How To Organize An Eye-Catching Portfolio

Of course, it takes more than a noticeable portfolio that will stand out of the crowd to sell goods or services you offer, however, a decent portfolio can ensure efficient base for sales. Today, game development companies, software developers, app designers, web programmers, 3D artists and many other experts call for powerful case studies, since their work is all about visual proves. Potential clients won't visit your web pages if there will be no images following the text. If you want to present a professional well-designed portfolio that can catch target clients' attention, this article is created for you. A professionally-made portfolio is more than just a demonstration of your best results; it makes an impression of you as a professional. Moreover, the first-rate portfolio allows your clients to know you better, to find out your story. In this article, I’m discussing an importance of the portfolio and giving advice how to improve the one you’ve already have. Well, no more talking; let's get straight to the business.

Why Ignoring Portfolio Is Not An Option

In IT world, a quality presentation of your works plays a crucial role in client’s decision-making process about the cooperation with the company. Nowadays, having a portfolio is compulsory for any IT professional taking into consideration its significant role in a sale process. To understand its importance, think of it as a necessary tool for your work whatever it's development, design, drawing or anything else. Below I collected some essential points you need to regard and understand before getting to self-promotion and sales:

 Having A Right-Sized Solid Portfolio Is Vital

What does it involve? A perfect portfolio provides an overview of your qualification, expertise, intensity of skills, ability to access the quality, the look and performance of products or services you are offering. The right number of portfolio items depending on an area of activity can vary from 20 to 50. The broader expertise you have, the more items you should present. In that case, devote them into sections and place from 10 to 20 examples of your work in each of them. The main thing here is not to go too far because too many examples can overwhelm and confuse the client. On the other hand, you should provide customers with enough instances to form a comprehensive opinion about your professionalism.

 Do Not include Works You Aren't Proud Of

Remember the simple truth, always place the examples that demonstrate your skills best in your portfolio and avoid using works of an average quality or the ones you did at the dawn of your career. One second-rated portfolio item can ruin your reputation and destroy your prospects. Even if you have not too many high-quality examples of your talents to choose from, just place the most excellent regardless of their quantity.

 Allow Clients To Navigate

Potential customers should be able to find specific examples that will be interesting for them in a matter of seconds. For that reason, it's better to categorize the portfolio and then make sections for better navigability. Even if you have a very narrow expertise, devote your portfolio items into groups, for instance, by related topics or the set of skills used.

 Place Thankful Testimonials

Ask your former or present clients to leave an honest feedback of your work that tells a brief story about your cooperation and then feature the best of them.

 Keep The Design Simple & Beautiful

Visitors like everything to be simple and intuitive and in some cases you should sacrifice the fancy design for the sake of simplicity. It will strengthen an impression of looking at works of a professional. On the other hand, the design should be eye-catching as well as the portfolio items themselves and clearly demonstrate your UVP (Unique Value Proposition). Such portfolio attracts visitors and makes them dig deeper for more.

 Don’t Use Other People’s Work

Before you start throwing tomatoes at me saying you are not a plagiarist and don’t arrogate other people's achievements, just listen what I’m about to say. Even if you, personally, have nothing to do with it, I saw a lot of individuals who shamelessly do that. So I would like to explain a couple of things that maybe (just maybe) can prevent someone from ‘stealing’. What everybody has to understand is that sooner or later someone will ask you to explain the work you did on that profile item or duplicate it or an owner will complain of copyright infringement. In any case, it won’t bring you anything good, so set up a ‘no plagiarism’ rule even if your personal portfolio is quite small.

 Do Not Place A Portfolio Item If You Are Not Its Owner Or Have No Rights To Use It

To make it clear, I’m not talking about plagiarism here anymore. By saying this phrase, I mean works that may have spread restrictions. For instance, when you cooperate with the company some of the work you did can be under NDA (non-disclosure agreement) or may not be your intellectual property. To avoid such situations, double-check your contract or ask your employer for permission to place a particular portfolio item.

What Clients Expect To See

The comprehensive answer on that question requires extended knowledge about the target audience, however, there are, in fact, some general points that can be applied to any portfolio, such as:

1. A Story

Your clients would like to know more about you and, for that reason, let the content of your portfolio  explore your history. Visitors of your website are thrilled to see your achievements, but they also want to find out how you got there.

2. Highlights

Visitors are impatient and spoiled. They like to see the main points that can drag attention and provide the essential information about your products or services. Note that if visitors don't find the information that can interest them, you should expect them to leave your site within a couple of moments.  

3. Attention To Details

As soon as visitors take an interest in what you do, they will also begin to pay more attention to the examples of your work. They will start to scan your portfolio and the way it is designed and organized. For that reason, you should focus on details in order to improve the user experience.

Outcome

No one can provide you with great examples of your works, except you, of course, however, you can make a good impression by organizing your portfolio the right way and provide your potential clients with the great user experience. By considering the information above, you can enhance your portfolio, attract more potential clients and increase your business profit as well.