Having a unique and cohesive online identity is a tough task for any web professional. After all, many of us have built a mishmashed digital footprint of abandoned social media accounts, outdated bios and old work that resurfaces when we’re brave enough to Google our name.
Did you just Google your name? Fear not: you can take back control of your personal brand with a strong career portfolio website that gives you a clear online presence and showcases your skills in a way that resonates with potential clients.
Whether you’re adding a side hustle to your in-house designer job or scaling your freelance business, a well-crafted career portfolio website can tell the internet who you really are and make you stand out.
Here, we explore the key factors that make an effective career portfolio website and provide top tips on building your own. We also highlight eleven career portfolios created on Wix Studio with brand-building and client-acquisition in mind.
Key ingredients of a strong career portfolio website
By no means an exhaustive list, here are seven features that can make your career portfolio website more compelling for clients and collaborators.
A standout homepage
Your homepage is where engagement with new visitors (AKA potential clients) begins so you need to grab their attention ASAP. Hold it with eye-catching visuals and a clear intro about your expertise. Remember, first impressions last, so make sure everything they take in during those first few seconds reflects you and your work.
A strong About section
Whether it’s a small blurb in the hero fold or a dedicated page of its own, the About section is where you provide an overview of your background and experience. It’s an opportunity to connect with potential clients by sharing your story and what sets you apart from others in your field. Try injecting some personality into the content, like telling them how you spend your time away from the screen.
Responsiveness
Don’t be that career portfolio website that looks stunning on desktop, but as soon as you switch to mobile, your work becomes a curated mess of cropped and misplaced images. Use responsive web design to create a site that adjusts to the size and capabilities of every device or browser it’s viewed on, so you know visitors will always see the best version of your work.
Social proof
Incorporating client testimonials can enhance credibility and provide social proof of your skills. Get in the habit of asking for a testimonial every time you complete a successful handover and include quotes from clients about their experience working with you. Using company logos adds an extra visual touch, particularly if you’ve worked with recognizable brands.
List of services
You’d be amazed how many career portfolio websites are so focused on presenting their work that they forget to list their services. You don’t necessarily need to have a separate services page, but make it clear precisely what you can do for clients.
Clear contact details
It might sound obvious, but make sure your contact details are clear and easily discoverable. Clients can be picky about how they reach out, so provide a few options. Also, create a custom email address using your domain to give you a more professional look.
Optimized for Google Search
As with a client website, you want the right people to find your career portfolio. At the very least, do the SEO basics or go niche with your keywords if it means getting the right eyes on your site. Fill any SEO knowledge gaps by taking the Wix Studio Academy SEO course.
Build your next (and best) client site on Wix Studio today.
How to build a compelling career portfolio website, according to a pro
With the help of creative director and illustrator Doug Rodas, who leans heavily on his career portfolio website to win new business, here are six tips on building a stellar career portfolio website.
Curate your work
A career portfolio site doesn’t need to cover everything you’ve done throughout your career. It should highlight the work that’s relevant to potential clients and collaborators. “Only showcase the projects that align with the type of work you want to attract,” advises Rodas. “During my recent redesign, I focused on presenting the best of my portfolio, which led to more targeted commissions.”
Ensure responsiveness
It’s worth repeating ourselves here: responsiveness matters. “Make sure your site looks flawless on any device—whether it’s a desktop, tablet or smartphone,” says Rodas. “Wix Studio’s responsive features were a game-changer for me.”
You can use Wix Studio’s responsive AI to make a responsive website, which takes a lot of the manual labor out of the equation. Learn how to use responsive AI in the Wix Studio Academy.
Add your personal touch
Rodas reminds us that small details make a difference and says it’s worth adding your personal touch to the places visitors least expect. “Personalize the often-overlooked elements, like your 404 error page or mobile hamburger menu,” he says. “These small touches can make your site really stand out.”
Build your personal brand
Career portfolio websites offer the chance to give your personal brand a stronger identity. “Take the time to strengthen your branding—elements like textures, typography, a cohesive color palette or tailored photography can make your site feel unique and unified,” says Rodas. “With strong branding, the whole process of building a career portfolio becomes much easier and more rewarding.”
Show your social side
If you’re particularly strong on a freelancing site or social media platform (like a design thought leader on LinkedIn or an illustration influencer on TikTok), integrating or linking to them from your career portfolio website will give you extra online cred. “Building connections and visibility is key,” says Rodas. “Linking to platforms like Behance or Dribbble adds professionalism and makes your work more discoverable.”
Have fun with it
Rodas says you should think of your career portfolio website as the frame that showcases your art, so have fun with it. “Should the frame be playful to match your style, sleek to target a specific niche or minimal to let the work speak for itself?” he asks. “These decisions are all yours to make.”
