Introduction
A dedicated online portfolio is the best way to introduce the world to your creative work. It acts as your digital version of a business card, a resume, or a project showcase.
Creating an online portfolio helps you reach your online target audience more precisely. It conveys your message while looking as professional as any other work. If you are planning to build an online portfolio, then this blog is meant for you. Keep reading!
With the right tools, you can build a robust online presence and learn how to make a website that flaunts your charm and skills to the target audience and converts them into customers. This guide delves into the details of creating an online portfolio. Keep scrolling to learn more.
What is a Portfolio?
An online portfolio website is an online collection of your curated works that shows your best work to flaunt your expertise to the world. It is used to showcase your accomplishments and accolades to potential employers, collaborators, or clients. In a nutshell, a portfolio is an online space that conveys a message about yourself, your quality of work, and your contact details.
Portfolio websites are used by creative professionals such as designers, writers, musicians, and photographers, as well as technical professionals such as engineers, developers, and businesses.
How to Make Your Portfolio Website Unique and Appealing?
Follow the below mentioned tips to create an online portfolio that attract, appeal, and convert visitors into brand advocates.
Step 1: Identify Your Goals For Your Online Portfolio
Every business is different, and so is the vision and perspective of individuals. Some freelancers like to serve clients from a diverse range, while others specialize in a niche and target potential clients in a specialized sector. Hence, it becomes essential to clarify your goals for building your online portfolio website.
A portfolio with a clear vision and intent is easy to access and navigate. Therefore, structure your portfolio as a brief introduction to your expertise or as a marketing tool for your business.
Step 2: Manual Coding or a Website Builder: Make an Informed Decision
Once you decide on the type of portfolio website you want to build and the goals and vision for the portfolio, make an informed decision about whether to use manual coding or a website builder. If you’re not a professional coder, website builders like Wix, WordPress, or Squarespace are good to go. These offer templates, and it can be easy to customize your portfolio website. If you want to build a one-pager, these templates provide multiple options to make a standout portfolio website.
Step 3: Highlight Your Best Work
In the next step, select your best work to showcase in your portfolio. You don’t need to post every task you do on your portfolio website, but flaunt the ones you are proud of. Try to highlight the work that you want to be doing more of in the near future.
For example, if you are pursuing photography as a profession and have been writing throughout the past, try to showcase your photography skills on the website. It will help clients understand your strengths.
Add a description to the projects you are adding:
It is important to add context to the work you’re adding to the online portfolio website. No matter what, adding some information about the project, key challenges, or meaningful insights about finishing the project can be tempting to the readers. These descriptions are crucial, as they get left out when you only add your results. However, do not add too much text. Make sure that you maintain a balance between visuals and text, so don’t overwhelm the readers.
Step 4: Create a Compelling About Section
The ‘About’ section tells prospective clients about your professional expertise and journey so far. It complements the portfolio and gives readers background information about your skills. State the things that can help users make up their minds to collaborate with you. Create an online portfolio website by using more particular and result-driven details in your work. Give a list of all the skills you are experts at.
For example, if you are a web developer, add points that can help readers understand how quickly you can resolve their business problems. Create an online portfolio mentioning the benefits you can bring to the table along with your skills and experience.
Step 5: Use Compelling CTAs
Adding contact information with a call-to-action button is suitable for redirecting the target audience and potential clients by phone or email. But a compelling call-to-action button is something that can set you apart. It can help you look different from the rest and can compel the users to take action. If you have a one-page online portfolio website, you can redirect your potential clients if they seem interested in learning more about your business proposition.
This approach may help you track interested visitors. It can initiate a conversation with a prospect and may convert them into clients. You can customize your portfolio as well, according to the users.
If you are not able to showcase your work due to a non-disclosure agreement, this may help you out. This may help you create an online portfolio website that stands out from the competition.
Step 6: User-friendly Portfolio
If you want to create an online portfolio to attract more online clients, make sure to create one that is user-friendly. The presentation matters in the case of a client-centric online portfolio website. If the portfolio isn’t user-friendly, it may not get the expected visitors and may end up as an endless block of text in an interface.
Once you have organized all the respective basics about the projects, it is time to think about the design and layout of the portfolio.
It will help you understand the user journey and how a user navigates a website. Is the layout good to follow? Are the buttons and text easy to understand?
In a nutshell, customize every facet of the website in accordance with the user who’ll interact with your online portfolio.
