Freelance Help, 100+ Tips on Creating an Effective Online Portfolio

Online portfolios are one of a freelancer’s greatest marketing tools. You can reference it in your business cards, promotional campaigns, email signatures, and clients can find you on their own through search engines – generating you new business.

Your portfolio is the face of your business and needs to communicate well on its own online. Your business goals with a portfolio are clear: you want to convert those visitors into customers.

We all have to start somewhere with displaying our work. Whether you’re building your portfolio for the first time, or looking to improve your existing portfolio, some professional tips can save you loads of time and get you building in the right direction – upwards.

Often the difference between a successful portfolio and one that falls flat is implementing some simple strategies, while not overdoing it, or loosing a targeted focus.

Take a close look at 12 advice-filled articles for freelancers that will help you create an effective online portfolio, and assist you in making it the best it can be.

Build a Successful Online Portfolio

A single unique tip is highlighted from each article below, as a quote. Keep in mind, that each one of these articles is filled with multiple tips that can help you powerfully transform your folio – so add each one of these to your Evernote, Delicious, or Instapaper account, which will allow to follow up and read them when it fits your schedule.

1. Creating The Perfect Portfolio

Collis Ta’eed (Envato cofounder) wrote a brilliant article on creating an effective portfolio. There are loads of tips from a seasoned pro and some tremendous insight on how potential clients approach hiring a freelancer, as well as how employers pick candidates. He focuses in on audience, how to capture their attention, communicate your professionalism, lead them through your best work, and direct leads to the services you offer.

Not every lead knows what they want—even if they do, they may not know what they could have. Using your portfolio site to educate your clients about the services you offer and how they might benefit will demonstrate you know what you are talking about, while also helping them get a better grasp over how it all works.

2. Build a Killer Online Portfolio in 9 Easy Steps

This compelling article, written by Skellie (Envato veteran and former FreelanceSwitch editor), offers tips on how to improve one’s freelance portfolio, generate more leads, and close more sales. One of the tips in this articles focuses on telling stories about your work, ones which focus on results, and demonstrate your abilities to new clients.

Potential clients are more interested in the story than the work itself. Always remember that your work is a means to an end: more traffic, more profits, more sales. By focusing on the end result, you’re focusing on what potential clients really want.

3. Creating A Successful Online Portfolio

This article I wrote gives tips on what to avoid in building your portfolio, it addresses some common mistakes, and how to avoid them. Then jumps into twelve ways to approach building your portfolio. Some of these are principles to adhere, and others are simple tips, such as targeting your portfolio to a specific market, rather than throwing in a hulking mountain of unrelated work.

The more you target your design to a specific market the more it will speak to the visitor within that market. If you are looking to land corporate clients in a conservative industry then present them with work that is clean, marketable, and looks successful. Don’t showcase edgy, grungy, or arty work unless that’s the market you’re going after.

4. How to Make Your Portfolio Site More Effective by Adding a Blog

This FreelanceSwitch article, written by well-known design blogger Steven Snell, discusses the promotional benefits of adding a blog to your portfolio. He reviews the massive search engine assistance a blog can lend to your folio, how a blog can allow you to demonstrate your expertise to a much larger audience, as well as the benefits of building your name within your freelance profession.

Freelancers typically work in relative obscurity, but building some name recognition can have a huge impact on your business. A well-known freelancer will generally get more work with less effort, and will be able to charge higher rates due to the increased demand. Many clients like the idea of working with a freelancer that is well-known, and blogging is one of the easier ways to build your name recognition.

5. 12 Tips for Creating a Great Portfolio Site

The editorial team at the design blog Noupe put together a bunch of helpful tips for making a successful portfolio. Such as, how it’s important to stand out from your competition and add a unique feel to your site, but not to do that at the cost of your work on display. This is especially true for those freelancers working in visual art fields, like design or illustration.

This is one of the most important rules for designing a portfolio site: make sure the emphasis is on the work on display, not the design of the site. While you can certainly have a site that’s visually interesting and aesthetically appealing, it needs to complement your work and help push it to the forefront of your potential clients’ minds. If it doesn’t do that, then it’s not helping your business or your art.

