But it’s best to start small and save money, so pick the “basic” plan from the left-hand side. This entire signup process is likely the hardest part. Remember, your online portfolio is designed to get you more work. According to Forbes, 56% of hiring managers are more impressed by a personal portfolio than any other branding tool. Your education is important to employers. I think it’s better to remove this plugin and just let your site be online, but I want you to make that choice! Step 3: Create and optimize your portfolio. Even 15-20 minutes should be enough to really learn how it works. After that any changes you make to the portfolio gallery will auto-update on the homepage. Here’s how to get started. For now you can access the main dashboard from the sidebar link titled “dashboard”. Check your inbox after signing up and you should find the email waiting for you. Take a peek at this customization guide if you’re not sure where to start. I’ll show you how to do this using the free Huge-IT Portfolio plugin. An online portfolio can help you create a full picture of your work experience and allow clients to find you. Then use those images to create “pins,” which link to your post and can include your headline, author name, and post description. You can learn a lot about what you want just by seeing it on other websites. This is easy to change anytime. Create Your Portfolio Category. A well-made online resume (or portfolio) will help you stand out when employers Google search your name, and is an excellent addition to any job application. For example, to install the Yoast SEO plugin just search for “yoast”. You don’t need either of these so there’s no reason to pay extra for them. This wikiHow teaches you how to create a link to online content in various ways. I mentioned before that premium themes usually offer the most customization, so that’s my preference. And each premium theme is rarely used by too many people at once, so your portfolio site will be: Whenever I want a quality premium theme I check ThemeForest. A site that grabs attention and helps to sell your work right away. Your site will include a collection and contact page to get you started. We can customize VuePress’ default theme to create a stunning homepage, complete with … With a gallery plugin you can add slideshows and galleries to make your portfolio images much easier to browse. But this slideshow style doesn’t include any of the details for each project. A standout online portfolio is a big differentiator in your job search. Each entry should include: Action Item 3: Add one work experience entry to your profile. Just upload that to your new WordPress site and presto! But if you have a common name then someone else might already own it. Introducing VisualCV's latest feature - cover letter customization. If you have skills in a variety of different areas, you may want to categorize them, or create separate skills pages so you can add or subtract as needed to make your portfolio relevant to the job for which you're interviewing. I mentioned before that you’ll only need to buy two things for a website: your domain name and your web host. 6. How to Create an Impressive Online Portfolio (with Examples) When you click a portfolio item you’ll get a modal window including a few related thumbnails for the project. This password is used for your BlueHost account and your WordPress site. It’s a free plugin with an optional premium upgrade, but the free version is more than enough. On this new page you can search for whatever plugin you want by name. Once you click the blue “publish” button you can view the contact form live on your site. In that case you should try variations: To get started visit the BlueHost signup page and click the “get started now” button. So for now set this feature to Level 0(off). It’ll take a little practice to learn how to use this plugin. It’s a little tricky but you only need to do this one time. If you want to use W3 Total then visit Settings -> General and make sure the caching is set to Level 0. You want a theme that looks professional enough to match your artistic quality. But if you want a portfolio with some more detail consider looking into premium portfolio themes. You should choose your online portfolio design carefully as each portfolio template will appeal to a different audience. What we need to do is change some of the default settings and get this looking like a real portfolio. Summary: As an option, you can add a professional summary at the top of your online portfolio that paints a picture of your qualifications. If you’re looking for ideas take a peek at our post on portfolio design. We'll break it down into sections: Name: Your name should be the most prominent item of your portfolio. From there you’ll need to pick your plan. By hovering over the icons, you will be able to click and drag to order the content however you would prefer. It’s a huge marketplace with thousands of pro designers who submit their themes for sale. Most of them come with custom features just like Huge-IT but they don’t require extra plugins. Yet a blank slate leaves a lot to be desired. How to Create a Portfolio Website in Under 5 Minutes - YouTube Action Item 1: Choose a VisualCV portfolio design. Congrats! It gives off a first impression to every client and that leaves an impression on your work. It’s like a blank slate you can mold to suit your needs. You’ll find a few settings that you definitely want to change right away: You need a site title but you do not need a tagline. But for plugins you can get everything you need with just the free options. If you are an artist - include photos of your art. A