Best Website Builder For A Design Portfolio
Choosing the best website builder for design portfolio is becoming increasingly common.
Whether you’re interested in securing more clients or just having a sole place to showcase your work, a portfolio is crucial for amplifying your business.
There is an abundance of website-building services out there competing for your business, making your decision that much harder when trying to choose one.
Luckily for you, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite websites based on the ease of use, design, price point, and features.
Below, you’ll find tips on picking the best website builder for design portfolio.
You’ll learn how to make a digital design portfolio that will impress prospects, what our top choices of website builder services are, and the details of what they offer.
Table of Contents
The Benefits Of Using A Website Builder
The best part about using a website builder is that you could be a complete novice at it, and it wouldn’t matter.
Creating a new website from the ground up can be daunting and a task that requires a great amount of time and effort that most designers do not have.
Hiring a professional website designer being a substantial investment a website builder can drastically reduce its cost to launch a design portfolio.
You’re here because you probably don’t have the funds to hire an agency or a freelancer to do it for you.
That’s where these website builder services come in.
The best perk of a website builder is it will eliminate the weeks it would take a professional to code and test the site to make sure it works properly and is fully functional.
The best website builder out there can help you create a personalized and professional multi-page website.
Moreover, it is also mobile-friendly and has it up and running in a day.
According to Webfx, 74% of users are likely to return to an optimized website for mobile users.
If you’re a designer and you want to sell your product or services, most website builders out there offer e-commerce integration.
So not only do you get to showcase your work, you can make money too.
One of the most important benefits of a website builder is their social media integration.
When a potential customer finds your business via the Google search engine, they may also see your social media pages show up and use it to find out more about your business.
As your business continues to grow, website builders will offer you no-hassle tools.
These tools will help you keep your business operational, whether adding more products or updating content.
Tips For Picking A Website Builder
A digital portfolio is a popular choice for creative professionals from countless backgrounds, such as artists, photographers, and filmmakers.
If you’re a Creative of any kind, you know how important it is to have an online presence to get noticed and take your work to the next level.
However, there are countless amounts of website builder services to choose from, so where do you begin?
Below are a few things to keep in mind when scouting which website will work best for you.
Hopefully, it will help you save a lot of time and effort researching.
The best website builder service will help you to:
- Exhibit your work and stand out from the competition
- Use SEO to optimize your portfolio and build an audience
- Develop new business opportunities
- Save money, think affordability
- Save time by being easy to use
The entire point of a portfolio is to showcase your brand and esthetic, so customization is crucial in a website builder.
After spending time designing the perfect digital portfolio, you want your target audience to find it quickly – this is where SEO comes in.
The best website builder services will be SEO-friendly.
This is crucial in optimizing your website without spending tedious hours trying to figure out how to code the website yourself.
User-friendly systems are necessary if you are a newbie to website building.
It should help you build the framework of your portfolio with ease, whether it be adding a landing page or including glowing testimonials.
Top Four Website Building Services For A Portfolio
After scouring through all the most popular websites out there, we narrowed it down to five.
They are based on their price points, ease of use, features, and the freedom of design that they afforded users.
There are endless options out there for you to choose from.
But the five we chose have not only met all of our criteria but are home to thousands of creative portfolios.
Here are the reasons why we choose these as the best websites:
- Wix is best for the greatest design versatility and SEO support.
- Weebly is best for affordability and ease of use.
- Squarespace is the best website builder overall
- WordPress is the best for pairing a blog with your portfolio
1. Wix
With over 500 templates, Wix is a top contender for free website builders.
Moreover, it also offers some pretty great paid plans at different levels.
Wix takes customization to heart if you are looking for total design control over creating your digital portfolio.
Most notably, when it comes to the ease of use of Wix, it has a drag and drop feature on its editing platform that excels beyond compare and a user-friendly dashboard.
Wix provides you with the option of using either Wix ADI or the Wix Editor.
The ADI service will design a website for you after answering a few questions to edit to your liking.
Wix Editor allows you to completely reframe your website’s blueprint however you like by simply utilizing their drag and drop tool.
Its pretty straightforward navigation gets to the point, which helps you build out the framework of a professional portfolio.
Wix’s best features are its advanced SEO tool that offers excellent support for beginners, its extensive app market, and its ample amount of storage.
Their pretty extensive app market lets you easily add third-party apps to your websites.
Adding in a testimonial feature, a customer chat tool, or a social media stream, these are a must!
Wix’s overall dominance in the website building service can be attributed to sleek templates.
It offers state-of-the-art editing and customization options.
So, for those who want a lot of customization control over your website, Wix provides you with a ton of creative freedom.
Here are some examples of websites created with Wix, which are all very sophisticated and professional.
Wix also covers hundreds of industries.
Take a look at what it has to offer for Graphic Design.
2. Weebly
Weebly is one of the most affordable and easiest website builders, making it a great choice if you want something straightforward.
From SEO to e-commerce to blogging, Weebly has every key feature you need to build a website without having to sacrifice time, effort, or money.
On top of having a collection of sleek, mobile responsive, and interchangeable templates, you can customize every design to fit any needs you may have.
The drag and drop editor is simple and easy to use.
So you don’t have to code anything on the site if you don’t want to.
If you would like to, though, Weebly has a coding editor that will let you customize the site with everything you desire.
Weebly caters to all levels of users’ abilities, which is pretty much the company’s ethos – anyone can build a website.
Once you master the basics, you can continue to optimize and grow it with the abundance of features, guides, and apps.
