A well-designed online portfolio will help you attract clients and make your job search successful. Some content management systems, like Wix or Squarespace, allow you to create online portfolios. However, most people choose WordPress because it offers more customization through plugins and themes.
In this post, we’ll show you how to create an online portfolio on your WordPress website and protect it with a password.
5 Steps to Create an Online Portfolio on WordPress
1. Choose a Portfolio Theme and Plugin
Among the many portfolio themes and plugins available for free in the WordPress repository, it’s not always easy to find the right one for your business or style. If you’re looking for something specifically for portfolios, we recommend using the Total theme and Portfolio Post Type.
Total is used by over 60 thousand website owners and helps you create and customize your portfolios effortlessly. The theme is fully responsive and also SEO friendly.
To install the theme, you can go to “Themes” under “Appearance” in your admin navigation menu.
Then, click on “Add new” and enter “total” in the “Search themes” field.
Now, you can install and activate the theme. To install the Portfolio Post Type plugin, you should go to Add new under Plugins.
Enter “Portfolio Post Type” in the keyword field. Then, install and activate the plugin.
A new post type called Portfolio will now be added to your WordPress navigation menu.
2. Create a Project Gallery
The project items are the centerpiece of your portfolio – it makes sense to do this first so that you have some resources to add to the main portfolio page later.
Under Portfolio, click Add New.
Fill in the project title, tags, categories and text content.
Now, you can add an image for the project and then save your contribution. Remember that you can create as many portfolio project pages as you like.
3. Create a Portfolio Page
Once you have created a list of project pages, it’s time to display them on your main portfolio page. You can create a portfolio page in the same way as a standard web page.
Go to Pages and click Add new.
Enter the page title and click Save. After doing this, click on the blue Add element button in your Visual Composer screen.
Select Portfolio Grid or Portfolio Carousel.
Fill in the settings options: Image Sizes, Borders, Titles, Categories, Order, Columns, and Grid Styles, etc.
Once you’ve done this, you can go ahead and save your portfolio.
4. Add Your Portfolio to the Menu
After doing this, you should add your portfolio to the main menu on your homepage so that visitors can easily find and access it.
To do this, first go to Appearance and click on Menu, and then select your portfolio page. Then, click on the Add to menu button.
If you want to set up the Portfolio main page as your start page, follow these simple steps:
- Go to Settings and then to Read.
- Click the option “A static page” is displayed in the Your homepage section
- Select Portfolio in the Homepage drop-down list
Protect Your Portfolios with a Password
There may be some instances where you need to keep client work private, for example with reference projects that require you to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with a specific deadline. Plus, some companies prefer unique designs that are exclusive, and in this scenario, you may want to protect your portfolios.
Password Protection for Online Portfolios with Password Protect WordPress (PPWP) Pro
Password Protect WordPress (PPWP) Pro helps you protect access to your private portfolios with passwords. Your portfolio will not be indexed by search engines, and therefore will not appear on search results pages by default.
You can protect your portfolios with passwords in 2 ways: in the portfolio edit screen, and via the password pop-up. First, follow these 7 steps to use PPWP Pro and protect portfolios in the edit screens.
Download and install the PPWP Pro plugin. Then, go to Plugins → Add New and click Upload Plugin to upload the plugin zip file to your WordPress website
Open the plugin settings page and select “Portfolios” in the Post Type Protection option.
Next, go to your desired portfolio page and search for the “Password Protect WordPress” section.
Here you can activate the “Password Protected” switch and add a new password, as well as selecting a password type. With global passwords, all users can unlock the restricted portfolios — however if you use roles for passwords, they must log in before entering a password.
The following instructions show you how to protect portfolios using password protection pop-ups:
Go to the Portfolios section in your WordPress admin dashboard, click on the Password Protection link, and then click on the Password Protection button for this page.
Now you can go to the New password tab and enter your new passwords.
You can create as many passwords as you like. Each password should be on a separate line. After doing this, determine the password type and specify the usage limit and expiry time for these passwords (optional).
You can send each customer a password to unlock your protected portfolios. If you set the usage limit and expiry time for the passwords, your passwords will become invalid after a certain number of uses or a certain period of time. This way you can prevent viewers from sharing your password.
Password Protection for Several Portfolios at the Same Time
As already mentioned, PPWP Pro allows you to protect an unlimited number of portfolios at the same time. To do this, first visit the WordPress password protection settings page in your admin dashboard.
Now, activate the option Password protection for private pages.
Next, select the portfolios for which you want to assign passwords from the drop-down list, and activate the option Set a new password. You can now enter your passwords and save your changes.
If you want users to be able to unlock all protected portfolios at the same time, you can integrate PPWP Pro with our group password protection extension. The extension helps to organize multiple portfolios together and protect them with one or more passwords.
When users open a private portfolio page, the other portfolios in that group automatically become accessible.
To do this, go to Group under Password Protection WordPress icon. Then, click Add new to create a new group of portfolios.
In the “Content” drop-down list, select the “Portfolio” option and search for the names of the portfolios in the next field.
Here, fill in the group name and description, then go to the Add new password tab and create your new passwords. Select the password type, enter the usage limit and the expiration time (this step is optional).
Once your portfolios are protected, they are no longer accessible to the public. Users only need to enter the password once and the other portfolios in the group will be visible to them.
Protect Sections of the Portfolio
If your portfolio contains a few reference projects and you don’t want to hide the entire page, you should partially protect it.
PPWP Pro’s shortcode makes it easy to partially protect your portfolio. You can allow users to see public parts while requiring them to enter passwords to read the private sections.
How to protect the private parts of your portfolio with the PPWP Pro shortcode:
- Open the portfolio page in your admin dashboard
- Enter this shortcode for the areas you want to restrict access to
[ppwp id="" class="" passwords="password1 password2" whitelisted_roles="administrator, editor"] Your protected content [/ppwp]
- Replace “password1”, “password2” with your own passwords
- The “whitelisted_roles” in the shortcode refer to users who can access the protected areas without entering passwords. Admins and editors have direct access to your protected content by default. You can also remove these roles or add other roles.
Conclusion
Portfolios are key in the success of creative professionals. You can use them to showcase your experience, attract clients and connect with other people. Follow the first 5 steps above to create and customize your own portfolios.
If you want to protect your portfolios, install Password Protect WordPress (PPWP) Pro. The plugin allows you to protect a portfolio with multiple passwords, whilst also making it possible to partially protect a portfolio.
