Written by Julia Gralki. Photo Courtesy of Envato Elements.
It’s summer break – a great time to work on your portfolio. Maybe you have already uploaded new projects to your website, or you’re still touching up recent designs. But one thing is for sure – working on your portfolio doesn’t stop with clicking “publish” on your website.
To give your portfolio a life beyond LinkedIn and the occasional employer meeting, let me introduce you to SEO, aka search engine optimization.
SEO helps your website to rank higher on the search engine result page (SERP,) so your portfolio shows up on page one or two of the search results for certain keywords, which means that you are more discoverable to potential clients or employers.
Here are the top three things to do to optimize your portfolio for SEO:
1. Find your keywords
Keywords are words or phrases we search for on Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Once we hit the enter key, we’re presented with thousands or billions of website pages that contain these keywords. That means, if your website contains the keywords people are looking for, it will come up on the first few pages of the results. To get there, you have to determine which keywords are relevant to your website.
For example, if you designed interior spaces for a local Greek restaurant, give the posts or photos names that are discoverable by your target audience. Instead of being too specific and using too many location-related keywords, give it titles such as, “Modern Greek-inspired Restaurant Interior Design in Savannah, Georgia.”
Now that you have the keywords, where do you put them?
There are several places that are crucial to making your portfolio findable for your audience, but some of them are more useful than others.
Here’s a list, with descending priority:
- In title (H1)
- In the post or page URL
- In the first intro paragraph
- In the subtitles (H2 and H3), if possible
- Use it frequently within the description (but not too much)
- In the image file name and alt tag
- In the meta description
2. Tell a story
Now, fill your portfolio pages or posts with content. The best way to do so is to include not only the end result, but also the “before” and “during.” By adding more text and photos, you also have a chance to add more keywords – but don’t add too many because Google penalizes websites that engage in “keyword stuffing.”
You can also add recommendations or client reviews to boost the story of your design.
3. Share your portfolio
If you’re not already doing it, make sure to share your portfolio on social media such as LinkedIn, Instagram, or Pinterest. Sharing links online helps you build backlinks, which improves your website’s performance as well – but that’s a story for another day.