Today’s question comes from Taylor A., who asks, “I know I need to have an online portfolio, but I don’t know how to build a website! Do I have to hire a designer, or is there an easier way?”
Great question, Taylor, and great news: There is an easier way! We’ve compiled a list of websites that help you built your own online portfolio site, mostly with super-easy drag-and-drop functionality.
Some of these are free and some of them have a small monthly fee, but even with the cost of your own URL (usually about $10/year or so), they’re all pretty sweet deals for creating your very own, completely customized websites. (And definitely much cheaper than hiring a designer!) So, without further ado, here’s our list:
1. IMCreator In the spirit of full disclosure, this is actually the site that I use for my own portfolio (but I’m not getting any kickbacks for adding it to the list.) The templates on this site tend to be a little more modern and edgy and the functionality can take a bit of work to figure out, but the end results are very impressive. (Cost=free, but there’s a small fee if you register the URL through them. I’d recommend it since it just makes everything easier.)
2. Virb This site offers several styles of templates for you to customize. This site gets good notes for both its functionality and its helpful introductory videos—just watching those alone is enough to help you put together your site. (Cost=$10/month, not including domain purchase)
3. Wix This site has hundreds of templates to choose from, which can be a little overwhelming. The quality of the templates, though, is very impressive. (Cost=varies. To have your own domain and remove the Wix branding from the site, the price starts at $8.25/month with a year commitment, but you may need more storage site than that, since you’ll have a lot of pictures on your site.)
4.a Carbonmade I’m including this one because it’s free, [UPDATE: Carbonmade is no longer free. Pity.] basic and pretty easy to get live quickly. However, this site doesn’t allow a lot of design flexibility and it also won’t allow you to have your own URL. That said, though, if you just love the layout and really want to make this your online portfolio, you can always buy a domain and redirect it to your Carbonmade portfolio.
4.b (Bonus!) The Portfolium Similar to Carbonmade, this site is free, easy to use ,and easy to get up and running. Instead of being geared toward creatives, though, the site is actually geared toward students and young professionals in all industries who want to highlight their accomplishments. You can’t set up a dedicated URL, but again, you could always use a redirect. The site also lets you connect with other users. I wouldn’t use this as an alternative to LinkedIn, but it could be especially useful for connecting with designers who are new to the industry, too.
5. Squarespace These guys appear to be spending quite a bit on advertising, since I’ve seen TV commercials, online commercials and banner ads like crazy. They may be living up to their hype, though, since they offer good looking templates that are all mobile-compatible, free custom URLs, drag-and-drop management, the ability to link to your social media accounts and lots of other features. Pricing starts at $8/month, but you might want to look at the $16/month plan for the unlimited storage.
This is just a sampling of sites and more are being added everyday, but that only means that there is no excuse for you not to get your online portfolio up and live right away!
And now it’s your turn: How are you building your online portfolio? Or, have you built it already? How did you do it? Let us know in the comments below!
Need to build your portfolio? Here’s more info to help:
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Copywriting Q&A: Why You Need a Standalone Portfolio Site
I have just read your comments about the objective section of the Resume and while I agree with some of your comments I do not agree with all of them. One should be familiar with a prospective client/employers stated mission and also be at least knowledgeable in the gendre of what the Company is producing or in business with or for. What is the service or product. What is the Market and also where and the size of the area of influence. Is it international in scope or simply local. Can it become in any way international. Having said all ths in the objective section of the resume one should put as ones aim in Bullet Form what he/she intends to do in the way of furthering the Company’s mission and goals. In this part too you can let them know that you have researched the company. But keep it brief. Personnel or Management do not have enough time to read long and wordy missives. IN All communication respect their time BUT do not appear to be mousey or submissive.
Hi John! Actually, I don’t think you and I are disagreeing at all: I agree that you need to be familiar with the company’s objectives—that needs to be part of your overview; specifically, how you can help that company meet those objectives. Your overview should be exactly as you’re saying: what you can do for the company. Unfortunately, many people write overviews that are more about what they want the company to do for them and miss out on an opportunity to really sell themselves.
Thanks for commenting!
– Nicki and the Filthy Rich Writer team
Virb? Wix? Are you kidding me? No no no…. (with the greatest of respect)….
If you want a good website, well designed then you must (to start with atleast) go to WordPress.com using a custom domain. It’s good for most non technical writers, but if you want to go a step further then a custom site built on WordPress.org platform is the way to go.
If all of this is above your head then hire a dude to do it for you.
Regards, Larry
Hi Larry,
Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree. 🙂 Wix and Virb (and a few other sites like them) actually have very robust capabilities in terms of allowing people to create attractive and even flexible portfolio sites. While I’m certainly a fan of WordPress.org, the steep learning curve can turn people off and keep them from creating a site at all, which is a terrible situation since a portfolio site is so essential for a copywriter. The problem, too, with hiring someone to build a site for you means that you need to then re-hire someone every time you want to add to samples to your portfolio or, really, change any element at all about your site. It may be that once copywriters have been in the business for a while, the may choose to change the platform of their site (or not – they may never need to), but I’ll still stand behind the statement that Virb and Wix can be great options for building terrific portfolio sites.
Thanks for commenting!
Nicki
Carbonmade is not free.
https://carbonmade.com/pricing
Hi Bart,
Thanks for that! It was free when I originally wrote the post; I guess they’ve gone in a different direction. 🙂 I’ll update the post.
Thanks for commenting!
Nicki