There are a number of obvious, small yet possibly business-limiting mistakes which are prevalent on a number of portfolio websites we review…
#1 No (or Hard to Find) Contact Details
Would you believe that many websites make it impossible to find the contact details on them? They’re either simply not there or the details are buried deep within the website somewhere and unlikely to be easily found.
How will potential clients and art directors get in touch if they like your work, and want to hire you?
While some visitors may like your work enough to be motivated to spend a while searching your site for them, you want to make it as EASY as possible.
ACTION: Open up your website now! Are your contact details easy and obvious to find from every single page? If not, make them so!
#2 Too Small Thumbnails
If the thumbnail photos for your portfolio gallery are too small, it makes it really tricky to see your work, and pick something which might stand out or be of interest to a potential client.
Not only that, it can be visually overwhelming to be faced with an entire screen of tiny thumbnails, which can then lead to visitors clicking away from your site because they just don’t know where to go.
ACTION: Open up your website now! Are your thumbnails large enough for visitors to get a clear idea of what that piece of work actually is? If not, increase the size of your thumbnails.
#3 No Photo
If you are selling yourself as a professional service provider, you MUST have a photo of yourself up there somewhere.
It doesn’t need to be a glossy, staged and professionally-shot photo but it does need to show you as a friendly, approachable, professional human being who can be trusted with someone’s hard-earned pennies.
People work with people, so show yourself and who you are instead of hiding behind an avatar or no image of yourself at all.
ACTION: Open up your website now! Is there a photo of yourself or something that will give prospective clients a visual of exactly who they’ll be hiring and working with?
#4 No Mailing List
It’s the #1 rule of marketing yourself online…build a mailing list.
The reason being is that while it’s great that people come to your website in the first place, you need to give them a way to stay up-to-date with what you’re doing, and stay present in their minds should any suitable potential projects crop up.
It might feel like just one extra thing you don’t have time to do, but smarter creative marketers know that an online mailing list is a relatively quick, easy and cost effective way of keeping in touch with potential clients who are interested in hiring you.
ACTION: Check out mailing list providers such as AWeber or Mailchimp – and plan the sending out of a regular e-newsletter into your marketing strategy soon!
#5 Splash Pages
While they may look pretty, when clicks and getting people to take action on the web are at a premium, why force visitors to make that one, unnecessary extra click just to get to the main part of your website?
ACTION: Open up your website now! Are you forcing visitors to take unnecessary extra steps and actions just to get to the main content of your website (your portfolio)? If so, streamline the experience and remove any barriers.