Nowadays, displaying a stunning portfolio is essential to attract more work for freelancers. Among all other websites and networks, Behance is the most popular digital platform use by millions of designers, photographers, architects, and many other creative minds to display their projects. Since there are millions of users, many small-scale design agencies and freelancers struggle to stand out from the competition. I suggest these 8 tips to attract more work based on my experience in Behance.
1. Select your best works.
You may have hundreds of completed projects on your hard drive. Showing them all in your Behance profile is unwise. First think about different categories you can present a short portfolio (eg: logofloio 2020-2021). Then create a list of work fall under a selected category. Next, shortlist your best work in that category. When you shortlist, you can think about the whole presentation and its' style to list suitable work for this portfolio.
2. Keep your presentation simple.
KISS theory is essential when creating your portfolio. I recommend selecting 5-10 best work for each portfolio page. If you are creating a single-story project like a branding, or a web design, target to show 5-8 different sections. A small portfolio that contains only a few best works is usually more attractive than a long descriptive one.
3. Think about the flow & harmony of your project.
When creates your portfolio page, it is essential to think about the flow and harmony of your page. As an example, consider you are creating a photography portfolio. In this case, it is essential to think about which photograph is best after which? In other words what flow or order of photographs will attract more clients to my project? Selecting font, color scheme, and stick to a style are other important factors to maintain the flow and harmony.
4. Cover image is important.
The cover image is the representation of what viewers can expect to see by clicking on it. The cover image can be a part of attractive graphics in the portfolio or a combination of graphics in it. Either way, this image must stand alone from the competition. Uniqueness is the most essential characteristic of the cover image. It helps to stand out from the competition. You must figure out what is best for your project. Sometimes unique simple text cover is highlighting than a loud complex graphics cover.
5. Do your keyword research.
Keywords are crucial to finding your project in Behance and search engines like Google. You need to select an appropriate set of keywords for your portfolio. I recommend you find similar projects which are famous in Behance. You can find some matching keywords in your portfolio. However, do not depend only on these hot keywords. You need to come up with unique keywords base on your project. Think about the specialties of your project. Eg: location, special shape, color, a person can be good keywords.
6. Double check before publishing.
Remember, do not publish unfinished works or work with spelling mistakes. Take your time to double-check your work. You can use a spelling and grammar checking software like Grammarly if you are not good at languages. Do not hesitate to ask a team member or a knowledgeable friend to check your mistake and get a comment before publishing it in Behance. Otherwise, these mistakes will cause to weaken your portfolio.
7. Think about the best day and time to publish.
These are some suitable days and times to publish your work. I know it sounds strange. However, if you check your insights graphs in Behance, you can identify that certain days have high traffic than others.
Why it is important to publish your work on a high-traffic day?
Because Behance shows your newly published work top of the list in the first week for your followers and similar interest users. Gradually it goes down in the list and then disappears. Publishing your work on a high-traffic day is important to get more initial attention to your work.
8. Do not forget to appreciate other designers’ work.
Finally, take time to appreciate other designers is vital to get attention. Behance sends a notification when you like, comment, or save another designer’s project. These notifications will lead visitors to your projects. The information section in your Behance profile shows the number of project viewers and appreciation on your profile. It is an important measurement to convince your client to hire you. Having a higher number of visitors and appreciation will help you to win more projects.