What a photography website needs

The facts here come from primary sources: Google Search Central's image SEO best practices and its page on blocking indexing with noindex, the W3C's alt decision tree and forms tutorial, and the U.S. Copyright Office's general copyright FAQ. Copyright rules differ by country; this guide is not legal advice.

The short answer

A photography website needs a small number of focused portfolio pages (one per kind of work you want to be hired for), images sized and compressed so those pages load fast on a phone, short descriptive file names and alt text, clear terms for how your images may be used, private client galleries that search engines cannot index, and a simple inquiry or booking form that asks for the date, the place and the kind of shoot.

Portfolio pages that load fast

Split your work by what people search for and hire you for: weddings, family sessions, headshots, products, events. A page per type, with your strongest images and a few paragraphs about how you work, tells a visitor far more than one long gallery of everything. Our view: fewer, better pictures win; a portfolio page is a sales page, not an archive.

Photographers upload big files, and big files make slow pages. Export web copies at the size they are shown, serve smaller versions to phones with srcset, use a modern format such as WebP or AVIF, and lazy-load images further down the page, but never the first, largest image. Our guide to image optimization covers each step, and Core Web Vitals explains how Google measures loading speed and layout shift. Setting width and height on every image stops the layout jumping while a gallery loads.

Build galleries from real image elements. Google says it "doesn't index CSS images" and finds images in the src attribute of the <img> element, including inside <picture>. A slideshow that loads every photo as a CSS background may look fine, but none of those photos can show up in Google Images.

Alt text, file names and captions

Google calls alt text "the most important attribute when it comes to providing more metadata for an image", and notes that it "also improves accessibility for people who can't see images on web pages, including users who use screen readers". It warns against "filling alt attributes with keywords", which "results in a negative user experience and may cause your site to be seen as spam."

So describe what the picture shows, in a sentence: "Bride and groom walking through a vineyard at sunset in Temecula" says more than "wedding photographer San Diego wedding photography". The W3C's alt decision tree adds the accessibility view: for a photograph that adds meaning, "Use a brief description of the image in a way that conveys that meaning in the alt attribute"; for an image that is "purely decorative", "Use an empty alt attribute". If a thumbnail is a link to a full gallery, the alt text should say where the link goes.

File names help a little too. Google says "the filename can give Google very light clues about the subject matter of the image" and gives the example that "my-new-black-kitten.jpg is better than IMG00023.JPG". Rename exports before you upload them, rather than publishing straight from the camera. Google also "extracts information about the subject matter of the image from the content of the page, including captions and image titles", so a short caption or a paragraph about the shoot near the photos helps both people and search.

Protecting and licensing your images

In the United States, the Copyright Office says "Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form". Registration is voluntary, but "You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work." Many photographers register their best or most-licensed work for that reason. Other countries have their own rules.

On the site itself, our view: put a short usage line in the footer (who owns the images and how to ask for a license), say in your contract what clients may do with their photos, and keep records of model and property releases. A visible watermark on every portfolio image puts people off more than it stops copying; if you use one, keep it small. Our guide to website photos and image licensing covers licenses, releases and what to do when you find your work used without permission.

Client galleries out of the index

Proofing and delivery galleries are for your clients, not for search results. Put them behind a password, which keeps out search engines and strangers alike. For any gallery page that has to stay open without a login, add noindex. Google says that when it sees the tag or header, it "will drop that page entirely from Google Search results, regardless of whether other sites link to it."

Do not block those pages in robots.txt at the same time. Google is clear: "For the noindex rule to be effective, the page or resource must not be blocked by a robots.txt file". If the crawler cannot read the page, it never sees the rule, and the URL can still appear in results. Our noindex tag guide shows both the meta tag and the X-Robots-Tag header, which also works for image files and PDFs. Ask clients before you use their photos in your public portfolio.

Booking and inquiry

Most photography work starts with a question about a date. Keep the first form short. The W3C's forms tutorial notes that "users usually prefer simple and short forms" and advises: "Only ask users to enter what is required to complete the transaction or process". For a first inquiry that is usually name, email or phone, the date, the location, the kind of shoot and a free-text box. Give each field a visible label, say which ones are required, and tell people when you will reply.

For fixed-length sessions such as headshots or mini sessions, an online booking tool with a deposit can replace the back-and-forth; see online booking for service businesses. Our guides to website forms and form spam go further. If clients come to a studio, list it on your Google Business Profile with the same name, address and phone as your site.

A short checklist (our view)

• One portfolio page per kind of work you want, with your strongest images and a few paragraphs of text.
• Web-sized, compressed images with srcset, width and height; the first image not lazy-loaded.
• Galleries built from <img> elements, not CSS backgrounds.
• Descriptive file names, alt text that says what the photo shows, and short captions.
• A usage line in the footer and image terms in your client contract.
• Client galleries behind a password or set to noindex, and not blocked in robots.txt.
• A short, labelled inquiry form, and an about page with your face on it.
• The accessibility basics and the website content checklist done.

Contractors, churches, restaurants and law firms have matching guides in what a contractor website needs, what a church website needs, what a restaurant website needs and what a law firm website needs. If you would rather have it built for you, our website development service builds custom WordPress and static websites made to load fast, rank well and be easy for your team to edit.

Frequently asked questions

What should the alt text on a portfolio photo say?

A short sentence describing what the photo shows, such as the people, the place and the moment. Google warns that filling alt attributes with keywords may cause a site to be seen as spam, and the W3C advises a brief description that conveys the image's meaning.

Do I need to register my photos to own the copyright?

Not in the United States. The Copyright Office says a work is protected from the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form, and that registration is voluntary, but you have to register a U.S. work before you can sue for infringement.

How do I keep client galleries out of Google?

Put them behind a password, or add a noindex meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header to pages that stay public. Do not also block them in robots.txt, because Google then cannot see the noindex rule.

Will Google index photos in a CSS background slideshow?

No. Google says it does not index CSS images; it finds images in the src attribute of img elements. Build portfolio galleries with real image elements.