11 unique career portfolio websites to inspire your own
We’ve picked out nine career portfolio websites from talented professionals who know how to find web design clients and two Wix Studio templates designed to give you a headstart.
01. Doug Rodas
Right from the start, Doug Rodas’ website dazzles us with a dose of color and a distinct illustrative style—an example of how stunning work can do the talking. Tidy and unassuming fonts, subtle hover interactions and a cute snake GIF bring a clean but visually stimulating site nicely together. Take note of Rodas’ About page, which has everything a potential client needs: a short bio, previous clients, his educational background and noteworthy press appearances. While there’s a lot of info there, it feels far from content-heavy.
02. Shang Xu
Product designer Shang Xu’s website greets us with the wonderfully simple “Hello, I’m Shang” in big and bold typography beneath a colorful illustration of a character who we assume is Shang. The website’s clean and playful style portrays a youthful and energetic brand personality ready to do business. The sections are clearly laid out and you can dive deeper into Xu’s product design projects with some big-name platforms. For clients who prefer a good old-fashioned resume, Xu links to a PDF straight from the menu.
03. Jonathan Jakubas
Creative thinker and digital designer Jonathan Jakubas leads with a slick scroll effect that transforms a sketched outline into a full-color profile image. The minimalist site makes good use of website hover effects—move your cursor over Jakubas’ projects to reveal his design on a device screen. The capabilities section offers a tidy dropdown bar for additional text, while his About page isn’t afraid to tell us who Jakubas is when he’s not at work.
04. Nilanjan Ghosh Roy
Product designer Nilanjan Ghosh Roy gives us a lesson in scrollytelling with a highly interactive career portfolio site that springs to life as you move down the homepage. Roy makes contact for potential clients simple, with a link to his Cal profile where you can schedule a call in a couple of clicks. He also provides links to his LinkedIn, Instagram, Behance and Dribbble accounts. Like Jakubas, Roy gives visitors a window into his personal passions, documenting his hiking adventures in the Blog section.
05. Roni Levi
In her career portfolio website, visual creator Roni Levi gets straight to the point with her name and title filling the screen. Spinning 3D elements placed within the words stop you in your tracks and bring extra dimensionality to the site. Levi showcases her work through five projects and a separate personal work section, but one of the site’s highlights is its About section. It adds authenticity and retro web design into the mix with old photos, sketches and an ID card that appear on screen as you scroll.
06. Adam Shams
Built as part of the Wix Playground initiative, the portfolio site of graphic designer Adam Shams lands with little acclaim, but hover over the underlined text beneath the “I’m Adam” header, and you’re in for a treat. In his Projects section, Shams conveniently categorizes his talents, covering web design, motion, branding and books. Click on any project to discover the concept behind the work. Like Xu, Shams links to a PDF version of his resume and chooses to share his LinkedIn, Behance and Instagram profiles, too.
07. Diego Aguiar
Brazilian creative director and designer Diego Aguiar goes for a sleek and sophisticated black and white design for his career portfolio site. In the Projects section, Aguiar keeps written content to a minimum and lets the visuals take over, as he gives us a real taste of his brand design, UX/UI and advertising talents. Keep an eye out for the slick text marquee effect running over his profile image halfway down the homepage.
08. Shuja Humayun
Web designer and digital marketer Shuja Humayun leans into minimalist design, using bold typography, amble white space and a strong orange accent to deliver a visually engaging and cohesive career portfolio site. Humayan goes all in on testimonials, offering 12 reviews that conveniently link straight to each client project. Full marks to Humayan for the various features that incentivize visitors to take the next steps, including the popup AI chat and the integrated call scheduling system.
09. Zaheen Sandhu
Like many web professionals featured here, multidisciplinary designer Zaheen Sandhu likes to keep things on a first-name basis. Opening with a ‘Hello! I’m Zaheen” header in a traditional-styled font on a textured background, the accompanying paragraph text quickly turns into an interactive element that moves with the cursor. Interactions aside, Sandhu’s projects appear as you scroll, each clickable to reveal more in-depth information on her workflows like user personas and wireframing. Sandhu’s About page is concise and conversational and also offers her resume as a PDF.
10. Charlie Bell (template)
For those of you under time pressure or who need more design inspo to create a career portfolio website, you’re in luck. Wix Studio templates offer portfolio designs that give you a substantial headstart for building your own—like this one for a web designer. It comes with pre-built project pages, an About section and a lively homepage with plenty of interactive elements.
11. Clara Roth (template)
Our second Wix Studio template is the ideal starting point for a digital artist or multidisciplinary designer specializing in bold creations. With a minimalist black and white theme forming the backdrop, the site leaves plenty of room for vibrant designs to take the lead. Its four primary pages are all set up and ready to go, so all you need to do is add your best work.
Sign up for Wix Studio to design your career portfolio website today.
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