Best Web builder/hosting?
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Hey guys!
So I'm in the middle of building a website to use as a portfolio/serve as a sort of "hub" for my online presence. I'm curious as to what sites everybody has found success with.
I've tried wordpress, but it seems so oriented towards hosting blogs that I'm not sure how anyone twists it into a portfolio site, to be honest. For reference, I'm looking for a nice, clean portfolio page that displays thumbnails when you land on it, but then you can click on the image and scroll through them with minimal text (I love having stories behind my artwork, but that's what my instagram and tumblr are for, tbh) and the option to have multiple galleries (for example, I'd love an aggregate portfolio, but I'd also love separate galleries for other projects, fanart, the tarot deck, sketches, etc).
I'd also love the option for a page with clear links to my social media platforms. I'm aiming to have a youtube up soon, so something that embeds video would be nice but not necessary. I did find an instagram plugin for wordpress that's really cool, but also not necessary - I'd prefer an nice clean gallery first, social media options are, well, optional.
So what does everyone else use? Any tips to make wordpress work? I'm also comparing prices to see which sites offer domain hosting and google analytics, so that's a factor as well.
instagram: instagram.com/korilynneillo
Twitter: @korilynneillo
Portfolio/shop: korilynneillo.art -
@handdrawnviolist I use Wordpress since years. There is a million portfolio templates you can buy for wordpress (from example from Theme Forest, which is where I bought mine) that do all you mention and more. My website is hosted by HostExcellence. They are pricey (about 100 USD/year) and I am sure you can buy hosting for less nowadays, but I have signed with them for 3 years and I have to say I do not have a single complain. The website loads fast, there has never been a single problem and when I called their hotline for a question on statistics, I had a technician on chat which showed me two different ways of solving the issue in five minutes.
Many other options have been mentioned here that are way cheaper and there are many online portfolio portals, like Adobe etc...and I am sure they are really valid. To me it was valuable to have full control of my website, but not have to learn coding to do that - Wordpress was a good solution for me. -
all my sites are built with squarespace and it is by far my favorite. It has a little bit of a learning curve, but it is totally made with artists in mind, and I love the ease of updating and changing.
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The platform you use will depend on your knowledge and experience with websites.
I have a number of websites - some are wordpress (quick and easy but pretty flavorless), some are straight up html that I assembled with a WYSIWYG app and others are build on Joomla because it is more flexible than wordpress.
If you go with a full service (i.e. full cost!) hosting company, they will most likely have a control panel where you can one click install wordpress, joomla, etc and try all of them out. I use bluehost.com for my websites since I can easily host multiple domains from one account.
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I like to use Visual Studio and Adobe Muse. Visual Studio I use for work (you need a bit of programming knowledge to use it) and Adobe Muse I use for fun.
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I like WordPress. I created my site http://newherocomics.com using WordPress with the DIVI theme builder from elegant themes. The DIVI theme builder lets you design the site visually.