Benefits Of Having an Online Portfolio
An online portfolio acts as your digital representative. It showcases your expertise, your significant work, your experience, and what you are capable of. In a nutshell, it connects you with a pool of potential job seekers and employers. Creating an online portfolio increases your chances of getting hired multiple times. In the following section, we jot down some points about why you should build a robust online presence in the form of an online portfolio.
An online portfolio website offers numerous benefits that make it worth having a website, including:
A Robust Online Presence
A portfolio website helps you curate your online presence in a dedicated digital space. You can control the way you want to be seen online. Thus, it offers the freedom to choose everything from the number of images, layouts, and content to showcase on your website.
Easy to Access and Review Your Work
In today’s fast-paced and techno-savvy world, people need access to information with the click of a button. An online portfolio makes it easy to access your work from any device. Keeping your work online makes it less likely to be lost. This is important if you want to access your portfolio via multiple devices.
Personal Feedback
An online portfolio can help you get personal feedback on your work, which can help you improve your quality of work steadily and gradually. Thus, it is essential to share your work online with clients and prospects.
A Cost-Effective Way To Market Yourself
A personal portfolio is the best way to market yourself. It is the most cost-effective way to reach a global audience. If you are looking forward to expanding the reach of your brand cost-effectively, making an online portfolio can be the best step you can take.
Increases Online Visibility
A portfolio website can help you enhance your online visibility. In times of technological advancement, hiring managers prefer to visit online profiles before scheduling an interview. Therefore, it is essential to deck your articles, social media posts, and portfolio to showcase your best work.
Generates Credibility
A professional portfolio helps the user build credibility and trust among the target audience. It allows others to go through your work, your strengths, and your capabilities. It also helps them understand how you can solve their business problems and build a solid client base.
Sets You Apart
A portfolio website helps you set yourself apart from the rest of the competition. It helps when you look forward to getting a job or clinching an assignment on a freelance basis. An online portfolio keeps you visible in the online space, even to a global potential client.
Demonstrates Consistency
A portfolio helps you showcase your work on a consistent basis. It illustrates your message and delivery to the audience. As your message and delivery match, it enables you to make an identity of your own on the digital medium.
Tips To Create an Online Portfolio
Visitors to your site don’t necessarily scroll across all of your web pages. Hence, it is essential to communicate succinctly. Please go through the following tips to consider while planning your project pages:
Be Selective
If you want to create an online portfolio that stands out from the competition, make sure that both the quality and quantity of images tell the story of the project. Each story should serve a purpose. Therefore, be selective to avoid any doubling. Consider elements worth highlighting in the portfolio.
Keep Image Sizes Small
Image size matters. Large image sizes can take time to load, so the quality, rather than the resolution, of the image is reduced. To create an online portfolio website, save non-transparent images as jpegs. This can reduce the size of the file without making the image look pixelated.
Write Clear and Concise Captions
Words do have an impact. The images and captions go hand-in-hand. So, your writing should provide a specific context in sync with the images if you want to create an online portfolio website to make an impact.
If you’re adding any task to your online portfolio, be specific about the project and give credit to your fellow collaborators as well.
Still Confused?
Are you perplexed about creating an online portfolio website and can’t figure out the way?
No worries. Consider the points mentioned above before creating a portfolio. If you are still trying to decide about website creation, hire an expert to give your portfolio an edge over the competition.
An online portfolio is a visual representation of your brand and your personality. It works as the initial point of contact between you and your potential client. Therefore, it is crucial to create it with due diligence and expertise to create a lasting impression on the visitors.
If you are looking forward to creating a portfolio, get ample portfolio templates from a renowned marketplace like TRooThemes.
FAQs
A portfolio website is considered good if it is easy to navigate and user-friendly. If you are planning to create an online portfolio website, make sure that the content used is easy to understand and that your work grabs the attention of the visitors with a compelling call-to-action button, a visually appealing design, and an easy-to-navigate website.
The time to build a portfolio website depends upon various factors, including the content management system (CMS) you want to use, the experience of the developer, the complexity of the site, features added, and other specific details.
If you choose a user-friendly website builder such as Squarespace or Wix, you can build your portfolio in a few hours, but if you plan to make it with manual coding, it may take a few weeks to months.
Creating a portfolio website depends on the complexity level, experience of the developer, features, domain and hosting services, and other personalized details. However, the average cost is range between $200 to $2000 to build customized, need-based websites.
