The Ideal Way to Design a Portfolio Website That Will Reflect Your Personality
If you are a website designer, there is no denying the fact that it is one of the most important requirements for you to have the website portfolio so that you can showcase your best possible work and provide opportunities for others to appropriately reach you. Updated website portfolios can ideally be used for gaining employment, looking for new opportunities, and becoming a freelancer. Since the website portfolio is going to serve as the first impression to any employer or customer, it is your responsibility to make sure that you are giving every possible effort and showcasing only the best work that you have done. Most importantly, your portfolio should be capable of reflecting who you are as a person. To make sure that you are doing this, you need to follow certain important tips.
Compiled below is a list of tips that can not only help you to design your portfolio but also reflect the personality that you have.
Use a unique logo
You have to make sure that you are designing a unique logo, which is not only displaying the inner creative style that you have but is also capable of displaying your designer personality. Remember that the logo is the most important place where the eyes of the visitors are going to reach first when they are visiting your website. If you are interested in making the best impression, the logo cannot be ignored.
Another thing that you have to remember is that just because the visitors are going to see the logo first, you should not overdo it. You have to make sure that you are only using the name in an extremely decorative manner. It is one of the most common practices to link the logo to the homepage, which will allow the users to return as and when they want.
Original tagline
Any cliché tagline on your portfolio website is not a good idea at all. The reason behind this is that the objective behind the creation of the website portfolio is displaying the creative side that you have. You have to make sure that you are staying far away from any kind of cliché tagline and ensure that you are creating taglines that display your style. Avoid phrases like, hi there, welcome, howdy, etc. Make sure that you are only opting for phrases, which describe everything that you are capable of doing and why you are better than others.
List services
In most cases, your employers are going to be interested in the kind of service that you are offering. Make sure that you are not making them work hard to locate your services because then you can lose them. Include all your services in one of the most prominent locations of your website, which is the homepage. You can also think of adding the "services" tab on the website so that all the services can be listed perfectly and properly. According to Forbes.com, using the appropriate tools is also necessary.
Include only the best work that you have done
If you are creating a portfolio, it is your responsibility to make sure that you are displaying only the best work that you have done so far. Just because you have worked a lot does not mean that you should include everything. Also, make sure that you are including only that work which makes you proud and does not forget to judge yourself from the eyes of any customer or employer first. Make sure that you are being objective and also, ask for the opinion of people belonging to your close network. It might be extremely tempting to include everything that you have done but that can be a big mistake and overshadow your best work.
About me section
People visiting your website are going to be interested in who you are as a person along with the kind of services that you provide. The about me section is the one place, where you have the opportunity of stating anything about yourself. However, you need to make sure that you are mentioning unique things so that you can stand out from the rest.
One important tip that you have to keep on your mind is that your visitors will not be interested in reading an autobiography. Therefore, you need to remain brief and talk about your accomplishments and explain why they are important for you. You can also put one of your professional pictures within this section as that can help in humanizing the profile.
Your contact information should be prominent
You need to remember that you are designing your portfolio website, particularly for potential customers and employers. This means that you cannot afford to forget including your contact information. The prominence of the contact information plays a huge role when it comes to website portfolios. You can also include the social share buttons, which will help your potential employees and customers to locate you easily. However, if at all you are giving away your social media profiles, make sure that there is nothing inappropriate present.
Include the resume
This is certainly a no brainer but it has been observed that most of the website portfolio owners do not have their resumes. Apart from displaying your amazing work and writing the best possible "About me" section, it is also important for you to add a resume. The resume helps employers to understand the work experience that you have apart from your educational background. Also, it should not be extremely hard to discover your resume on your website.
Create a blog
A blog is one of the best ways of showing off the expertise that you have. If the blog is perfectly optimized, it can easily be located on the top results of the search engines as well. This is why you need to make sure that you are creating engaging content, which will reflect what you are doing and your personality. Keep adding fresh content whenever possible. You can always contact the SEO professionals to get your blog optimized.
Conclusion
You have to understand that the website portfolio that you are creating should be a reflection of who you are. Make sure that you are following the list that has been mentioned above so that you can do this perfectly without any further confusion.