Weebly’s most notable features are the helpful SEO guides.
They provide users and the integration with Square they acquired by the company back in 2018.
Its sophisticated yet straightforward themes and navigation make it a great choice to build a portfolio.
For sure it will look great without you having to do much.
3. Squarespace
Squarespace is known for its large vault of pristine, well-designed, professional templates, a significant number dedicated to creating portfolios.
This makes it an easy top contender for a portfolio builder.
It has almost positioned as the go-to source in the market for portfolios made by artists and designers.
These templates, customizable through their design menu, rely heavily on the images used.
So, note that if you change them, the entire theme will be altered.
For those that plan on adding a blog to their design portfolio, Squarespace is the best choice.
Their platform gives you the ability to schedule posts in advance.
Moreover, it allows for multi-author functionality.
You can host your podcast, have a comment feature, and more!
The best feature Squarespace boasts of is that all their plans come with unlimited storage.
So, you can open an e-commerce store in conjunction with your portfolio selling both products and/or services.
All sites are optimized to be mobile-friendly.
Overall, Squarespace is easy to use with a minimalist interface compared to other platforms.
Below are the best strengths of Squarespace.
- Over 100 templates to choose from
- Its depth of navigation
- The number of apps/widgets in the Squarespace marketplace,
- Monetization
- SEO
- Newsletter tools and more
4. WordPress
Unlike the other listed above services, WordPress is completely free.
This is its biggest advantage for designers looking to display their work.
Despite WordPress being primarily intended for blogging, it has an entire section dedicated to portfolios.
WordPress is most popular among artists because it is affordable.
Moreover, it has over 250 themes free and paid options.
These themes will allow you to customize your site to the look and feel you desire with plenty of built-in features and a substantial list of plug-ins.
With over 50,000 possible integrations, WordPress makes sure that you have the proper tools to create an excellent portfolio.
WordPress differs from other websites because it keeps content, design, and functionality separate.
This is a great benefit to users like you who can manipulate design without changing content, add on new features without affecting other areas, and add new content without worrying.
It’ll fit the theme you’ve chosen.
One of the best features of WordPress is that you have a free plan.
You will get 3GB of storage, the essential SEO mechanics and social media integration, the ease of uploading and managing media.
The overall pros of WordPress are that it gives you control over your website, so you aren’t tied to a web hosting company.
You’ll have access to a massive collection of extensions and add-ons.
The Quickest Way To Get Your Design Portfolio Online
Whether you are a graphic designer, UX designer, muralist, or any other kind of accomplished creative, you need a digital portfolio to showcase your skills.
Building a digital portfolio and getting it online has become an easy process with all the available services.
Website builders can be a lifesaver when choosing the best one for your business to make it easily shareable with future employers or clients.
With all the advice out there on which ones to use, they don’t detail how to use them.
Millions of entrepreneurs and small business owners are using the do-it-yourself website builder tool, and now so can you.
Below are all the necessary steps to getting your portfolio up and running in just a few hours:
1. Choose a website builder to open an account with
2. Choose a free plan or upgrade to a paid plan
3. Buy a domain name
4. Choose a template
5. Upload your best work to the site
6. Add any additional pages you need (e.g., about me, contact, blog, services, etc.)
7. Connect your website to your social media channels
8. Use SEO to optimize your website
9. Have a trusted companion or professional provide you with feedback
Not that you have all of the correct steps to help you get through building your website seamlessly, it’s time to implement them.
What You Include in Your Portfolio Matters
A design portfolio is the best used to display all the great work you have done for prospective clients.
But, it can be much more than that.
Your portfolio can be just a single page of your work if that is what you want.
However, that alone won’t have prospective clients eager to work with you.
SWEOR says that 75% of consumers have admitted to making judgments on a company’s credibility based on its web design.
You can use a digital portfolio to not only showcase your work but to accelerate your business and take it to the next level.
While there are no right and wrong things to include in your portfolio, having a stylish and built-out website design that will resonate with your prospects will show that you care about your digital presence.
It takes approximately 2 seconds for a prospect’s eye to land on an area of your website that will influence them in the decision-making process.
Here are some of the most popular pages to include in a design portfolio for creatives:
About Page/Bio
Having an ‘about me’ page is crucial to avoid becoming the next Bansky.
People who view your portfolio will ultimately want to know who you are and what you stand for.
Contact Page
You want viewers to have a way to contact you if they are interested in working with you without having to post all of your personal information.
This is where this page comes in handy.
Blog
A blog is a great way to continuously get your site to rank high in Google’s search results.
Moreover, it will attract visitors to your website.
So, if you’re good with words, you should consider adding this in.
Online Store
For artists who want to sell their works or services, this is an excellent addition to your website that can act as another income source.
Online stores are great forms of e-commerce that allow you to connect with your customers worldwide.
Events Page
Whether you are showcasing your work at an exhibitor hosting an event, this page will let your followers know exactly where they can find you.
It an excellent tool you must have on your page to advertise or notify your audience of an event you are planning.
Final Thoughts
We’ve reviewed many websites to create this list so that you will find your perfect choice in this list.
Each of the best website builder for design portfolio has its unique benefits.
Pick the right Website Builder, so you can use your skills where they matter most.
Thus, it’s up to you to choose which is best for you.
As a designer, you know what looks good, feels right, and ultimately what your audience will respond to.
So choosing the best website builder should be a no-brainer.
Whichever website you ultimately choose, let us know how you like it in the comment section below!
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