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As a creative professional, your work shows up everywhere: in people’s homes, brand installations, or online. Whether you’re a graphic designer, illustrator, interior designer, or brand studio, centralizing your work on a website makes it easier for you to connect with new potential clients and grow your creative career.
Read on to understand how creative service professionals benefit from a website, the steps to make a website that supports your goals, and a few example websites for inspiration when designing your own.
- A professional website builds trust and wins clients. It centralizes your portfolio so clients can easily verify your work and book services.
- Clarity on services, audience, and goals drives better website decisions. This clarity guides your site structure, content, and calls to action.
- Strong structure and workflows turn visitors into leads. Key pages and booking tools make it easier for clients to take next steps.
- Design, copy, and UX should reflect your creative style and usability best practices. Strong visuals, clear copy, and mobile-friendly design create a polished experience.
- SEO, promotion, and regular updates keep your website discoverable. Search-friendly content and ongoing updates improve visibility in search and AI results.
Why make a website for your creative business?
Websites foster trust and credibility that can win you new business. Put yourself in a potential client’s shoes: they’ll search based on their need or for your business name. If your website doesn’t show up, it’s harder to verify that your business is legitimate or leaves you out of consideration.
Think of your website as an expanded digital business card. It’s a highly shareable, centralized spot for you to show your unique artistic viewpoint, what services you offer, past clients and testimonials for your work, and how to book exploratory calls or meetings with you. It helps potential clients to vet you and your work for themselves.
By providing as much detail as possible about your work and what you offer, past experience and collaborations, and your rates, you can differentiate your business from competitors.
Build a creative services website in 10 steps
Once you’re ready to set up your website, start with defining what you do, who you want to reach, and goals for both your business and your website.
1. Define your creative services and audience
Before you decide what your website’s color scheme will be and where to put your bio, set down what creative services you’ll offer and to whom. A concise services list can make your website design easier for you and clearer for visitors. For example, if you’re a freelance writer, you may offer brand copywriting and data journalism, which have distinct clients and needs.
List out your services and what you’ll include in each offering. Consider what your ideal client for each of those services is, so you can better address their needs on the web page.
Get more tips for designing a services page
2. Develop goals for your business and website
Clear goals can help you make quick decisions about what pages your website needs and where you want to direct visitors. Ask yourself questions about what you want to accomplish with your business or how much you want to grow the business in a year or two.
Use your goals to guide what pages your website needs, what you highlight on your homepage, and what you promote.
For example, if you’re a photographer, maybe you want to get two times more bookings in the next year. You’ll want to showcase your style and areas of specialization to attract customers. A dedicated portfolio gallery or blog can help you tell your story. Or you could consider creating a page for photography packages to promote them to clients.
3. Buy a website domain and choose a website builder
Your website domain name should be something associated with your business. Your name or business name is a good starting point for most people. Keep best practices in mind by choosing a shorter domain URL and avoiding special characters.
Your website builder also needs to suit your business’ needs. The work you’ve done understanding your business and website goals will help you select the best builder for you.
You may already have an online following and just need a centralized hub for your content and booking functionality to support growth. You may need a website builder that offers more solutions, like an online store or branded invoices and contracts. Remember to think about what you might need in the future—you may only want a portfolio page now, but a platform like Squarespace that gives you the ability to easily add email marketing, booking, invoicing, or other tools can save you time and cost in the future.
4. Map out your site’s structure
Organizing your website is as important as what you’ll include on it. Many creative service professionals need more than a single webpage to cover everything visitors want to know.
At a high-level, your website should include:
Homepage
About page or artist bio
Contact page
Services and rate info
Customer testimonials
Portfolio
Booking page
FAQ
You may also benefit from other webpages to publish blogs or share media coverage.
Once you know what pages your website will need, it’s important to organize each page and your navigation strategically. When in doubt, follow your intuition for what makes your site easy to navigate and keep website best practices in mind.
For example, your homepage doesn’t often require as much depth of information, but it can be an overview of your business. Organize those homepage sections by importance to your visitor and your goals. A first-time visitor to a professional photographer’s website may want to navigate to examples of their work. Help them easily get there by adding a portfolio section high on the homepage with a link to explore the portfolio page in full.
