7 Helpful Tips on Building Your Portfolio Website
No matter what service you provide to your clients in this day and age it is almost a necessity to have a portfolio website. It gives you the ability to appeal to a wider range of customers and also establishes rapport and credibility with your customers.
You wouldn't have to repeat basic information about your services over and over again if you have them listed on your website. Having a portfolio website would make your lives easy and help your potential customers see your experience and credibility. Having the right portfolio website can get you the right clients very quickly.
1. Tell Your Story
A portfolio is supposed to be personal. Talk about why you do what you do and how you got into doing it. It is okay to talk about yourself and tell them the story of how it all began. It is also a good idea to talk about the progress that you have made since you started.
Personal portfolio websites should be able to connect with the audience. Having a motivating story establishes the connection that you need with your audience. You can use a video or have a section where add written text which helps the audience know more about you.
2. Describe Your Service Clearly
Your portfolio site should have a section where all your services are listed as clearly as possible. It is a good idea to list everything that you do in short sentences.
It is a good idea to include pricing for each service as well if there is no need for discussion with the client on requirements. If you do need to discuss with clients before finalizing a price the best thing you can do is have a base price so both your time and client's time won't be wasted.
3. Include Past Projects
It is very easy for designers to include past projects in their web portfolio. It is however a good idea to keep the number of past projects limited. Even if you have years of experience, just list the best works that you have done. The clients mostly just see some past work to judge the quality of your work.
For some type of freelancer services, it might be difficult to showcase past projects on a portfolio website. You can get creative by using videos to show moments of work while you were working on a past project.
4. Get Testimonials From Past Clients
It is very important to have testimonials from your past clients. It helps the potential client see that you are a reliable professional and inspire them to hire you.
Make sure that the testimonial isn't too long and it is better if the testimonial comes directly from the client. It is a good idea to not stuff your website with too many testimonials. Keep the number of testimonials reasonable as it would not overload the visitors with information.
5. Make Sure Your Contact Info Is Noticeable
Having your potential client contact you is primarily the reason for making a portfolio website. Make sure your contact info is the most noticeable thing on your website. Have a separate contact section. It is a good idea to place a form so they can message you by filling it out. It is a good idea to place all your social media handles on the header or footer of the website.
6. Keep A Blog Section
A blog section allows you to show your expertise in your field. You can talk about important topics that people would be interested to know about. It also helps build the SEO of your website which allows you to get free traffic to your website.
All the best portfolio websites are using blogs to draw free traffic to their website which actually converts to sales.
7. Make Your Design Stand Out
It is very important to have a nice and unique design. Design is very important to grab the attention of your potential clients. You can have a great design even if you are using a free portfolio website using the right tools.
You can use Wondershare Mockitt, which is a UI/UX design prototyping tool to make your portfolio website. It is very beginner-friendly and once you are logged in you would see for yourself how easy it is to use. The six-step interactive guide would introduce all the necessary features and sections of the interface to you.
It has a free trial period which you use to make the design for your portfolio website. You can select from many different elements and design your website. You can also make the elements interactive by adding an action to them or linking it to the screen. You can see how the elements would respond when the users would take an action.
It is also possible to have multiple people work on Mockitt. It made collaboration very easy and multiple designers can work on it at the same time. You can assign roles and give them permission to make changes to the design as you see fit. They can communicate with each other pretty efficiently within the system and make necessary changes as required to the website.
With Mockitt it is very easy to get the opinion of other people. You need to know how people feel about it so you can make the necessary changes before launching your website. You can export your website design in PNG and share it with your friends.
Conclusion
Making your portfolio website is a dream come true for many freelancers. You can see many individuals having a Squarespace portfolio to showcase their skillsets and allure customers.
If you don't have a website by now, you should definitely think about getting one. It doesn't cost much nowadays to make a website and if you don't have any budget you can build one for free and it is very easy to do it. There is really no excuse for you to not get a website.
