6 essential Squarespace website tips for food photographers

As a food photographer, your website is more than just a digital portfolio; it's your online storefront, showcasing your talent and enticing potential clients to work with you.

Here are six key tips to ensure your Squarespace website captivates visitors and converts them into clients:

1. Immediately capture attention 

Your website's homepage is prime real estate. Within seconds, visitors should know who you are, what you specialise in and where you're located. Craft a compelling headline that succinctly describes your niche and target clientele. You don’t want to make people hunt for this information so make it a headline. For example:

"Elevating Northeast England's Culinary Scene: Stunning Food Photography for Restaurants, Cafes, Bars, Breweries & Vineyards."

Perhaps you have a specialism in vegan food or patisserie. Be sure to include this. It doesn’t mean that you can’t work with businesses that fall outside of your specialist area. 

2. Make your About page shine 

Your About page is your opportunity to share your story and build the ‘know, like and trust’ factor with prospective clients. Share your journey as a food photographer, emphasising your experience, qualifications and unique approach to reinforce why you’re the best person for the job. 

It can also be nice to share a few personal things about you so people can get to know you and share details of your team if you have one. 

The About page can also be a good place to reinforce that you understand the pain points of your ideal clients and share why your service is the perfect solution to their needs.

3. Expand your gallery of photos into a portfolio

Transform your photo gallery into a portfolio that tells stories of your clients' successes. Highlight the impact your photos have had, whether it's driving increased bookings, garnering media attention or enhancing brand image. Perhaps your photos helped your clients increase bookings and sales by 45%? Or contributed towards gaining media coverage in trade publication The Grocer and The Telegraph’s weekend magazine?

Show the transformation that your client and their business went through – the problem they were looking to solve, how you helped provide the solution, the resulting photos and business impact. 

Don’t know the impact of your work? Now might be a good time to circle back to your clients to check in with them and ask how having these professional photos made a difference to their business.

4. Showcase your client list

I bet you have some impressive clients on your list. Now is not the time for modesty. Share your past and client list as a bullet-pointed list on your website and/or add their logos to your website. Why? Because it reinforces your credibility and expertise. Prospective clients will feel reassured knowing that you’ve worked with reputable businesses in the food industry.

5. Pepper client testimonials across your site  

You’ve received lots of lovely words from clients and now it’s time to share them. Sprinkle testimonials from your clients across the different pages of your website. Don’t be afraid to highlight key phrases or pull out the key point as a heading.

These provide much-needed social proof, reassuring prospects that they’ll be in safe hands if they choose to work with you. 

6. Optimise your photographs

Ensure your images are optimised for both speed and search engines.

Compress image files to under 500KB to help your website to load more quickly.  

For SEO (search engines optimisation) include relevant keywords in your filenames, describing what is being shown in the photograph. Also include relevant keywords in the alt tags. These tell search engines like Google who the images show and in the process improve your SEO ranking. 

Incorporating these six essential tips into your Squarespace website will not only elevate your food photography portfolio but also establish a compelling online presence that resonates with your target audience.

A final note

From capturing attention with a captivating homepage to showcasing client success stories and optimising your photos for both speed and search engines, these strategies collectively contribute to a website that not only impresses but also converts.

Here's to creating a digital showcase that truly reflects your artistic prowess and attracts the clients you aspire to work with!

Ready to take your food photography website to the next level?

Let's collaborate to create a visually stunning and highly effective online portfolio that captivates your audience and converts visitors into clients.

Whether you're looking for a new website build, edits to enhance your current site, or a comprehensive audit to optimise performance, I'm here to help.

Contact me today to discuss your project and let's turn your vision into reality!