Portfolio websites.
Your work is the sales pitch, so the site has to show it at full quality without making anyone wait, then make the next step obvious. I build custom-coded portfolio sites that load quickly on a phone and are organised around what people actually commission you for. Your homepage preview is free, within 48 hours.
What this kind of site has to do.
Show big images on a small connection
Pictures are the heaviest thing a page can carry. Upload a shoot straight from the camera and a visitor on mobile data watches grey boxes fill in slowly. The gallery has to look sharp and still arrive fast, which is a preparation job before it is a design one.
Sort the work by what people hire you for
A couple planning a wedding wants to see weddings. A company after headshots wants headshots. One long feed of every project makes both of them dig; grouping by the kind of job lets each find their own occasion in two taps.
Turn admiration into an enquiry
Plenty of people admire a gallery and close the tab. The ones who book can see a starting price, check you cover their area and send a message without hunting. Those routes sit beside the work, not three pages away.
How a gallery stays fast when every image matters
Creative businesses usually face the same trade-off: the more work they show, the slower the site gets, and a slow site loses people before the best piece has even appeared. The answer is not fewer images but preparing each one rather than simply uploading it.
Each picture is compressed into a modern format such as WebP, which keeps the detail a client notices while dropping a large share of the file size. It is then saved at several widths, so the browser picks the version that suits the screen: a phone gets a phone-sized file, a large monitor gets the large one. Images further down the page are lazy loaded, meaning they only download as the visitor scrolls towards them, while the first image on screen is given priority so the page never opens on a blank space. Every image also carries its dimensions, so the layout does not jump about. Done together, a full gallery can still pass the 90+ mobile speed score every build here has to reach before handover.
How people choose a photographer, maker or studio
Most clients start with a search such as a photographer in their county or a ceramicist near them, or arrive from a social post someone shared. Either way, the website is where they decide. They look for three things in roughly this order: work that resembles what they want, a sense of what it will cost, and a believable person behind it.
That shapes the pages. A services or packages page with honest starting prices does more selling than another dozen images, because it answers the question a visitor is too polite to ask. An about page with your face and a few plain sentences matters more in creative work than almost anywhere else, since the client is hiring your eye, not a product. For podcasts and production studios the order shifts slightly: listeners and collaborators want to know what the show is about, who makes it and where to find it, so those answers sit near the top.
Area pages matter too: if you work across a county, a properly written page for each town gives Google a reason to show you to people searching there.
What I build for you.
- A gallery arranged by the work you sell, every image compressed, sized for each screen and lazy loaded.
- Services and prices. Packages or starting prices laid out plainly, if you choose to publish them.
- An enquiry form plus WhatsApp chat, so a visitor can message from the gallery itself.
- Your Google reviews shown on the site, and your Google Business Profile set up properly.
- Local SEO and schema so search engines understand what you do and where you work.
- New work added for you as part of the updates your monthly covers, along with hosting, SSL and your domain.
- On Own Your Area: up to fifteen pages, so each type of work and each area you cover gets its own page, written copy, a quote or booking form, a 12-month SEO content plan and monthly reports.
Where this stops
These plans show work and win enquiries. Password-protected client proofing galleries, print or download sales with a basket, customer logins and hosting large video or audio files are outside them. Films are embedded from YouTube or Vimeo and episodes from your podcast host, and those embeds wait until the visitor clicks before loading. If you need proofing, a print shop or anything with accounts, that is a Custom build, quoted separately.
Portfolios I've built.
Every Pixel Heaven site must score 90+ on Google's mobile speed test before handover.
Which plan fits a portfolio.
Most photographers, makers and small studios fit Get Customers (£250 + £40/mo): up to five pages covers a gallery, services, about and contact, with reviews and local SEO. Own Your Area (£500 + £60/mo) suits anyone selling several kinds of work across several towns, since each gets its own page, plus copywriting and the 90-day page-one promise. Get Customers is also available with £0 upfront at £65 a month on a 12-month minimum, dropping to £40 after that.
Every plan includes a custom-coded build, a free homepage preview first, hosting, SSL, domain, updates and a monthly price locked for life. See full tier comparison →
Portfolio sites, answered.
How much does a portfolio website cost?
Get Customers is £250 to build plus £40 a month, for up to five pages including a gallery, an enquiry route and local SEO. Own Your Area is £500 plus £60 a month for up to fifteen pages with copywriting and a quote or booking form. Hosting, SSL, your domain and updates sit inside the monthly, and your homepage preview is free before you pay anything.
Will a large gallery make my site slow?
Not if the images are prepared properly. Each picture is compressed into a modern format, saved at several widths so a phone never downloads a desktop-sized file, and set to load only as the visitor scrolls towards it. The site still has to score 90 or more on Google's mobile speed test before I hand it over.
How do I add new work after launch?
Send me the new shoot, piece or episode with a line or two about it and I add it, prepared to the same standard as the rest of the gallery. That is part of the updates covered by your monthly fee, so a fresh project does not mean a fresh invoice.
Should a photographer or maker publish prices?
Usually yes, even if only as starting prices or packages. Visitors who cannot see a rough figure tend to assume you are out of reach and leave quietly. A clear starting point filters out enquiries that were never going to book and gives the right ones the confidence to get in touch.
I already post my work on Instagram. Do I still need a website?
Instagram is good for being discovered by people who already follow similar accounts. It does very little for someone searching Google for a photographer, a studio or a commission in their area, and you do not control how it shows your work. A website you own sits under those searches and gives every social post somewhere to send people.
See your portfolio site before you pay for it.
Send a handful of your favourite pieces and I'll design your homepage around them, free. If it doesn't do your work justice, you owe nothing.
Get my free preview Or WhatsApp James directly