SiteSmith

How to show your work: a gallery page that helps

SiteSmith · · 5 min read

A gallery page helps a customer when it shows them work like the job they have in mind, clearly, with a line saying what they are looking at. That means choosing fewer and better photos, grouping them by type of work, and writing a short caption for each. A page of two hundred unsorted pictures, many of them near-copies, mostly makes people tired. Here is how to curate yours, organize it and make it lead somewhere.

Someone opening your gallery is usually asking one of three things:

  • "Have they done a job like mine?" A homeowner with a small bathroom wants to see small bathrooms, not the mansion.
  • "Is their work good?" They want to see detail: the joints, the edges, the finish.
  • "Do I like their style?" For bakers, florists, designers, landscapers and hair stylists, taste matters as much as skill.

Every choice below is about making those three answers quick to find.

Curate: fewer, better photos

The hardest and most useful step is leaving photos out.

  • Pick your best, not all of them. For each project, keep one wide photo of the finished result and two or three details. Delete the rest from the gallery, not from your phone.
  • Drop near-copies. Five photos of the same deck from slightly different angles add nothing.
  • Drop the blurry, dark and cluttered ones, even if the job was great. A poor photo makes good work look average.
  • Drop very old work that no longer reflects what you do, unless it shows something rare.
  • Keep variety inside each group: different sizes, budgets and styles, so more customers see themselves in it.

For most small businesses, somewhere between a dozen and a few dozen strong photos is plenty to start. You can add more as good ones come in. If you need better photos to begin with, how to take good photos with a phone covers light, angles and backgrounds.

Organize by project type

Group photos the way customers think about their own job:

  • A remodeler: Kitchens, Bathrooms, Basements, Additions.
  • A landscaper: Patios and walkways, Planting, Retaining walls, Lawn care.
  • A bakery: Wedding cakes, Birthday cakes, Cupcakes and cookies, Breads.
  • A hair salon: Color, Cuts, Curly hair, Bridal.
  • A sign maker: Storefront signs, Vehicle wraps, Banners, Indoor signs.

Show the groups as tabs, buttons or headings at the top of the page, so a visitor can jump straight to their kind of job. On a phone, headings with a few photos under each and a "see more" link often work better than tabs.

If one group grows large, it can become its own page, linked from the service page for that work. A customer reading about bathroom remodels can then tap straight into bathroom photos.

Captions: say what they are looking at

A photo without a caption leaves the customer to guess. One or two short lines are enough:

  • What it is and where: "Walk-in shower with a curbless entry, Westlake."
  • What was special or hard: "Matched the original 1920s trim on the new door frames."
  • The detail worth noticing: "Note the tile lined up across the niche and the wall."
  • Who it was for, if it helps: "Three-tier wedding cake for 120 guests, lemon and raspberry."

Do not put prices on gallery photos unless the price is fixed, like a standard cake or a set package. Prices on custom work tend to be misread as quotes.

Each photo also needs a short text description for people who cannot see it, called alt text. Usually the caption, or a shortened version, is right. Writing alt text for your website photos explains how.

Layout that works on a phone

Most visitors will see your gallery on a small screen:

  • Large photos, one or two across, rather than a grid of tiny thumbnails.
  • Tap to enlarge, with a simple way to swipe to the next photo and close.
  • The caption visible under the photo, not only after tapping.
  • Fast loading. Photos should be resized for the web, not straight off the camera at full size. Ask whoever runs your site, or use your builder's image settings. Making images smaller explains how.
  • No auto-playing slideshows. They move on before people finish looking and are hard to control on a phone.

A gallery is often where a customer decides. Give them the next step right there:

  • A button at the end of each group: "Planning a kitchen? Get an estimate."
  • Your phone number as a tap-to-call link in the header.
  • A link from each group to the matching service page, for those who want details.

Permission and privacy

Before you post photos of customers' homes, cars, pets or faces, ask. Many customers are happy to say yes, and some will be delighted. Some will not want their house identifiable online. Crop out house numbers, license plates, family photos on the wall and anything personal visible through a window. If a customer appears in a photo, get their clear permission first.

For individual jobs that deserve more than a few photos, a short write-up of the whole project can sit next to the gallery; project stories explains how to turn a job into a page.

Keep it fresh

A gallery that stops in 2021 tells customers something too. Make adding photos part of finishing a job: pick the best two or three, write a caption, add them to the right group. Once a season, remove a few older or weaker photos so the best work stays at the top.

What to do this week

  • Pull your best photos into one folder and delete near-copies.
  • Decide on three to six groups that match how customers describe their jobs.
  • Write a one- or two-line caption for each photo.
  • Check the gallery on your phone: large photos, captions visible, fast to load.
  • Add an estimate or call button at the end of each group.

If your current gallery is a long unsorted grid, you can see your site rebuilt first with your own photos sorted into groups, then add captions and new work in the panel.

Keep reading