How to make an online portfolio

Finding the right platform for your portfolio to live is a logical first-place to start when setting it up.

It’s important to find the best possible portfolio website builder so you can take full advantage of what each platform has to offer – and match their respective pros and cons to your own business needs.

Below, we offer an overview of our top picks:

Squarespace

Squarespace photography templates

If you run a creative business, a Squarespace portfolio website is perfect – in fact, it’s our top choice for portfolios. Squarespace tops our list because of its design-oriented approach, and the range of beautiful templates available.

Our experts recently reviewed the top website builders on the market and, unsurprisingly found Squarespace scored particularly highly for its design functions. We gave it 4.7 out of 5 – meaning it just pips Wix to the top spot.

What’s more, it offers multiple presentation formats, and every template is mobile responsive, meaning your photography website will automatically be reconfigured for mobile users. Time for a refresh? Squarespace also allows you to change your template at any time.

If you’re new to the platform, you can also get a 10% discount when signing up if you use the code SU10 at checkout.

How does it work?

Once you’ve uploaded your work to the builder, you can use Squarespace’s extensive on-site editing tools to tweak, crop, and filter your image until it’s perfectly formatted. Then you can adjust the display style and settings to decide how prominent each image is on the page.

As you can see, there are near infinite design possibilities, which is why we ranked Squarespace as our number one website for design flexibility in our most recent research.

Squarespace integrates with countless social media platforms as well, making it easier to grow your audience and reach new clients. We were also impressed by the platform’s SEO tools, which are easy to find in the editing sidebar. Good SEO is essential for a successful photography website, ensuring it ranks highly for key search terms relating to your imagery.

Where does it not score well?

Squarespace is an excellent website builder and we scored it highly across each category we looked at in our latest round of testing.

The one category it did not overly-impress in is Ease of use, as its more sophisticated tools and capabilities mean it can be slow to grasp for some new users. However, we still gave it a respectable four out of five in this group.

Read our full Squarespace website builder review here.

Wix

Wix portfolio example

Wix is a great platform to create your portfolio website on. It provides more than 500 templates, of which 41 are specifically created just for portfolios. Wix uses drag-and-drop editing tools to let you customize your portfolio – you can drag anything anywhere, meaning you have full creative control over your site.

Our testing gave both Wix and Squarespace 4.8 out of 5 as an overall website builder score, which is a huge result for two big-name players. Squarespace might just beat Wix in terms of creative, design-focussed portfolio setup but Wix is still an excellent option thanks to its powerful customisation tools and massive built-in apps and vast integration library.

Yes, with Wix there is a ton of extra functionality you can add to your site. Think blogs, contact forms, newsletter signups, image galleries, videos, and much, much more. It offers countless options to enrich the user experience of your site, which can translate into more business for you.

How does it work?

Wix’s website features are by far its biggest selling point. You can easily do anything from setting up a business blog, to creating a spectacular online home for your SME that’s the launchpad for high-performing digital marketing campaigns.

We scored the platform 4 out of 5 for value for money, and it definitely won’t cost you the earth. Standard plans start from just £6.50 a month (and ecommerce plans from £13 a month), plus there are regular deals and discounts that can give you great savings to spend on other areas of your business.

Where does it not score well?

There are some minor drawbacks with this platform – but none that should completely warn you away.

Some of our testers reported that the amount of options in the editor can be overwhelming and more advanced designs may suffer from the relatively slow server response time – but Wix is still our best overall web builder for small businesses and we think it’s the safest option if you want a professional-looking website without the hassle of building it from scratch.

Read our expert guide to the Wix website builder here to learn more.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy example portfolio

GoDaddy is known for making it easy for small business owners with little or no website building experience to start growing their business online.

Whereas most portfolio website builders focus on giving users absolute freedom to create whatever type of website they desire, GoDaddy gets that for a website to be successful online, it needs to be optimised to ensure you’re driving as much traffic as possible to grow your online following.

That’s why we scored it particularly highly for value for money as, for a very affordable price, you’ll get a website builder that not only showcases your work, but puts it on the map.

How does it work?

GoDaddy is an excellent website builder for small business growth. Its SEO Wizard is one of its strongest features, you’ll be asked a few simple questions about the kind of targeting you’re after and GoDaddy will suggest the best keywords to use to help your site rank better on Google.

