Video content is attention-grabbing, engaging and a great way to tell stories. Sharing that video content on your own website used to be a challenge due to the storage and bandwidth restrictions of many web hosts. Today, even free hosts allow users to share their video content and offer an easy-to-use interface for uploading and embedding that content. This means there’s no messing with complex FTP applications, writing HTML or troubleshooting back-end databases. Take a look at this list of some of the best website builders for videographers and content creators. These builders help you create professional-looking portfolio websites without requiring a lot of technical knowledge.
Why Build a Video Website
If you’re serious about making videos and want your work to be noticed, having a dedicated portfolio website is a good idea. While you can share your videos on Dailymotion and YouTube, having your own website looks more professional and allows you to share other content, such as photography, too. It also helps users find ways to contact you and helps you control which of your videos your users see first, rather than relying on the algorithms of the video sites.
Pekic / GettyTop Video Website Builders
Today, there are numerous website-building platforms aimed at helping small business owners and non-technical users create their own websites. Some of these platforms are designed for people who want to make blogs or online stores; others are more focused on photography portfolios or creating the equivalent of an “online business card.” This list includes five free and five premium platforms that offer good support for uploading or embedding video, making them a smart choice for visual content creators.
1. Squarespace (Paid)
Pricing: Starting from £10/month
Squarespace1 is a popular website builder with templates for all kinds of websites, from blogs to portfolios. It’s highly regarded for its robust SEO features and mobile-friendly layouts. You can embed videos from third-party platforms or take advantage of the video upload feature, which allows you to store up to 30 minutes’ worth of high-quality video. There’s no bandwidth limit, so you don’t have to worry about your site getting shut down if a video goes viral.
2. Wix
Pricing: Limited free tier / Monthly Fee
Wix2 is perhaps the most well-known of the free website builders. It’s popular with small business owners who want to have a web presence to share their opening hours and contact details but who don’t need all the features of an online store. Wix uses pre-defined templates and a drag-and-drop designer to allow you to customise the elements that appear on your pages. It’s not quite as powerful or flexible as Squarespace, but it’s a good choice if you’re a beginner who wants to get a website up and running quickly.
3. Weebly
Pricing: Premium (very limited free tier)
Weebly3 pitches itself as a free website builder; however, the free tier comes with a lot of limitations, including a maximum site size of 500MB and a maximum file upload size of just 10MB. This makes the free offering far too limited for most video creators. However, the premium options are quite affordable, and the interface is easy to use, so it’s worth experimenting with the free platform to see if it suits your needs, before spending any money.
4. SITE123
Pricing: Free tier available
SITE1234 lets you create professional-looking websites based on a wide variety of templated designs. It’s perfect if you’re a photographer, fashion designer or other visual artist. The platform also allows you to embed videos or host your videos on your own site. The free tier is limited to 100MB per file, which may be limiting for some, but it’s still generous enough for you to share short snippets, animations or teasers. It’s far more generous than Weebly’s free tier.
5. Format
Pricing: From $7 / month (U.S.-based)
Format5 is a site builder with over 70 different templates to choose from. It’s primarily aimed at people wanting to share photography portfolios, but it can handle video hosting too. The lowest subscription tier allows up to 15 minutes of video storage, and the higher tiers allow up to 120 minutes. You can also store videos elsewhere and embed them into the template via the simple drag-and-drop editor. The professional-looking, responsive layouts are a big plus.
6. WordPress.com
Pricing: Free (extra charge for own domain/other features)
WordPress.com6 is a hosted blogging platform based on the WordPress content management system. It offers a flexible free tier for non-commercial use, and you can subscribe or pay a nominal fee for extra features, such as the option to use your own domain name or unlock additional plugins and themes. No technical knowledge is needed — the host handles setup and maintenance for you. This platform offers an easy way to familiarise yourself with WordPress before you try to host your own version of the software on a premium web host.
7. HostGator
Pricing: $119 / year (U.S.-based)
HostGator7 is a traditional web host that provides its own site builder, ideal if you don’t want to install more sophisticated content management systems or write your own code. It offers affordable pricing with significant discounts if you pay up-front in advance. HostGator’s biggest benefit is the power of the platform. If you opt for a traditional hosting package, you can access subdomains, configure email addresses and use a one-click installer to set up more sophisticated content management systems if you outgrow the site creator.
8. GoDaddy
Pricing: £5.22/month
GoDaddy’s8 website creator offers drag-and-drop static website creation. It’s not as powerful as the options offered by HostGator, but it’s good enough for an amateur videographer with a small portfolio. If you want to have your own domain name and use that domain to share a couple of pieces of your best work along with your contact details, GoDaddy lets you do that quickly and easily, with the added benefit of all your bills being in just one place.
9. Jimdo
Pricing: From £9/month
Jimdo9 is less well-known than Wix, but it’s aimed at a similar marketplace in terms of ease of use. It promises a working website in just 3 minutes. If you already have a social media presence, Jimdo pulls information from that and presents it in an attractive website format. It’s less flexible than some rival platforms on this list, so it’s not ideal if you’re a videographer with a huge portfolio, but it’s a good option as a starter website.
10. Webnode
Pricing: From £2.90/month
Webnode10 is a quick-and-easy website generator that supports deploying websites in multiple languages. It’s easy to use and has a huge selection of templates, so you don’t have to worry about your site being recognised as having been made by a template engine. A limited free tier is available, and the tiered pricing options start at an affordable level. A generous storage allowance on premium plans makes video hosting easy.