Website builders for basic portfolio site

Howdy doody all,

Haven't been here in a while. I've popped back to ask how you guys deal with building your websites? I've been using mine as a few years as a simple/easy way to share my work with potential clients and collaborators, a digital CV or portfolio of sorts.

But at the time I was building mine I used wix, and it didn't really have the tools I wanted (none seemed to). What I''m after seems to be pretty basic, and I would've thought was a widget that was already available but wasn't at the time.

In any case my subscription is coming up for renewal and I should reconsider other options, my site is a bit clunky and outdated because it is clunky (and as a result really time consuming to update).

Basically all I want is a tag based gallery/portfolio of my work (using youtube or vimeo embeds). My work has been pretty varied over the last few years (AD'd a couple of features, bits of videography, directed some music videos and shorts, edited a whole host of things, worked on experimental academic projects, work in 360 video, etc etc). Basically my work is too varied to easily have an editing portfolio and a directing portfolio (for example). A tag based system seems to make more sense to me. I just don't know where to look for such a thing.

Does anyone have any host/builder they've particularly liked? Anyone got something similar in place for their own site?

Obvious answer is to hire a web developer, but funds unfortunately don't permit that for a while. Maybe one day..
 
I, personally, use wix for a simple "calling card/online resume" kind of website - http://www.joshmolen.com/ - I love wix for what it is and I think it can be great for a simple site.

For my music library website - https://thetunepeddler.com/ - I use wordpress and had a developer implement a design/layout my wife made.

It was surprisingly inexpensive, so it might be worth looking into something along those lines, especially if you have an idea of what you want it to look like - that way you're not paying a lot for designing the site. I actually found my original site's developer by emailing the local college's web tech department teacher and asking for a recommendation. You'll get some great designers who don't charge an arm and a leg.

Another option, if you didn't mind a slight learning curve, is using wordpress yourself. And if you ran into any problems you could still hire a developer or use elance, or something similar, to have someone knowledgeable do some of the heavy lifting. Then you're only paying for a few hours of time.

A lot of the wordpress templates now included page builders that make it really simple to make a brilliant sites somewhat easily. Check this one out. https://theme.co/x/ - You could watch some tutorials on using the theme to make pages and see if it looks easy enough.

I hope this helped. Please let me know if you have any questions and I'll try and help out.
 
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I built my website from an html5 template.
This means writing code myself to give it the look I want.
It isn't perfect: my photography page does require some help from a programmer :P

The pros of this approach:
- no subscriptions needed (but server space and a domain)
- no f$#kups with updating plugins/widgets

The cons:
- need to understand coding
- takes more time than dragging and dropping

PS.
Welcome back!
Drop me a message with your emailaddress :)
 
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Thanks for the suggestions - I probably need to put in the hard hours to experiment with a few different options myself in reality.

And yeah Walter, I coded a little for myself in the past, but it was over a decade ago.. Certainly gives a lot more control, but I probably have a lot to re-learn by this point hah.
Will send you a message Walter, once I clear some PMs!
 
WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal. WordPress being the most user-friendly with tons of plugins. You can host yourself or use their official hosting and you get free tech help (3rd parties also offer this).
 
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