Nowadays people barely have their own websites. It’s easier to use some social media for portfolio or self promotion. However, making your own website may help you look more professional.

Shutterstock

Around a year ago I created my Shutterstock account. Shutterstock is the biggest platform where you can buy and sell photos. On one hand, popular platforms have a lot of potential customers. On another hand, the competition is intense. It’s not a problem for outstanding photographers, illustrators or artists. But I am not one of them.

Website

First of all, I had to decide between making website from scratch or using an existing solution. The first option is a no-go for most people. Although this didn’t apply to me because I had experience with websites in the past, spending a few months on this was not appealing so I decided to go with the second option.

Wix, Squarespace and Shopify are some such serviсes. However, I chose WordPress, because of this:

• It is very old and reputable.
• It has a terrific number of themes and plugins – over 70 000 combined.
• It is open source (its code is free to download and modify).

Setting Up

Server

Even though you can order a server with preinstalled WordPress from WordPress.com, I decided to set up my own. Basically, you need to download the WordPress’ code and put it in the correct folder, although in reality it is a bit harder.

My recommendations

I am using Photorush – the most versatile theme I managed to find.

For plugins I am using:

• Photo Gallery
  A must have if you want to insert many pictures in the same post. It creates majestic masonries and mosaics and lets you organize your media. These features are free, but there are some paid ones too.
• Simple Local Avatars
  Allows logged in users to upload avatars directly to WordPress, instead of using default Gravatar’s.

Business Cards

Regardless of where your portfolio is, it’s a good idea to have business cards. It’s much easier to give one than, say, to dictate your website’s URL, especially when it’s tricky. Make sure your name and QR code to your portfolio are larger than anything else, because they are the most important things on the business card.

That’s all for now. Thank you for reading.