Portfolio Development - Website Making

I have been looking into the building your own website side of portfolios. I have always wanted to create my own but have never known where to look or what to do. I have done research on 8 different websites created by other photographers but now I need to look into the actual website building. This includes looking at the different sites which will help you and provide templates which you can edit to help save you time as well as giving you inspiration and ideas. I will be also looking at the cost, whether you get to chose your own domain or if you have to pay (if so, how much), as well as how easy the actual web builder is to use.

These are the following website builders I have chosen to look at before closing one to create mine through, Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, Wordpress and SuitBuilder. Here is a review I found online about these...Show/Hidea menu

A guide to website building software and a list of the top website builders that are easy to learn & use for beginners.

There are many different website builders you can use to make your own website. The most professional choice is WordPress. It is our recommended platform for building your own website as WordPress gives you complete control & powerful functionality. You can read our step by step guide on how to make a WordPress website. However, WordPress is more difficult to learn & may not be the best choice for beginners. There are many commercial website builders out there which make site building a little easier and faster. If you are planning to build your own website, you will need to decide on which website builder best fits your requirements. Listed below are 5 of the best website builders that we recommend to our readers:

SiteBuilder – Create & Manage Your Own Website

www.sitebuilder.com is one of the simplest, most intuitive site builders on the market. They make it easy for anyone to build and publish their own website without having to be a computer whiz. Their powerful site builder offers all the tools you need to get your small business website up and running, including a basic eCommerce store as well. They also offer one of the largest selections of pre-made templates so you can always find that perfect design. They do offer a free plan without a custom domain name, although we would highly recommend choosing a paid plan (starts at $9.95/mo) to unlock all their professional features.

SiteBuilder is the easiest, fastest way to build a site.

Try it Now & Start Building 

Wix – Get a Quick & Easy Website

www.wix.com offers one of the best website builders on the market. Wix is a bit more complex than SiteBuilder, but offers more advanced features and includes a better eCommerce platform for selling online. They also have numerous templates with over 70 different categories to choose from. Their user-friendly drag and drop site builder is intuitive and lets you fully customize your website. Wix is great for beginners who want a managed, easy solution to make their own website. Wix is also one of the largest website builders with over 63 million users world wide. You can start Wix for free, but will most likely need to upgrade to their paid plans which range from a little over $4 to almost $25/mo.

Wix is one of the most popular choices for site builders.

Try it Now & Start Building 

Weebly – Professional Site Builder for eCommerce Stores

www.weebly.com is yet another great choice for making your own website. Customers can quickly make a professional looking website with their drag and drop site builder. Weebly offers less customization than SiteBuilder or Wix, but does offer great eCommerce plans for businesses and is a popular choice for those who are looking to sell their products/services online. Their business plan is pricey at $25/mo, but does offer everything you need to setup a professional online store. Weebly is easy to sign up with and has a relatively straight forward process. Unfortunately, they only have a very limited number of themes to choose from – approximately 30 at the time of this writing.

Weebly lets you professionally create your own website.

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Squarespace – Website Builders for Creative Businesses

www.squarespace.com is a website builder geared towards artists and those in a more creative profession. Squarespace has a lot of great website templates for photographers, artists, restaurants, musicians, weddings, and bloggers. Their designs are typically simple, yet very visual with large images. Like Weebly, their templates are less customizable, but include clean URLs and truly responsive designed templates. Their services are competitively priced – starting at $8/month for personal and $18/month for business. You can start a 2 weeks free trial with no credit card required. Squarespace also has a great community knowledge base where you can ask questions and get help on how to use their website builder.

Squarespace is the best website builder for creative industries.

Try it Now & Start Building 

WordPress – The Best Website Builder

Last, but not least, is WordPress. While technically a CMS, WordPress is still our top choice for building a website. It’s used not only by beginners, but by professionals as well. WordPress is such a powerful platform & has so many features, that most web designers & developers love to use it. In fact, 1/5 of all websites on the internet are now built with WordPress. It’s the industry standard for a website building platform. Unfortunately, it’s a little more difficult to learn than the others. There are many great video tutorials online for learning WordPress, such as http://www.wp101.com/videos/.

WordPress is the industry standard for building a website.

Try it Now & Start Building 

Understanding Which Website Builder You Should Use

Most website builders are meant for beginners who have no experience in web design. In the old days, only a professional web designer could make a website by hand-coding it. Nowadays, anyone with a little patience and determination can do it using the help of website building software. So which website builder listed above should you use? That depends on you and which one you feel most “comfortable” with. WordPress is the best in terms of power & flexibility, but is also the most difficult to learn. For beginners who have little technical skills, we’d recommend signing up with one of the others listed above. And for those of you who have problems turning on a computer, hiring a professional web designer is going to be your best choice!

Any of the above website builders are relatively easy to learn compared to other methods of building a website. That being said, there is a little learning curve involved. Most of you reading this guide will probably be small business owners who want to build a website yourself. It’s definitely a doable thing, but you will need to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the features/functionality of the website builder you chose. Also, most website builders allow you to signup for free, but not surprisingly, limit features and functionality. The free versions are usually not adequate for business and we recommend upgrading to a paid plan for a professional website & appearance.

(Information found at http://howtogetonline.guru/best-website-builders on 31.05.2016)

I have been looking into all of these and have decided to go with Wix to make my website. I think it is the best price and the easiest to use. All website builders are tedious to start with but I think it will be ok once you get used to the layout of them. 

I will be making another blog post with a copy of my final website and images to show what I have created and to explain why I have chosen the images I have.