Freelancer website

[TheGadfly]

Please point me to an existing thread (if it exists)

I'm thinking about creating my own website to feature my freelance services (I create business plans, pitch decks, financial models, etc.). I don't need a lot of features but I want a sharp, professional website at a low cost. My motivation is to avoid the ridiculously high fees that UpWork charges (on average I lose 30% to fees on the projects I typically do).

I want to know:

1) How did you build your website (Ex. wordpress)?
2) What hosting platform did you use (ex. bluehost)?
3) What were your initial set-up costs and what are your ongoing costs?
4) How important is your website to your business or freelance service?

Of course, i welcome any and all recommendations. thanks!!

[travel2020]

I don’t have a freelance website but have setup sites in the past and currently have sites for a small business.

1) Wordpress would work well for your needs. I’d stay away from custom sites etc. Wordpress gives you a lot of flexibility and there’s tons of plugins, themes to make it easy to customize to your needs
2) I’ve used different hosts over time. Bluehost seems to have a good reputation. Others I’m familiar with are 1&1 and inmotionhosting (though latter seems to have gone downhill lately). There are also some Wordpress specific hosters if you decide to go with Wordpress
3) domain name is cheap and some hosters include it for free when you sign up. Monthly hosting for a single site is around $20 or $25. Most hosters provide tools to make it simple for you to setup a basic site including Wordpress sites. You can also find freelancers on upwork to setup the site for you using inexpensive themes and your content. Depending on how much you do yourself vs outsource, could be as low s $150-$300 range 
3) What were your initial set-up costs and what are your ongoing costs?
4) My business is consumer facing so our website is critical. For a freelancer site, driving awareness of your site and marketing your services would be key. Very hard to have your site show up on the first page of search unless you have solid SEM, ads etc. Someone looking for freelancers would likely go to a site like upwork as the starting point rather than try to find someone directly.