clients' wedding and family photos in my portfolio?
Only with their agreement. Someone who commissions photos or film for private and domestic purposes, such as a wedding or a family shoot, has a legal right to stop them being shown in public, even when you own the copyright. Cover it in the contract, and ask again before using anything especially personal.
The offer in brief
Five answers that are the same for every business we build for. Open any of them.
What does it cost, and what is included?
Growth Websites start at £1,400, one-off, for a complete rebuild of up to 6 pages with setup included. A larger site is the Signature Website, at £3,500. Up to six pages, which for a photography business usually means a homepage with a route for each kind of client, a wedding page and a commercial page with starting prices, a portfolio built from real shoots, an about page and a contact page with date-first and deadline-first enquiry forms. Images are prepared so the site stays fast on a phone, your Google Business Profile is set up and linked, and tracking shows which sources bring in enquiries. Venue or sector pages for each shoot are the Signature Website.
All nine parts are included:
- Growth Audit
- Offer and Messaging Rebuild
- Complete Website Rebuild
- Conversion Optimisation
- Local Search Foundation
- AI Search Readiness
- Conversion Tracking
- Performance Optimisation
- Launch Support
How long does it take, and what do you need from me?
About 14 working days from agreed direction to launch. You watch the real site take shape on a private link, with one round of considered changes before launch. What we need from you: a tight selection of your best work, a few complete stories, your packages and starting prices, and the venues or sectors where you have real shoots. Beyond that, about half an hour on the phone; we write the copy.
Who builds it?
Coltura, an independent digital studio in Didsbury, Manchester. We do every audit and every build in-house, so you deal directly with the studio doing the work. We take on a limited number of builds at once, which is why there is sometimes a short wait before a build starts.
Do I have to pay every month?
No. Growth Care is £149 a month if you want it, and entirely optional. It covers hosting and security, monitoring, content changes within a fair monthly allowance, a plain-English monthly report, a quarterly conversion review and messaging us directly. Cancel any time, with a month's notice. You are also free to host the site yourself.
What if it is not right for us?
The audit and the direction come before you commit. If the plan is the wrong fit for your business, you can walk away and keep the audit. You own the site, the domain and the content outright, and after launch anything that does not work the way it was built to work is fixed at no charge for 30 days.
Where to next
Also for photographers:
Related trades we build for:
Next steps
Find out what your website is costing you.
Ask for the free Growth Audit of your current site. Then open it on your phone on mobile data, count how long the first image takes to appear, and how many taps it takes to find a price. Slow galleries and hidden prices both cost you enquiries you never see.
Done by hand and back within 48 hours. You can have it without a phone call.
Or ring us on 07958 394808Or start on your own
- Instant website check: one page checked, with the evidence for each finding.
- Revenue leak calculator: what more enquiries would be worth, worked out from your own numbers.