How to Create a Portfolio Website (Step By Step Guide)

Why You Need a Portfolio Website?

​An online portfolio brings many opportunities for your career and business. Your online portfolio will not only help get you more business, it also connects you with like-minded people who're looking to expand their businesses in the same direction.

There're many reasons to create an online portfolio. We're listing a few below so you'll understand the primary benefits of having your own portfolio page:

1. Professional Way to Showcase Your Work: Building a website about your brand and experience is a polished way to share your expertise with others. Websites can be more creative and innovative than traditional portfolios and are able to share with anyone in the world.
2. Smart Way to Share Your Resume: When someone asks you about your portfolio, you won't need to send it to them by mail or fax. You can simply share the link to your portfolio page.
3. It's A Great First Impression For Employers: If an employer sees your website link in your signature or on your resume, they'll likely click on it to see what you've built. Seeing you've taken the time to build a website featuring work samples, recommendations, previous presentations and more will be a killer first impression.
4. Increases Your Visibility And Online Presence: When an employer Googles your name, your professional portfolio will be one of the first search results that pops up.
5. Better SEO: An online portfolio page improves your website's search engine rankings.

Requirements

• Domain Name: Choose an easy domain name so that your user can remember your site name.
• Web Hosting: Select a trusted source to buy web hosting.
• CMS: Select a CMS platform.
• Template: Pick a contemporary and responsive template.
• Page Builder: Use a page builder as an editor. 

Step 01: Select a Domain Name

Before starting anything else, at first, you need an easy, simple, and relevant domain name. It's a key element of your website that gives the first impression to website visitors, affects your SEO, and defines your brand.

If you don't have any idea about where from you should register your domain name, you can visit Siteground to register your domain name. When you are selecting your domain name, consider the following tips (not mandatory).

• It should be simple, so it's easy to remember.
• Your domain name should end with .com, .net or .org.

Step 02: Choose a Web Hosting

Now, its time to choose a web hosting to reach another step to your dream. There are so many options to choose a web hosting around you. It may make you confused but I believe How to Select Best Web Hosting can definitely help you. 

You can select any of the web hosting providers; however, if you don't feel comfortable with their offerings, you can visit Siteground, you will get your preferred hosting with minimal costing. 

When you are dealing a web hosting, consider the following tips (not mandatory).

• Page Load Speed: How fast is the hosting provider? It should load your site within a possible shortest time (500-700 ms).
• Customer Support: You'll have to sort out issues with support at some point – therefore you should choose a host that has good-quality and responsive customer support.

Step 03: Install Joomla

​You may think why I am using Joomla. Well, I have solid logic behind this decision. Before selecting Joomla, I have gone through a study about which platform is the best for a beginner type of developer. First of all, I read Joomla vs Wix, a details guide on the comparison. 

Though they clearly have shown how far Joomla has already gone, still I had some doubts about Joomla. Then, I read Joomla vs WordPress, and my misgivings totally disappeared. Now, I am convinced, for me, as I want to develop a portfolio website, Joomla is the best choice so far.

There are multiple process for Joomla installation; however, to make the installation butter smooth, we have a dedicated blog post about "How to Install Joomla - A Step by Step Guide". Follow this link to install Joomla.

Besides, we provide documentation and video tutorial for you, in case you need any further help.

Step 04: Choose Template

​Before uploading a template, you need to know which template gonna best for you. There is a lot of modern designed Joomla templates, but you must decide which one will be the best fit for you.

Your selected Joomla template must be responsible as well as contemporary designed. Check the following factors while you choose a template.

• Support: It's great to have technical support included, as these people can fix any issue for you.
• Pricing Plan: It should be affordable like you must not buy or download a template with minimal features and maximum price.
• Updates: Joomla constantly updates their system. Make sure your template provider also updates their templates frequently to make sure it will work with the latest releases.
• Documentation: From time to time, you'll need to check some features to learn how they work. Be sure there is a place where you can do so.
• Responsiveness and Cross-Browser Compatibility: This means your template should look great in every browser as well as on any mobile device.
• Customizability: Check out which template features can be customized by yourself. For example, look for templates that have many module positions.

Here, I have chosen Startup - the best portfolio template for Joomla website. Reasons behind choosing the template is its features and functionalities.

Features of Startup​

Step 05: Upload a Template

Go to Extensions > select Extension Manager > Browse the extension package file (template file) > Upload & Install.

Joomla gives three more options to install extensions. Find from the following link "How to Install Joomla Template".

After that, you still need to activate template and you do that under Extensions > Template > Styles. Here, click the star icon to the right of the template name to make it the default site.

Step 06: Customize the Template 

Here we are using Quickstart package to customize the Startup - best business portfolio template for startup company. Quickstart package is elementary and user-friendly, that's why this will be our humble recommendation for you. However, you can customize the template in your own preferred way, as well.

Note: Quickstart package is available with each and every template of our Joomla Template Directory.

To start the Quickstart package first, you have to download the .zip file from our template directory then install it manually. It is the same kind of process as installing Joomla. First, extract the template quickstart .zip file and find out the template folder from the localhost. Your domain look like this, https://localhost/template-name.

After clicking the folder file an installation interface will appear. Fill the necessary information and proceed to the next option by clicking the next button.

You will get an interface like this,​ now configure this one and put the connection information for, database type, server host name, user name, password, database name, and table name. It is suggested to keep the password field blank if you face any error. 

Click on the next button to proceed. Database restoration will start now and after completing an interface will appear like below,

Now it's time to site setup. Click the next button to finish,

​Remove the installation button. 

​Ready to start using your site! Click the visit your site front end button,

Now login with Joomla administrative and go to Quix dashboard. 

Go to Quix > Pages, then select the page which one you want to customize. 

Here, I have used Quix - Joomla page builder to customize this template. Customization with Quix is much more simple and straightforward work than you ever thought. You can create and customize your entire website using Quix visual page builder. It doesn't matter whether you have any prior coding knowledge or not.

Final Words 

​Once your Joomla website is ready, try to share this resource with others so that it could assist them in building their website without facing any difficulties. In the meantime, let us know your thoughts on our guide in the comment box below. Your comments can improve our guide.