Portfolio websites: The benefits of having your own customized website
What are the benefits of investing in a portfolio website that will showcase your business's work in a way that will truly reflect your style and abilities?
Many businesses provide a product that is visual and the only way to display the style, talent and ability is through imagery. So creating a great portfolio website that will showcase these image/video galleries and help a potential customer decide whether to hire your company, studio or agency is a necessity. Of course, a portfolio website includes more than a few image/video galleries - you’ll want to describe who you are, what you do and a way to contact you, just to list the very basic requirements.
A website is similar to a physical location (i.e. a store, an office, a studio/workshop, etc.) where people can come and visit, learn about what you do, maybe ask some questions, see examples of your work and to ultimately purchase a product or service that you offer. You want this place to look great & unique, to be easily managed, to be safe & secure and to be easily accessed. And of course, more visually appealing and inviting than your neighbors’ store.
Who actually needs a portfolio website?
Many types of businesses need a portfolio website: Graphic designers, web agencies, product designers, architects, photographers, artists, contractors, real-estate agents, motion designers, directors, models and on and on… It really comes down to anyone who has anything visual to present.
The importance of design
There are many options available out there to create portfolio websites. There are the simple DIY platforms like SquareSpace that give you a choice of a template and you can add your content and launch. I’m simplifying, but it’s not extremely difficult to get something basic up and running on your own with this choice.
But you’re missing something so incredibly crucial with choosing this direction. You’re a designer. You’re an artist. You’re a director or even a real-estate agent. You’re not only selling your product or service, but you’re selling yourself as well. Do you want to have a “template-based” website that looks like thousands of other sites? Don’t you want to present more than just the product itself, but also your style, your identity and your personality? It’s about selling who you are as much as what you do. But you can’t achieve this with a website that looks like so many others. You need to stand out! You need a uniquely designed website to tell your complete story and attract new customers.
Imagine you’re looking for a company to provide a service for you. You’re jumping from one website to another and they all look more or less the same but when you stumble upon a beautiful and different one, you notice it and become interested. And that’s what you want to happen to your customers, right?
This can still mean that you can have a minimal design like the templates out there but there is that special twist that only a graphic designer can find and bring out and make the website unique to you.
The benefits of hiring a developer
Maybe you already know what you want but who’s going to make those changes? Small changes can be made with those online website builders. Yet more customized and complex changes are more difficult to make (if at all possible) and in any case you would probably need a developer for this who isn’t really looking for this type of work.
More importantly, you want to have someone who is familiar with the latest trends, technologies and unique details that will make the experience of browsing through your site an enjoyable one.
Updating your site
You will obviously need a CMS (Content Management System) as well. You’re constantly creating new work and want to add it to your portfolio. But you want it to be easy and clear and don’t want to worry about the design of the website being affected. Many of those template-based services or open-source platforms like Wordpress aren’t very intuitive, are difficult to use and can badly harm the website's typography and basic structure. Wouldn’t it be much better to have a customized CMS that is programmed to work specifically with your site? This way, there aren’t extra buttons and irrelevant options cluttering your interface and you can perform the update easily and quickly.
Make it your own!
There are so many benefits of working with a web design agency to create your customized and uniquely designed website to showcase your work. There is a clear process to making your site special which involves an initial face-to-face meeting and getting to know what you want and how you want it to look, presenting two different and unique designs to choose from and then coding the perfect website for you by blending cool technologies with great design. This path is more personal and more appropriate for those who are looking to impress new potential customers with their work.
We’d be happy to help you get there! Click on the link below to fill out a short request form and we’ll get back to you the next business day!.