strong website also helps to improve your brand while building your name digitally. Create a portfolio. WordPress isn’t the only option, but it’s the most secure way to start and it’s got tons of free support online. From there, you can modify as desired. From this page look in the top-right corner where it says “select the view”. From this point onwards your site should be online. All the plugins with a light blue background are currently activated. The whole platform is 100% free so you can easily manage WordPress for life without paying a dime. They say presentation is everything, and the best way to make your work stand out is with an attractive and easy-to-navigate site. For each section, we have included details on best practices. Click publish and then click the blue URL link underneath the title box. For now let’s just copy the default shortcode which should look like [huge_it_portfolio id=”1″]. Behance has become one of the most popular and effective social networking platforms for creatives worldwide. By default WordPress is pretty boring. Click that to manage your portfolio items. So if you want to wait before launching your site disable every plugin except the Mojo plugin. Start off by logging in and opening up a new VisualCV to follow along. Find the perfect free resume sample and upgrade your resume with VisualCV. Either way you can always change these settings later so none of this is permanent. This is probably closer to what you’ll want for a typical art portfolio site. Even if you aren’t experienced with websites, hosting, or other elements of cyberspace, it’s pretty easy to navigate if you stick to platforms built for people who aren’t coders. After this you’ll be directed to the custom BlueHost dashboard. The two main costs are: The WordPress platform is free, but hosting a website is not free. Create a sleek, and professional portfolio with Canva, today. This reveals an upload form which you can click to browse your computer for the ThemeForest .zip file. These days you can easily share your work on the internet with just a few clicks. Total supports various content types – add a Featured Image if you want to display a single image, add multiple images to the Image Gallery section to create a slider, or add a link for an audio or video file in the Portfolio Item section. By default they’re hideous and using random number IDs. By far the most popular choice for a free plugin is the Huge-IT Portfolio Gallery. Each design has different customizable features and some themes are more malleable than others. Now let’s create another folder for portfolio, add each of our projects, and, finally, add a link to the navbar. Insert a title, then insert any post content in the editing field. Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. On this page enter a title of Contact at the very top. Get monthly updates on new posts & cool art links sent right to your inbox. And in order to increase the chances of getting noticed by potential clients/recruiters, you’d better also use and create two, three or more portfolio sites with different styles and characters together. Give this page any title you want, I’ll choose “Portfolio”. If you wanna learn more about Yoast check out this guide covering the dashboard and all of its main features. Click the tab labeled “Mail” at the top. The following applies primarily to a portfolio you’d create on a custom business website, but the structure is also relevant for other places where you’re going to display your work. Your top portfolio projects depend on your industry, but can be published in various formats: This section is highly subjective. Whether you want to showcase your work in a full portfolio website, or create a single-page website, we've got you covered. Yoast SEO pretty much defaults with the best settings. Hover “Pages” and in the flyout click “Add New”. None of the free WordPress themes come with a portfolio gallery feature. Note: it helps to have a domain idea ready in advance before starting. It does cost a little extra but this hides your personal information from a whois lookup. But really, the more you play around with settings the more you’ll learn and get comfortable with WordPress. But it works a lot better than the default WordPress SEO settings. The default form message should be OK but you may want to change some of the email settings. Try that setup and see if it can fit with your artwork a little better. You can get both of these from BlueHost so that’s usually what I recommend. But for most portfolios I’d uncheck comments because they’re mostly spam. It’s the same structure I use here on Concept Art Empire because the URLs are easier to read and more memorable. Also make sure to un-check the other preselected options(Site Backup Pro & SiteLock Security). You’ll notice this plan comes with a free domain name and 5 free email addresses. If somebody else owns the domain you’ll get an error message. If you’re using a premium portfolio theme you’ll have a built-in portfolio feature, no plugin needed. On the My Portfolios page, select Create Portfolio. Click that. This lets you see the page live so you can preview how it looks. Let me show you a common way to add portfolio items to your new website, 100% free. Back in the WordPress admin panel click the Huge-IT link in the sidebar. Just note the “MOJO Marketplace” plugin controls the main BlueHost dashboard link at the very top. But these are pretty miniscule and they can amount to less than $10/mo. For now save any changes you made, or if you didn’t make any changes then click on the “Contact” link in the menu again. And remember, this is a continual work in progress