How to Start a Free Portfolio Website

Key takeaways

An online portfolio can provide an easy-to-access platform for showcasing your work to potential clients and employers. Explore options for free portfolio websites for a seamless, inexpensive start.

• Creating an online portfolio can be an easy and helpful way to showcase your work and demonstrate your professional skills. 

• There are plenty of free websites that can help you highlight and promote your work such as Squarespace and Wix.

• Website builders can offer design options, free versions, and ease of use since many do not require coding.

Getting started with a free portfolio site requires some research. It may benefit you to consider the site's goal, what kind of work you'd like to feature, and the pros and cons of various portfolio builders. As you explore these free sites, look at things like simplicity, design options, and which features you get for free. 

Building an amazing showcase of your work becomes easy with user-friendly portfolio websites. Explore how to display your work and market your professional brand with the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate.

What is a portfolio website?

A portfolio is a visual representation of your previous work, highlighting your unique skills and experiences for others. Often used as a promotional tool for employment or college admissions, a portfolio can include your best work samples, resume, project history, and a list of qualifications. In today's digital world, many portfolios are online and could be a website, blog, or video channel.   

How to create a portfolio website

Creating an online portfolio takes some time. Before starting, take a little time to consider your goals for the site, select the proper tools, and gather your best work. When you're ready to set up your site, follow these steps:  

1. Set a goal.

Before you start picking work samples to showcase or researching free portfolio sites to use, consider your portfolio's purpose. Ask yourself: 

• What is my goal?

• How do I want visitors to perceive my work?

• How do I highlight my best work?

2. Pick the tools needed.

You can decide to build a portfolio manually by writing code, or you can pick a website portfolio builder. If you opt for a website builder, use these factors to help guide your choice:

• Ease of use

• Template availability

• Customization options

• Social sharing features

• Affordability

• Customer support

• SEO features

3. Select a template.

Portfolio builders typically come with a handful of pre-made templates you can customize and edit. Pick a template that aligns with your personality, showcases your samples well, and is easy to navigate or user-friendly. Consider looking at examples in your industry to draw inspiration on colors, format, and aesthetics. 

4. Gather your best work.

Plan to highlight your best work. Although a portfolio can contain dozens of examples, consider placing your most impressive samples at the top to ensure people see them. 

The samples you add can also represent the direction you want to pursue for your future work. For instance, if you're a writer trying to focus more on long-form opportunities than marketing copy, showcase the writing you want to work on.  

What else can your portfolio include? 

• A section with biographical information

• Skills and abilities

• Education and certifications

• Resume

• List of accomplishments

• Testimonials

• Work samples

5. Find website hosting.

Website hosting will help make your site discoverable online. Some site builders offer hosting as an add-on feature, allowing you to create and publish your portfolio all in one place. If your site builder doesn't provide hosting, you can explore options like Hostinger, ScalaHosting, or A2 Hosting.

6. Promote your portfolio.

You can promote your portfolio on your social media channels, send emails, and focus on your site's search engine optimization (SEO) to help improve its search engine rankings.  It is also beneficial to have multiple portfolios if you have different skills you would like to highlight,  such as UX, videography, graphic design, or photography. Providing client testimonials can also help boost your credibility and secure potential clients. 

Examples of portfolio websites

The tools you'll need to build a portfolio are usually part of a website builder. Popular site builders—like Squarespace and Wix—offer specific portfolio templates ideal for showcasing creative work. A website builder may also provide ways to convert your projects into easily shareable work samples. Below are examples of popular portfolio websites.  

Squarespace

Best for: Photographers

Squarespace is a website builder with artistic templates ideal for displaying high-quality images in portfolios. The templates are user-friendly, and a drag-and-drop feature allows you to experiment with formatting. With its basic plan, Squarespace offers unlimited photo storage and 30 minutes of video storage. 

Wix

Best for: Designers and professionals

Wix is beginner-friendly and offers over 800 templates that are specifically for portfolios.  Like Squarespace, Wix also offers drag-and-drop editing tools, making site building easy and accessible. Wix additionally offers built-in social media integration and over 200 app integrations. 

