Hello,
I just want to share my experience in this matter, I´ve designed a website portfolio recently nothing to fancy, just simple content with easy access info I think… in any case, fell free to look and to comment – http://www.sergiomaximo.com/home.html –
I´ve created it to try to separate myself from the rest of the candidates, and haven´t got a clue if it worked out for better or worse. In any case I have also a pdf portfolio to send in the emails.
For my personaly experience, I´ve taken a great pleasure builting it and learning css and java, and of course I considered it to be part of my portfolio also (I mean the website).
My opinion is that something like this is perfect to easy with your life, it´s there, visible to anyone, 24h a day… considering you pay the domain account, and if I was to hire someone I would really taken in consideration this factor, but opinions change from person to person so it´s difficult to reach some conclusion.