Microbusinesses, or those in very early-stage development, can also benefit from the new GoDaddy studio package.

This suite of creative tools enables entrepreneurs to easily elevate their brands online and create engaging branded content across platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. You can also use the software for email marketing, so you can regularly update your site visitors on newly uploaded work.

GoDaddy also has a decent range of pricing options and being one of the world’s most popular website builders means it’s able to offer some of the lowest average pricing prices.

Where does it not score well?

GoDaddy is not the most powerful website builder on the market, and so if you’re looking for complicated customisation options such as through using coding, this is not the best platform for you.

However, we did give it an Ease of Use score of 4.1 out of 5, as it’s an incredibly easy builder to get set up on and perform core portfolio tasks.

Find out more about using the GoDaddy website builder here.

3. Select the content

Your portfolio is a way to show your work more widely, as well as encourage potential clients to find out more about you. This is why you should spend some time going through your work to find the pieces that shine the brightest.

Be selective 

If most of your previous commissions have been focused on a particular type of work, but there’s something else you’d like to work on, then choose the pieces that mirror how you see your business developing in the future. 

For example, let’s say you’re a graphic designer who specialises in logos, and you’d like to switch, or expand, to working on infographics. You should include as many infographic examples as you can, and reduce the number of logos – but don’t remove them entirely, as you’ll still need to show a range of work. 

That being said, it’s okay to not include every single piece of work you’ve ever created. Essentially, keep in what you’d like to do more of, and focus less on what you want to move away from.

Use your imagination 

But what about if you don’t have any examples of the work you’d like to focus on? Or you’re just starting out, and you’re looking at a blank screen?

If you’re in the early stages of your business and you need relevant work to reference, pieces that weren’t paid for or commissioned by a client are a great place to start – you can use this as an opportunity to simply trial an idea or a project. 

This is because someone who looks at your portfolio can see your creativity and what you’re capable of, should they hire you and become one of your first clients.

Squarespace portfolio template

Lead with the best

Attention-grabbing, high-quality work should be promoted so that you’re seen in the best light straightaway. 

As well as hooking people in with your strongest pieces first, think about how the examples work individually and together. The aim is to create a cohesive portfolio that makes sense and best reflects you, both through specific pieces and as a whole. 

4. Design your portfolio

When designing your portfolio, it’s essential to think about how people will move through and experience your portfolio. Some points to consider include:

Navigation

Whether your portfolio is a single page, or sits within your business website, you can use categories to help people navigate your site. For example, if you’re an artist, you could separate your work according to the medium (e.g. mixed media, paint, and illustrations).

Images 

High resolution images are a must – they should be taken with a high quality camera, or you could hire a photographer to do it for you.

Just keep an eye on the size and formats of images, as well as the overall page size, to avoid slow loading speeds.

Wix food imagery example

Descriptions 

Include short descriptions of your work to provide context, explain the process, and detail the results.

Features 

Consider using hover icons on an image so that when a user lands on them, more information can be revealed (e.g. project details). 

Squarespace offers this functionality, while Weebly also offers it through the app store for premium plans, at an additional charge.

A scrollable gallery is a great way to display many images without taking up lots of space on a page. 

Also, think about if your portfolio will be static, or if it will include animations. As with hover icons, Weebly offers animation features through a paid-for app on premium plans. 

Call to actions (CTAs)

Remember, a portfolio is also there to help win new clients, so be sure to include CTAs that let people get in contact, buy a product, or request a service.

Katrina Otter’s portfolio includes a clear, concise and friendly CTA

Additional pages 

Usually, portfolio websites also include an ‘about you’ section, which is a great way to show off your personality. As well as this, include contact information to make it easy for people to reach you, as well as help with CTAs, as mentioned above.

Builder tools

Also, remember to use any tools provided by your chosen portfolio website builder. Often, providers offer functions that can help with SEO (search engine optimisation) so your site can be found more easily. 

Mobile responsiveness is another common feature, which ensures that your portfolio looks good and functions properly on smartphones and tablets, as well as desktops. 

Discover which providers made our list of the best website builders for small businesses.

7. Keep it updated

It’s easy to think that once you’ve made your portfolio, that’s it. However, there’s more to the process – a portfolio is an ongoing task, and should be updated accordingly. 

Not only should your work change as and when you have new pieces to include, but the design should too, to reflect wider trends and to avoid your portfolio looking outdated.