throughout your career. Most portfolio sites are pretty simple so you won’t need many extra features. You just click the “plugins” link in the navigation menu, then click “Add New” at the top of the page. Whatever you want. Once you uncheck these options scroll down to the bottom and click save. It’s the simplest way to get a site online fast and it’s currently powering over 29% of the web. Lastly scroll down to the bottom and before you save any changes, have a look at the very last feature on “Endurance caching”. I’ll click the “start building” link and visit my new dashboard. And that’s what really makes a portfolio website stand out. You should however include an email address or method of contacting you. So your setup should look kinda like this: Save the changes and now visit your site’s homepage. Take a few of my favorite examples like Robh Ruppel, Kekai Kotaki and Thierry Doizon. If you feel the server is too slow you can always upgrade in the future. This format lets you create project-based items where you can include many images along with a description of the work you did, who it was for, and even buttons linking to other websites. But if you do go with a premium theme you’ll install it a slightly different way. Click that to automatically download & install the theme to your site. Once you find a theme(or a couple) then search for it by name in your WP dashboard. Actually hosting is the probably the biggest expense since most domain names are super cheap. Having all that text on my portfolio made it dense, unreadable and unengaging. An alternative to this is to create an account with Behance. Now there are costs that come with launching a website. If you’ve read this far then I don’t have to sell you on the value of a website. That may happen but don’t get discouraged! A good online portfolio needs a handful of crucial elements. For some people it’ll be easier to go with a free theme like WP Portfolio when you’re getting started. An impressive portfolio can often catch the interest of employers, which is your goal when applying for an internship or job, and then hopefully make them want to call you in for an interview. They’re all free so if you search for them by name they should be easy to find. Then look back to the admin menu under settings and click “Permalinks”. For the front page use the portfolio page you created. From the “package information” section you should change the recurring fee from 36 months to 12 months. But making these changes will look nicer and give your portfolio a cleaner look. WordPress offers a ton of free themes in their online directory. Learning the WP backend takes time but you really can’t break anything. Usually this is on a contact page. Hopefully this guide offers enough for everyone to go from start to finish with a brand new art portfolio launch. These work like add-ons which insert extra functionality into your site, all with a few clicks. Create, or have someone create, a portfolio website for all of the work you include in the hard copy portfolio. You can then add as many layers as you need. Models need an impressive portfolio website to represent themselves online and distinguish themselves from others in the field. Once you’re done with the site title & email click on the “Discussions” tab under the settings link. Step 1 – Navigate to the Portfolio tab in your WordPress admin.. You’ll probably notice a few options are for the pro version only… kinda lame, I know. So on the first page you’ll be offered a list of themes. Easy! Additional Tips: 1. Do you notice anything you’d want to include in your own site? I always prefer the “Post Name” option because it’s super clean and follows a natural-looking URL structure. In this age it’s practically required to have a web presence, and especially so if you’re an artist hoping to stand out from the masses. With WordPress you have two options: free themes or premium themes. Before you publish your Portfolio, you must have created at least one project or gallery. First, we need to create a link for every single category in our HTML file. So let’s cover the whole setup process and take it step by step. It is important to make sure you create an online portfolio that dazzles. It is a great opportunity to exhibit your work online for free, get networking with other like-minded people as well as job opportunities and professional referral … For now take a couple minutes minutes to look around the web and search for your favorite artists. So it helps to have a list of features and know exactly what you want. I actually like the “Elastic Grid” option which you’ll find in the dropdown menu just underneath Lightbox-Gallery. Because this is a public document, you may not want to include all of the nitty-gritty details of each work experience but a general summary of your best accomplishments. Or try looking into some other plugins for WordPress slideshows & galleries. Then click “install” to immediately download & install the plugin files. But I’m gonna show you how to setup a better caching plugin later in this guide. Let’s start with some great news: you don’t need to spend a fortune to set up a modeling portfolio. If your portfolio consists of photos, you can either display them all separately or make a slideshow using the tools in your website builder. You can edit, delete and reorder the content in your portfolio. Whether you picked a theme or not doesn’t matter much anyways. You should see it appear in the filtered list with a blue button labeled “install”. It helps to let your theme set the image crop sizes, not the main WordPress settings. 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