Your portfolio is your best work. Creating a portfolio page showcases your skills, experience, and personal style in a way that simply isn’t possible in an About page bio.
Only the best examples make it into your portfolio. But how do you choose the right images?
Professionals must have the right images in their portfolios so that prospective clients or employers can see the value of their skills and expertise.
Images can elicit an emotional impact as well as help your audience understand more about your products and services.
Use the following tips to help you select images for your portfolio page. You’ll increase your industry credibility while compelling prospective clients to hire you on the spot
What’s the Result?
Great portfolios start with a purpose. Take time to consider the goals that you want your portfolio page to achieve. What are the needs of your target audience? More importantly, decide who that target audience is.
The more you understand what your prospects are looking for, the greater the chance that they’ll choose you. You’ll also have a better idea of what images to select for your portfolio page.
Go From Good to Great
When you start to choose the images you’ll include in your portfolio, don’t worry about selecting the absolute best ones. Start with a broad selection that you’ll narrow down at a later time.
For the first selection process, choose the images that capture your attention. From this group, there will be photos that you’ll likely remove. This process brings you closer to the examples that will lead to a powerful portfolio page.
Have a System in Place
You make the process more efficient by creating a system for storing and organizing your images. Create a folder designated for your portfolio images, which makes it easy to narrow down your images and ensures that you have all the images you want.
If your image files are in multiple locations, it’s easy to overlook or misplace them, which only adds to the time required to create your portfolio.
Use Your Analytics
If you have an existing portfolio online or have shared images on social media, look at your analytics to see which images performed better and received a high level of engagement, likes, or shares.
Performance data gets accessed through your website as well as analytical features on Facebook and Twitter.
Create a Balanced Portfolio
Your portfolio should highlight a variety of skills, meaning that a variety of image styles and content will make their way into your portfolio page. Your images should be directed to a target audience while displaying all aspects of your work.
Get an Outside Perspective
Business owners and professionals are often too close to their work to be objective about it. It’s a good idea to get feedback from your network. Ask a friend or co-worker to review your portfolio and provide their thoughts.
You could ask others to vote for or rate images. Those who aren’t so involved with your work can provide a fresh perspective that could support your efforts in landing a new client, customer, or employer.
These six tips help you select the right images for your portfolio page. If you think your existing portfolio isn’t performing as well as it should, let us know what you need most in the comments below.
Your portfolio page will be the best example of the value you provide and the reasons why you are the obvious choice for your prospects.
