Ask ten photographers what platform they use for their website, and you’ll likely get ten different answers, most delivered with a fair amount of conviction. Everyone seems certain their choice is the right one.
The truth is there isn’t a single best platform for every photographer. There’s a best platform for where you are right now, given your budget, your technical confidence, and what you actually need your site to do. Getting this decision right early can save you a lot of time and money later, because moving between platforms isn’t as simple as flicking a switch.
Broadly, there are three types of website platform available to you. Here’s how they compare.
The Self Build Platforms
This group includes the likes of Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify, along with several similar services.
These are drag-and-drop platforms designed to get you online quickly. With a template and a bit of dragging and dropping, you can put together something that looks genuinely good in a short space of time. They’re easy to use and take care of maintenance, hosting, and security for you as part of a single monthly or annual payment.
That simplicity comes at a cost, though.
Once you’ve chosen one of these platforms, you’re largely locked in.
If the provider puts its prices up significantly, your options are limited: pay the increase, or start again from scratch somewhere else. There’s no straightforward way to take your site elsewhere.
Speed and search performance have improved significantly on these platforms over the last decade, but they still tend to lag behind the other two options here. Site speed affects how visitors experience your website, and it plays a role in how well you rank with Google and increasingly with AI-powered search tools too. These platforms also have a ceiling on functionality. They handle the essentials well, but if you want to do something outside what they offer, you may find yourself needing to rebuild on a different platform entirely.
Self-build platforms suit photographers who want to get online without dealing with the technical side themselves, and who don’t expect to need anything unusual from their site.
WordPress and Other Content Management Systems
WordPress dominates this category, though other options like Joomla exist too.
Think of WordPress as being a bit like a new phone. On its own, it’s fairly basic. What makes it powerful is what you add to it afterwards, in the form of plugins, which work much like apps on a phone. Some plugins are free, some are paid, some are a mix of both, and between them they let a WordPress site do an enormous range of things.
There are different ways to build a WordPress site, and most now use a visual editor so you can see what you’re creating as you go, though it isn’t quite the same drag and drop experience as Wix or Squarespace.
The trade off is that you take on a bit more responsibility. You’ll need to think about your own security and keep everything updated, which isn’t complicated but does need attention. The advantage of this extra responsibility is flexibility. Because plugins are built once and used by thousands of website owners, the cost of developing them is shared across all those users, which keeps prices low even though the range of what’s available is vast.
One genuine advantage worth knowing about: WordPress sites can move between hosting providers. If you’re unhappy with your current host, you can shift your site elsewhere without starting from scratch, which isn’t possible with the self-build platforms.
WordPress suits photographers who want more flexibility and control than a self-build platform offers, and who are comfortable taking on a small amount of extra responsibility to get it.
Custom Coded Websites
The third option is having a site built entirely for you through custom code.
There’s no unnecessary bloat here. Everything on the site exists because it was built specifically for your business, which makes for a genuinely fast and efficient website capable of doing almost anything you ask of it.
Unsurprisingly, that level of bespoke work comes at a price. A developer is writing everything specifically for you rather than you benefiting from tools shared across thousands of other users, so costs are considerably higher. For a simple five-page portfolio website, this route would be serious overkill. If you need something complex, though, and you have the budget to match, it’s a genuinely excellent way to go.
Should You Move Between Platforms?
If you already have a website and you’re wondering whether to switch platforms entirely, think it through carefully first.
Moving usually means abandoning what you have and starting again, which takes real time and money. That said, don’t let the effort of moving stop you leaving a platform that’s genuinely holding you back.
If you built your site on a self-build platform a couple of years ago and now find yourself wanting features it simply can’t offer, it may well be worth the upheaval of moving to WordPress or a custom build, rather than staying somewhere that’s limiting your growth.
A Quick Win Regardless of Platform
Whichever platform you choose, there’s one thing worth getting right immediately: image sizes.
It’s tempting to upload your images at full resolution straight from your camera or editing software, but this slows your website down considerably. Large, unoptimised images are one of the most common reasons photography websites feel sluggish. As a general rule, around 2000 pixels across is plenty for any image on your website, no matter how large it appears on the page. Anything bigger is wasted file size that only serves to slow your visitors down, which affects both how they experience your site and how well it performs in search.
Which Platform Is Right for You?
There’s no universal right answer here, only the right answer for your situation.
If you want to get online quickly without touching anything technical, a self-build platform will serve you well. If you’d like more flexibility and don’t mind a small amount of extra responsibility, WordPress is worth serious consideration. If your needs are complex and your budget allows for it, a custom build gives you the most capable website of the three.
Whichever route you take, think about where your business is heading over the next few years, not just where it is today. The right platform is the one that can grow with you, rather than one you’ll be rebuilding from scratch again before too long.