There are many online tools that will help you build a website in minutes with just a few clicks, but not all of them are meant to help photographers, those who want to display large and beautiful image galleries online. If you're looking for the best website builder to help you present your work in the most elegant way possible, we've selected four of the best for you. They all score high marks for their price, functionality, ease of use, and the choice of models they offer for a photo portfolio on the web. Once you've chosen your favorite, you'll soon be getting your photos in front of a potential audience of millions. Some sites even give you options to sell copies of your images over the web.
1 Format
Simplified portfolio building Clean and clear online interface Includes blog and shop options Can be expensive for lots of images. If you're looking primarily for simplicity in your website builder, check out Formatting – it doesn't have as many advanced features or options as some of its competitors, but it means less hassle for you and a shorter time between registering for the site and uploading your photos. You can choose from over 60 different themes (plus additional premium themes if you go this route), all of which are customizable in terms of pages, layouts, and colors. Each theme automatically adapts to desktop or mobile, and you can preview all of this in your browser. As you'd expect, getting images onto your site is simple, and once they're on the page, they can be dragged and dropped as needed. If you're happy with the original design of the template you've chosen, and all the templates are professional and clean, then you really can be online in minutes. We also like the format because of the extras it adds. The platform lets you bring your own domain name, create an online store, and add a blog, with video tutorials lavishly spread out to help you out if you get stuck. If you know a bit about coding a website, you can also change the CSS of your site. A 14-day free trial is available to test the service.2.Carbonmade
Designed for Creatives Fun and Intuitive Portfolio Builder Easily Change Themes and Layouts Rivals Offer More Customization On the basic to advanced scale, Carbonmade falls somewhere towards the former, but its service is specifically aimed at creative people, and that means that Putting your work into a cool theme is very simple and actually a lot of fun too. You only have a handful of models to choose from, so if you'd rather spend an agonizing time on a selection of hundreds, then Carbonmade may not be for you. Once you're there, the site builder has one of the best workflows we've seen, allowing you to easily create projects and pages and upload your photos to the site. This is one of those interfaces that you don't really need an instruction manual for. Everything from the published/unpublished status of your pages to using thumbnails for navigation is easy to configure. The customization settings it has, such as the option to place a logo or favicon, are also well chosen. There are some cool extras like Carbonmade messages (which allow you to interact with everyone interested in your work) or the ability to connect your custom domain. Also, if you have a Dropbox account, you can download files directly from there. You don't get anything in terms of advanced features like online sales or password-protected pages, but not everyone needs it anyway; If you prefer to set up your site, make it beautiful, then get on with your photography, Carbonmade is definitely worth a visit.3 Squarespace
One of the construction site giants. Lots of refined photography templates Website builder couldn't be easier Some users will need more customization Squarespace is one of the biggest names in website building and offers dozens of top-notch templates to get your image portfolio on the web . If you want your images to appear full screen or if you prefer the grid look, Squarespace should have something to do with it. It takes care of cropping and resizing images, so your site will look great on any kind of device, and there's actually a lot of flexibility in how your images are presented. You can use your own branding, fonts, and colors, or take the defaults that Squarespace provides. To protect your images, the platform allows you to password-protect certain gallery pages, and if you need text to flow next to your images, that's easy to do, too. Integrating a contact form only takes a few minutes if you want to give customers a way to communicate. Everything can be managed through an attractive web browser interface and you can also add and remove photos from an iOS app if needed. It's easy to see why Squarespace is one of the most popular website builders, and it works well for photographers.4.Dunked
Instant results with no fuss Get up and running quickly Simple and elegant interface Limited choice of models Dunked doesn't have the same model range or depth of functionality as some of its rivals, but everything is really simple and very fast. Take a look at the models on the home page; if you like one of them, turn on Dunked. As with most similar services, it has a basic drag and drop interface to get your photos in the right place. If necessary, the images can be divided into pages and categories, so whether you want to keep your entire career online or just a few shots, Dunked allows it. Even if the choice of templates is not the widest, they are all designed to fit screens of any size, and if you have some knowledge of CSS, you can modify various aspects of the site design, do not. don't expect a lot of help beyond the basics of colors and fonts. Changes can be applied at any time and take just a few seconds. We like to balance the Dunked hits to get you started very quickly and then give you some customization options. This will be too basic for some, but if you don't want to spend hours thinking about layouts, this might be fine for you. You can try the service for free for 10 days.- Editor's note: Wix asked not to be included in this article