5. Add scheduling and email workflows
To make things easier on you and your schedule, add features that allow visitors to book with you or contact you directly. This can include a scheduling tool for introduction appointments or direct bookings.
Or add a contact form for capturing emails for a mailing list or custom requests. You can set up automated email responses for form submissions or booking reminders with additional details. Use these to promote your services or give clients extra details on how to prepare for a meeting.
6. Use copy and visuals to show your style
Building out the copy and visual elements of your website is one of the more fun aspects of creating a website for your business. Here you get to greet your potential client with your style and a first impression of what you’re capable of.
For example, if you’re a graphic designer or illustrator, your website is an excellent place to show off your visual chops. Your portfolio or customer testimonials page can contain key parts of projects you’re proud of, but the aesthetic feel of the website can showcase your visual point of view. Customize colors, fonts, or small design flourishes to reflect your personality.
Copy on your website goes a long way, too. Make sure your copy reflects your voice and your brand. Keep it concise and focused on what you want a visitor to learn or do after reading it.
7. Optimize website for user experience
A successful website for any business incorporates key web best practices in pursuit of a better user experience.
Accessibility: Make your website accessible to those with visual, motor, speech or auditory impairments by including elements that make their web experience easier. Start by adding descriptive alt text for images.
Speed: Don’t bog down your website with too many images or videos. This can slow down page load times, and users are likely to leave your site if they’re waiting too long.
Mobile-friendly: Not all users will be looking at your website on a desktop. Make sure your website platform will adapt images or text for mobile phones and other mobile devices.
8. Incorporate SEO best practices
Many potential clients will stumble upon a business via a search engine or AI chat response. There are some simple things you can do to invest in search engine optimization (SEO) and AI search visibility throughout your website.
Use language your clients might use to look for a business like yours. For example, including “Freelance Illustration Services” in your service page title makes it more discoverable in search.
Optimize for local searches. If you offer in-person bookings, make sure you’re listed on map and directory platforms. Mention your area on your homepage or bio to position yourself for searches like, “family photography in Brooklyn.”
Encourage reviews and testimonials. AI search engines take signals from third-parties like review platforms and forums, too. Encourage word-of-mouth promotion from happy clients.
9. Promote your website
Once your website is complete, share it wherever you can. Your social media presence is a key part of brand building, but your website contains everything someone may need to understand you, your work, and how to book your services. Make sure you share it whenever you can.
You can get a link in bio for your social media profiles and feature your site first. Link your site in interactive posts, email footers, and within your network and any communities you’re part of.
10. Keep your website updated
Your website needs to remain as up-to-date as your own resume or portfolio. Your career is going to change or grow and your website should be a reflection of that. For example, you may start your website for a business as a solo entrepreneur but if you add new services or employees, your site will need to reflect those changes. Or add recent projects and testimonials you’re excited about.
Consider keeping up with trends in your industry and technological advancements or improvements to your workflows and apply those to your website. As a rule of thumb, it’s best to give your website a light update and check for accuracy at least once per year. Regular updates are also good for search and AI visibility.
3 creative services website examples
With Squarespace, you can create a fully customized website from pre-designed templates or build a bespoke one from scratch with the Blueprint AI website builder. Here are a few Squarespace examples that you can use for inspiration or as jumping off points for your website.
1. Zion
Zion is a great website template for creative service providers like writers or photographers, who need a minimal website with clear category navigation for their portfolios. It also offers easy navigation for key information (about, work, contact) and links to social media. The full-page background images on the homepage offer photographers and other visual artists a way to showcase work in detailx.
2. Adri
Creatives in need of a website that showcases their work, offers a list of services they provide, and booking functionality can consider the Adri template. This website is easy to navigate, but offers designers and artists of all kinds multiple ways of showing off their work on the homepage. The design allows for fast and clear navigation of next steps, like booking a consultation, or opportunities to dive deeper with customer testimonials.
3. Quinn
If you’re looking for a minimal design that still leaves an impression, consider the Pia template. It’s easy to navigate, but bold type and distinct sections for projects, professional details, and past clients make it easy for visitors to quickly read and understand the creative on this website and the person behind it all.