Well, your website is up and running. It feels good to meet the requirements to call your business a legitimate one.
At least that’s what everybody keeps telling you, right? You need a website to put your work out there and attract more clients. Well, first of all…who’s everybody? I doubt total strangers tell you to build a website…I mean, are they psychics or something? Whatever…just thinking to myself.
Anyways…
Everything is swell, except no one seems to find (or care about) your design portfolio online. Especially those strangers that gave their unsolicited advice.
What went wrong? You ask.
Usually, what could be wrong is a mix of factors in an individual website like a lack of goal oriented plan or maybe your website needs a solid design. However, in my experience, most websites seem to have similar mistakes that can be fixed fairly quickly.
I’ll show you 6 quick fixes that will give your design portfolio website a fighting chance.
Quick Fix 1. Simplify your navigation
Website navigation is very important. Basically it helps people get around your site. When people reach a site and find the navigation does not take them to what they want to do…they’ll leave.
Another thing is that you should aim to be as clear as possible with your navigation. Some people want to be so artsy that they tend to chase people away. I’ve talked about the importance of segmenting your audience, but it is all for nothing if you scare away your ideal clients.
The best way to achieve a good navigation is planning for your content before hand to organize it in the most intuitive way possible, then make your navigation prominent and accessible. And if you want happy visitors that come back to your site, try to make everything findable in 3 clicks or less.
Quick Fix 2. Less is More
Some people add so many stuff to their websites that they end up distracting from the main goal of the site. Lets say you are a oil painter and you want to show your best paintings. In that case, your paintings should be front and center.
Beware of abusing animations, blinking icons, heavy patterns, and unrelated images. You may be in danger of looking like a rookie or distracting your audience from your work and prevent you from achieving the results you want.
Quick Fix 3. Get rid of Flash
NOW!
Quick Fix 4. Curate your content
Don’t include every single peace of work you’ve ever made in your design portfolio website. Reason why is because your design portfolio is the place for your BEST WORK, not ALL YOUR WORK. Older work usually show where were you skills wise a few years ago. Maybe some of the trends that were popular years ago aren’t used any longer. Showing older work can send the wrong message to your prospects.
Also try to show work that attracts the kind of projects you want to work in the future. I’ve had projects where clients ask for changes I really don’t like, so I end up using my version for the portfolio because I want to attract people that appreciate the version I liked, not the version I wish I never did.
Quick Fix 5. Add a Blog
Yeah, blogging is actually a great tool to achieve two very important things:
1. Built credibility and hype with your audience.
2. Bring spiders to your website…Google spiders, I mean 🙂
What should you blog about? Well, it depends on your objectives, but in a nutshell you want to share stuff that make people like (although like you is really not a requisite) you, realize you know what you are talking about, and eventually trust you.
– You can talk about the latest insight in your industry and add your opinion.
– Talk about a better way to do something.
– Help your audience achieve or improve something.
– Call out on something that you believe is wrong.
– Show your work and your progress.
– Or teach something.
Quick Fix 6. Use Call to Actions
So, your users managed to find their way around your site and see exactly what you wanted them to see in a pleasant way (since you ditched Flash); Now What?! Once your visitors see what you want them to see, you want them to take some particular action. Some Call To Action ideas could be to send them to your contact form or ask them to subscribe to your email list.
Keep your CTA’s as specific as possible. Don’t ask people to “Subscribe”, instead ask them to “write down their email”…or even better…”Write an email you actually read (junk email is for jerks)”. Make things as simple as possible for your visitors. People procrastinate by nature. The more complicated you make stuff for them, you may lose them. A good example of simplifying a CTA is the way Amazon uses “One click buys” buttons that completes a purchase with only one click.