Is your portfolio working for you?

Most people you ask would say yes.

But they don't actually know how to make a great portfolio.

Selling yourself is hard.

Being critical is harder.

Review your portfolio monthly and make sure it sells you properly.

Here's how

In order to do a website review, you'll need to be able to think objectively.

It's not about if you like your website or not.

It's about if it's working.

Reviewing your website starts by thinking from a different perspective.

"Does this work for my user?"

Who is my user? Figure that out first.

Clients? Recruiters? Other devs?

You need to know your audience.

Copy, imagery, layout and end goals all change because of your audience.

Will recruiters read a blog on asynchronous data? (NO)

Focus on the right group.

Think about the end goal.

You want to point your users in the right direction.

Clients → Contact Form
Recruiters → Resume/Projects
Peers → Blog
Customers → Store

Pointing people to the wrong place will only increase frustration

Focus on the goal

Sometimes you'll need to build trust

Allow users to explore

A Client may need convincing before deciding to hire you

Home → Project → Project → Contact

So maybe have a contact link on each project

Always direct them to the goal

When reviewing the site, you need to look at the big picture.

Websites are meant to tell a story.

It may have multiple branching paths but they should always come together at the end.

If your pages don't tell a story you're missing a crucial part.

The best way to tell if your portfolio is working is to actually track if it's working.

Set up analytics on your site.

Where are your users falling off?

Focus on fixing that

Then find the next problem, and fix that too.

You'll eventually end up with an excellent website.

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