Portfolio - parts

What should you put on your portfolio? Of course you have to decide this for yourself, but here are a things that might be useful to put on your website.

WORK
Maybe a little obvious, but it just needs to be mentioned.

CONTACT
When someone want to hire you, they need to know how to get in touch with you. So be sure to put this in a clearly on your website. The most common places are at the end of the menu or at the bottom of the website. This is where people will look for it, so it’s smart to put it there.

So put it on your main page, not as part of the ’about me’ page. Assume the visitor is lazy and doesn’t feel like searching. It would be a shame if you’d lose possible clients because of that.

Something to consider: create a direct link (assuming that you can’t create a contact form on your website). What I mean is a link people can click on and automatically are redirected to their email-program. It’s easier for them, but it can cause spam for you. I have had this for a while now and I have to say it’s not that bad. An alternative is putting you correct email-address, so they can copy it (so not [at], [dot] etc) and not turning it into a link.

BLOG
To keep people up to date about your work, it’s smart to write a blog. Here you can also share your process (if you don’t want that on your portfolio). This is also interesting for potential clients, so put a link somewhere on your website.

SHOP
Do you have a shop? Add a link to it on your website. There’s a chance people end up on your portfolio while searching for your shop. If there’s a direct link to your shop, they’ll might go shopping, if not, they might quit their search. Or if someone sees your work, they might also want to buy something.

ABOUT YOU
Especially when you’re a small business, it’s interesting for potential clients to see you. You’re not an anonymous huge company and this could be a reason to choose you. It doesn’t have to become a ’dear diary’ story, but a picture and a short description about yourself would be nice. You can also add your education and past employers here (if you like).

WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?
This is a recent addition I created myself. Because people often started their emails with ’I don’t know if you do this?’. My portfolio of course gives an idea of what I do, but here you can find everything together.

This blogpost is part of a short series about portfolio’s
Want to read them all? Click here (about work, language, design, etc).