6. Creating an Effective Online Portfolio: 40+ Tips, Tools & Inspirations

In addition to looking at tools and portfolio themes, this article discusses how to build a solid online portfolio. One tip addresses how to structure your about page so that it’s concise and effective. Also, consider how your about page will direct leads to hire you, while giving the most important information about you, with a dash of your personality mixed in.

The ‘About Me’ page is where you promote yourself. Give a description of yourself, what you do, what you can offer and contact information including your business number, e-mail address, etc. Do not make the description of yourself too long – 50 words or less will suffice. The shorter and more precise, the better.

7. How to Get New Clients with Old Work

It’s great to leverage your existing work to get new business, displaying how you’ve helped clients accomplish goals, and how you can bring similar success to new clients. In this article, there is an emphasis on building a portfolio that is efficient, keeping it simple and focused is a good strategy for folio success.

Most likely, your client is busy. You’re probably not the only freelancer he or she is considering for the job. That person wants a fast look that makes him or her think, ‘Yes! This is exactly what I need!’ Keep your portfolio simple, get to the point, and don’t waste time.

8. 10 Characteristics of Excellent Portfolio Sites

This article addresses some key features of a portfolio that make it a critical part of a freelancers business, as a prominent tool that brings leads. Part of closing those leads is having a clear Call to Action. You can be bold about this with a Hire Me graphic, or just encourage visitors to contact you to discuss the project and get a quote. It’s important to give a push to visitors though, and direct them to inquire about your services.

Since the ultimate purpose of the online portfolio is to attract new customers, it only makes sense to ask visitors for their business. How you go about this is up to you, but most portfolio sites simply encourage visitors to contact them for a quote or to fill out a form for more information. It’s a simple act, but prompting potential clients to take that step can make a big difference in the number of inquiries received.

9. 5 Tips For a Better Online Portfolio

In this article on FreelanceSwitch, by Andy Stratton, addresses some cautions and warnings for freelancers to avoid in their portfolios, such as not participating in excessive link exchanges and avoiding including ads. There are also some portfolio tips that will help you construct a more accessible and usable portfolio.

Your user’s experience on your website is key to them sticking around and contacting you (converting them from a blind lead into a potential client). Be sure to keep key usability concepts in mind when working on your website or online portfolio.

10. Characteristics of a Modern Portfolio Site

This recent article by Patrick McNeil from Web Designer Depot on portfolio design covers some advanced topics, such as stylistic trends that are popular for graphic design and web design portfolios, typographic use in folios, as well as the recent advances in responsive web design. The article is particularly geared toward front end web design portfolios, and has some stunning, fresh design folio samples on display.

The topic of responsive web design is, to say the least, an extremely hot topic. So it should come as no surprise to find that this approach can be found in fresh portfolios that are being produced now.

11. 7 Tips For Improving Graphic Design Portfolios

This article from YouTheDesigner offers some tips for designers to make their online portfolios better. Some of these are easy to implement tips, and others you’ll need to always keep in mind, such as keeping your work up to date, as well as adding new customer testimonials, and updating your client list periodically.

A big part of building trust with a viewer is showing them you have experience! Showing testimonials or a list of previous clients is a great way to quickly build trust with a viewer of your portfolio.

12. How to Make Your Portfolio Better Than the Competition’s Portfolio

In this article Amber discusses ways to make your portfolio stand out from other freelancers. Many of these are easy to implement tips. And overall your portfolio should be simple to use, professional, and display cleanly.

It’s important to not junk up your portfolio with too much useless clutter. Showing your latest Twitter stream on your homepage is helpful, as it shows you’re active on the web. However, showing your Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Stumbleupon AND Digg streams isn’t helpful and just becomes unsightly clutter on your homepage.

What About Your Online Portfolio?

Ultimately, the goal is to make your portfolio reach it’s goals: display your best work, make it easy to navigate, present your personality, demonstrate your expertise, make it easy for clients to to contact you, and encourage sales.

How is your existing portfolio holding up? Does it need some updates? Or are you just jumping into creating a new folio for the first time? What technology are you using? Or have you opted for using a service that makes it easy to build?

Share with us where you’re at and any stumbling blocks you’ve encountered in the comments.

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