UXfolio

Best for: UX/UI designers

UXfolio offers customizable templates aimed at showcasing user experience. You can create case studies, embed interactive prototypes, and get copywriting tips and prompts to make your project descriptions clear and effective. UXfolio also offers feedback from UX experts on your case studies and password protection for your case studies. 

Site123

Best for: Filmmakers, videographers, and photographers as it provides a sizable 10GB of storage.

With a host of templates that can feature videos, Site123 gives filmmakers and videographers the necessary tools to showcase their work. You can upload videos from YouTube and Vimeo or each file to your site. Customized forms are also available. Site123 offers its video player and a free image gallery.  

Pixpa

Best for: Artists

With Pixpa, artists can sell their work right from their portfolio website. The site has customizable templates, integrated blogging and e-commerce features, and easy-to-use editing tools. Website hosting, which is necessary to display your site online, is also available through the site. Pixpa is perfect for creative businesses to create pleasing websites without any required prior coding knowledge.

Sites offering free portfolio websites

Creating a modern portfolio is straightforward because DIY builders offer free templates and tools. The builders below provide free plans, but many subscription-based plans are also attractive to users and easy to use.   

Behance

Best for: Designers and artists

Behance is a well-known portfolio site used by creatives to showcase their work. It has an easy-to-use interface, allowing users to organize their work based on projects and ask followers for feedback.   

Pros:

• Free accounts include design and feature options

• Easy to collect feedback on projects

• Link work to social media accounts

Cons:

• The free plan includes limited design templates

• It takes a significant amount of time to compress file images for your portfolio

Adobe Portfolio

Best for: Photographers, designers, marketers 

Adobe Portfolio is a free tool in the Adobe Creative Cloud plans, a favorite among marketing, digital marketing, and design professionals. With this tool, you can pick pre-made templates to create a gallery of your work.   

Pros:

• Responsive, free templates to choose from

• Integrations with Behance and Adobe Lightroom

Cons:

• Best for those familiar with the Adobe suite of products

• Limited customization

• Only free with a Creative Cloud membership

Journo Portfolio

Best for: Writers

With Journo Portfolio, writers can create a gallery of articles by providing URLs. The site pulls in the article title, publication date, and image. You can also add a contact page to encourage connections with professionals and employers.  

Pros: 

• Live preview editor

• Mobile-friendly 

• Google analytics integration

Cons:

• Free plans limit the number of articles you can upload to ten

• A monthly subscription is required to upload unlimited articles

Crevado

Best for: Photographers, illustrators, videographers 

Crevado offers a free plan with access to basic design templates and up to 30 images and five galleries. Users can upload many different file types, including audio files, JPEGs, PNGs, and videos, which allows for more freedom in their portfolios. Crevado also allows users to sell their work directly from the site with a Premium plan. 

Pros:

• Easily customizable templates and supports diverse film uploads

• You can sell products directly from the portfolio

Cons:

• Portfolios are limited to two pages with the basic plan

• Crevado branding sits at the bottom of each portfolio with a basic plan

Dribbble

Best for: UX/UI designers

Dribbble encourages designers to showcase their best work and connects freelancers to design professionals. Its networking feature allows designers to get feedback while maintaining a full gallery of work samples for people to browse. 

Pros: 

• Strong keyword and search function

• Allows users to seek out job listings

Cons:

• Portfolio is free, but additional functionality is only available in paid plans.

• Not all users appreciate the networking features

• Has a 10 MB size limit for uploads

Who creates a portfolio?

A portfolio is ideal for anyone with creative skills who can display their work using examples. It can provide tangible evidence of your skills and show a potential employer you have the skills needed for a job. Some people who use portfolios include: 

• Artists

• Engineers

• Graphic designers

• Filmmakers

• Photographers

• Architects 

• Marketers

• Web designers

• User experience (UX) designers 

Continue working on your portfolio

Explore these free resources to keep learning:

• Watch this video on YouTube: No Experience? No Problem! How to Build a Portfolio That Gets You Hired

• Read how one learner expanded his career possibilities: How Steven Schmidt Advanced in His Career with UNT's B.A.A.S. Degree

• Subscribe to our newsletter: Career Chat

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