How To Build a Powerful Portfolio Website With Zero Coding Skills !
Are you a tech beginner, or a non-software engineer wondering where to start from to get an online presence of your own ? Or pondering on where to showcase your work to recruiters, colleagues, investors and friends alike?
Well, this was me a few months back until I cracked the hack and built my own fully functioning efficient portfolio website that you can see here.
Before I jump right into it, a quick background of who I am.
My name is Omoyeni and I am an Accountant turned Data Scientist. I ventured into this career switch in August 2021 with zero technical skills. See, I had no programming skills whatsoever!
As I started my journey to being a Data Scientist, going through my Masters degree program, taking up extra online courses, doing projects, sharpening my programming skills and looking for a job at the same time; it was so obvious to me that I needed a platform where I could easily showcase my projects to recruiters and the world.
I wanted a platform where I could customize as I saw fit and that would be eye catching, very efficient and interesting for viewers but I did not know where to start from.
Then i figured it out. Open Source !
Yup, that’s right ! Open Source is the Holy Grail of learning in tech and being self sufficient (in this context). Open-source is a computer program that is released under a license which gives users the ability to use, study, change, and distribute for any purpose. Open-source codes are usually developed collaboratively and in a public manner.
During one of my frequent exploits on GitHub, I stumbled on this open source portfolio project that seemed very interesting. I read the documentation and implemented it. C’est fini ! omoyeniogundipe.com built just like that.
Sounds easy right ? Exactly!
All you need is :
- A computer
- GitHub to clone the repository (essentially copy the entire open source code so you can make changes)
- Vscode (to make the changes)
- HTML, JavaScript, CSS installed on your computer
- Heroku or Netlify (for deployment to the web )
- Your personal documents, projects and links
- Your domain (optional)
- A brain
- And keen eyes for details
I”m assuming you are already familiar with Github and Git. If not, learn how to create a Github account and use Git commands from this medium article here.
Getting Started
- Visit the repository
- Read the documentation to learn more
- Fork the repository OR
- Clone the repository
- Personalize by changing the name, picture, social media links , interests , education, work experiences, research, projects etc
- Change the contact form by connecting your FormCarry account
- Push your code to your repository
Finally, after building your portfolio, you are ready for deployment to Heroku or Netlify. I personally find Netlify super easy and opted for that option.
Steps to deploy on Netlify
- If you are not already a Netlify user, sign up for free first.
- Once you’re logged in, you’ll be taken to https://app.netlify.com. Then click the New site from Git button shown below.
- Next, authorize Netlify to access your Git
- Select your portfolio repository
- Configure your settings
- Then click the deploy site button
See a more detailed step by step guide on how to deploy on Netlify here
You can go further to buy a custom domain from Netlify which will be super easy to integrate if you are using Netlify to deploy as well, or you can buy a custom domain from other sources like Godaddy.
For me, I like the easier way of doing things so you can guess what I used. You can see the finished product of my Portfolio website here.
Now you are ready. I hope this article points you in the right direction towards building your own portfolio website.
Go ahead and build !
Sources
- My Portfolio
- Open source portfolio repository : repository
- Netlify
