What Makes a Good Portfolio Site?
A portfolio site is the first impression you give to potential clients, so it’s crucial you get it right.
Design Matters
As stated before, your portfolio is the first impression for potential clients, so it’s essential to think about what message you want to convey.
The design of your portfolio is one of the most robust ways to display that message.
A clean, well thought out and elegantly designed portfolio will give the impression you are a professional and mean business. It tells clients’ you care about the details, produce high-quality work, and can be trusted.
Of course, this can be a double-edged sword.
What if your portfolio site has an inconsistent layout, is buggy, unresponsive, or looks like it’s straight from the 90s?
This will give the impression you are untidy with your work and don’t care about the details. Why would a client put their trust in you to build them an attractive, functional site if there isn’t one already on display?
The rest of your work may be of high-quality, but people won’t get to see it if they’re so put off by your portfolio.
Design is challenging.
Many of us back-end and front-end developers simply don’t have the design skills. We’d happily prefer to leave that job to the more qualified UI/UX designers.
The good news is the web is filled with inspiration to help build your portfolio. Take a look at the beautiful (sometimes over the top) portfolios at awwwards.com.
If you’re looking to get your portfolio up in a snap, check out Envato for templates you can purchase to have a well-designed portfolio without breaking a sweat.
Short and Sweet
Thanks to our phones and the internet, we’ve become super skimmers. We see large chunks of text, and our brain says: “No thanks, I’m out,” and we move on. In fact, it’s a guarantee many of the people who started reading this post will not have made it this far.
So how does this relate to your portfolio?
It’s simple, the main goal of your portfolio site is to showcase your projects.
So stick to it.
There’s no demand to have sections of information that are irrelevant and waste the user’s time.
Display your projects on the first page, don’t hide them behind sub-pages or have the user have to scroll far-down to find them.
You don’t have to include information about your cats, dogs, what you ate for breakfast, or, more commonly, full-blown autobiographies as an about me section.
Having an “about me” section can be an excellent introduction, but if you plan on creating one, keep it short like a tweet.
Quality over Quantity
Without a doubt, clients are sifting through many potential applicants per day, making sure they find the right person for the job.
They simply don’t have the time (or willpower) to look through every project and will most likely only look at one or two projects.
Over your career, you will have likely built many projects and side projects that you’re incredibly proud of and want to show the world.
Still, it’s essential to put your best foot forward and only display the most high-quality projects, highlighting your strengths over other potential applicants.
I advise choosing a maximum of six projects as this is enough to showcase your work while also showing a diverse range of skills without being overwhelming or redundant.
Contact is Key
Congratulations! your portfolio is a sight to behold, and the client wants to hire you.
But wait, there’s no way to contact you. There’s no contact form, or it’s hidden somewhere in the footer, so the client moves on.
You may think this is silly, but it’s commonly overlooked.
I’ve often checked out someone’s portfolio site and not found a contact form. Sometimes developers will include their email at the bottom of the page. This works — but it’s in plain text, and now I need to copy and paste it into my email client.
This is what’s known as creating obstacles and clients will not go through the effort of finding a way to contact you if it’s not as simple as a click of the mouse.
When creating a contact section it’s beneficial to give the user options.
Many people will have their own preferences on how to contact you.
Have a contact form for those users who want to send a simple email and include a mailto link with your email address for those who wish to send a more specific query.
Additionally, it’s always a great touch to include other links to relevant pages relating to your professional life, such as an Instagram or LinkedIn.
Just remember to keep it professional. I think we can all agree personal Facebook accounts should be kept private.
Conclusion
I hope these tips helped to steer you in the right direction to building that killer portfolio.
Of course, it’s important to remember in this industry and life, we’re all learners. We’re not going to get it correct first time.
Developing a portfolio site is an iterative process that will improve as our skills do.
What’s important is that we put in our best efforts, challenge ourselves and enjoy the process.
Are there any other tips you think are important? Let me know.
Also, if you’d like to check out my portfolio, it can be found at: https://www.dylanmooney.co.uk
