Are you a graphic designer joining the millions of other freelancers in the U.S.?
Freelancing should feel like freedom for many reasons. Yet, many freelancers struggle to get clients. Your ability to get clients starts with your design portfolio.
Employers and potential clients will form an impression of your portfolio and decide if they want to hire you or not.
You have to make a great first impression. Clients will wonder if your work will create a positive impression of their brand or not.
Whether you’re just starting out as a freelancer or you have years of experience under your belt, you have to have a great design portfolio.
Read on to find out what you need to do to create a portfolio that will get you the top clients.
Building Your Portfolio
The first step in building your design portfolio is narrowing down your work. If you don’t have work to showcase yet, that’s okay.
Understanding the underlying questions of your portfolio will give you the direction you need to get the right works to showcase.
Who Do You Want to Work With?
Within the graphic design industry, there are a million types of clients you could work with. OK, not quite a million, but it can feel that way.
You could work exclusively for ad agencies, specific industries, or within certain types of graphic design. For example, you can be a website designer. You can also be an ad designer or copywriter.
It’s important to narrow this down as much as possible to keep your portfolio relevant to the needs of prospective clients. If you are targeting ad agencies, you have to be able to show your experience with various agency campaigns.
What’s Your Brand?
You know as a designer that your work is a form of visual communication. You have a personal brand and style in your work as a designer.
You have to decide what your portfolio is communicating to potential clients. Do you want to show work that is light and colorful, or does your work take a darker, more serious tone?
You want to make sure that you have a consistent style that reflects your personality and your work. That will also help you attract the right clients.
Pick Your Best Work
Your work is as much about repelling the wrong clients as it is attracting the right clients. The work that you choose to showcase should reflect that.
You also have to pick your best work. Don’t pick work that is relevant but lacks quality. How much work do you need in your portfolio?
Don’t get stuck on having to have 20 pieces of work to showcase. It’s much better to have 3-4 pieces of impactful work than having 20 decent projects.
When you pick your best work, create a story around it to give potential clients context around the work. Include the client’s name, the goal of the project or campaign, the challenges, and your role in the project.
Most importantly, you need to discuss the results. For example, you can highlight a design change on an ad that doubled the conversion rate for the client.
Clients don’t view graphic design as a necessary expenditure. They view it in terms of return on investment. A graphic design that can demonstrate a track record of generating ROI for clients is much more likely to get hired.
Take Your Portfolio Online
It used to be that you would have a printed version of your design portfolio that you would lug around to interviews and presentations.
Now, everything is done online. As a freelancer, you should buy a domain name and have a self-hosted website that showcases your portfolio. This may take longer to do, but you have much more control over the site.
Another option is to use a portfolio service like Adobe Portfolio. If you already use Adobe Creative Cloud, then this service is already included in your plan.
No matter what you decide, you have to make sure that the design of your portfolio is stunning and creates a strong visual impression.
Marketing Your Design Portfolio
It’s not enough to merely build your online design portfolio. You have to market it. That’s how you’re going to build your business.
Driving traffic to your site is going to be essential to get clients beyond your personal networks. Here are a few ways to market your business online.
SEO
When people look for a service, they are going to look online.
Good SEO is comprised of many components. The ones that will make the biggest difference are the technical aspects of your site and backlinks.
Your site needs to be fast, secure, and you need to have the appropriate tags filled out.
Building Backlinks
One of the most challenging things that people have is building backlinks to their website. When it’s done well, backlinks can make a massive difference in your site’s search rankings.
Backlinks can serve multiple purposes. For example, you can write guest posts for industry sites that will give you a link to your site.
Not only will you have a link back to your site, but you’ll position yourself as an industry expert. That will help you build your authority and trust.
How can you build backlinks? Start by looking at your competition. You can use the best link checker to find out what sites link to your competition.
You can then target those sites for guest post opportunities or let them know that you have valuable content on your site that’s work linking to.
Start a Blog
One way to can help your SEO is to have a blog. The blog can be a great tool to show your expertise and drive traffic to your site.
If you don’t know what you’d write about, think about your clients. Ask yourself what the most common questions are and write articles about them.
Social Media
Social media is a visual form of communication, and it’s a perfect fit for designers. You want to choose the right marketing channels to showcase your work.
Instagram is usually a great place to start. You want to learn what the top hashtags are in your niche. The most obvious ones are #graphicdesign #art #design and #typeography.
Think of Instagram as an extension of your portfolio. Use it to showcase your best work and to show clients your creative process.
There are other graphic designers out there who use the platform for inspiration. When you share your work and your process, you can quickly build up a reputation as an expert.
Creative Ways to Get Freelance Design Clients
Digital marketing is an important step in marketing your business. There are other ways you can market your freelance business.
Get on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a must for professionals. You can use it to network with clients and build up your network all over the world.
Networking Works
Networking in your community is just as important for freelancers. You can build up strong relationships in your backyard. There are networking groups on Meetup, through your chamber of commerce, and through groups like BNI.
You want to check out each group to find out which ones are the best fit for you and your business. Once you pick a couple of groups, be active. Show up and participate to get the best results.
Get Out of the House!
There seems to be a freelancer’s dilemma. In order to work, you have to be at your computer. Yet, you need to get out of the house and meet people if you want to get more clients.
Co-working spaces give you the chance to get out of the house and get work done. For a small fee, you can rent an office space with other professionals. These other professionals are building their business, too.
Co-working spaces are great because these communities are focused on building relationships that lead to more business.
Become an Industry Expert
You learned that writing guest posts for industry sites can boost your authority and SEO. There are other ways you can build your authority and become an expert as a designer.
You can become a sought after public speaker. There are various groups that need speakers. If you target agencies, there are ad clubs that you can speak at.
You can also educate small business owners on the various principles of design if you target small business owners.
Building Your Design Portfolio and Getting Clients
You have to remember that you’re in business for yourself. You have to build your brand and your marketing for your design business.
Your design portfolio is a marketing tool that you can use to showcase your style and attract the clients that you want to work with. Once you build your portfolio, you have to do the work to drive traffic to your site and build awareness of your business.
Are you ready for more digital marketing tips? Check out the blog for more helpful articles.
