What is one tip for someone creating a digital portfolio, with the objective of getting a new job or landing new clients?

Link your social media portfolio with your website and vice versa. This tactic can help increase your chances of getting a new job or landing new clients. Creating and connecting your LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social media pages and your website make up a powerful portfolio, providing all the key details that employers and prospects want to know about you.

Marketers pay attention to details related to SEO to drive traffic to their website, and this same consideration should be taken into account when designing a digital portfolio in your efforts to get a new job. Recruiters and HR professionals repeatedly use terms for their searches for candidates, and these keywords can drive the search algorithms that will place a job seeker on their radar. Therefore it is critical to research which terms, long-tail phrases, and even image searches that are common in the industry and field of work you wish to pursue. In addition, make certain they correspond to words within the search field of your URL. By carefully studying these terms and then implementing them into your digital portfolio, recruiters will be able more readily find your profile and consider your candidacy.

One thing that has worked very well for me when I'm pitching new clients with my digital portfolio is keeping in mind the 2 F's: Flow and Function. Is it functional and does it flow? Keeping those two questions at the forefront of your mind while building your portfolio is a great guide. If you are constantly answering those two questions with a yes, you will be on your way to an effective digital portfolio. Clients don't want to have to figure anything out during a pitch. They want a story that flows and engages them, and a product that serves its function. If it flows and it's functional, your foundation is set. All that's left is specific tweaking.

Tailor your portfolio to the job or client you are targeting. For example, if a candidate were applying to a streetwear company, their portfolio designs should reflect their ability to design streetwear. Curate your digital portfolio with a personality that matches the brand or client. The proof of skillset is in your work – market yourself accurately and appropriately.

Companies love hiring people that already have experience and are enthusiastic about getting results. One of the best ways I've found to land a job via a portfolio is to highlight some of the work you've done in the past that you're proud of. If you have no professional experience to show, start a side project. Having projects on the side that you genuinely put care and effort in will show employers that you're a self-starter and care about quality of work.

Let your digital portfolio go beyond presentation of your skills. Showing a wide range of things you do great is crucial. No doubt about that. Yet, if your aim is to get a new job or attract new clients, a digital portfolio should be more than just a collection of your works. Reveal yourself to some extent. Give people a chance to get to know you along with your values, passions, and lifestyle you lead.

The most important tip for anyone creating a digital portfolio is to make sure that the majority of the projects included are ones that you have complete control over. This means steering clear of group projects or those completed as part of an internship or training program. While it’s essential to list all relevant experience, projects that you can speak to in great detail and show a clear connection between your skills and the final product will be much more impressive than those where your role was limited.

Don't overload your portfolio with too many examples of your work. A general rule of thumb is up to 10 samples – anything over that can be distracting for the prospective hiring manager or client. Select the examples that you feel will show an overarching concept throughout your portfolio. In other words, each portfolio piece tells a story and, when strung together, should convey a message.

When we recruit talent at our agency, we're always looking for portfolios which showcase the talent of the designer via their personal brand. We love to see the creativity of how a digital portfolio is actually displayed - it goes such a long way before we even then look at the portfolio items. A well-branded digital portfolio is enough, even initially, to convince us of the design skills of an applicant.

I am a freelance writer. I keep my freelance writing content at an online digital portfolio site called "Contently." Contently is free to use. You post your work and the skills you used to accomplish the work. When I have a prospective client indecisive about hiring me, I give the link to my Contently portfolio. This way they can see the work I've done for other clients as well as all the brands that hired me. I've had success landing more jobs using my digital portfolio in this way.

Often tempting, especially for beginners, is to include in the portfolio everything that came out of their hands. Remember that you will leave a much better impression with five refined realizations than with twenty projects in which you didn't put in enough work. Your portfolio is only as good as the weakest project in it. If you are not able to judge which projects are good, try asking others.

If you are wanting to build a digital portfolio in order to get a new job or attract new clients, you can try freelancing for friends and family so that you can create examples of your skills to show during interviews. Consider offering your services for free or for a small fee to increase your chances of getting more chances to create new works. It’s good to be able to showcase your skills when you’re trying to get a new job or entice clients to hire you, so having writing and graphic design samples or data from social media pages you’ve helped manage can be beneficial.

Only include stuff that exhibits your biggest skills and abilities when you're prepared to start uploading samples of your previous work. It's not necessary to include every type of footage you've ever made. Instead, concentrate on whether you're most pleased with or what others have previously praised you for. If you're a company owner, for example, you could want to showcase earlier research that your clients praised. Also, be sure to include a tiny caption with any award-winning work that mentions the honor and when you got it.

Don’t add too much content in your portfolio. I can understand the impulse to cram as much as you can onto the site as a way of showing your diverse skill set and broad knowledge base. That said, limiting yourself can be a good idea. You can then allude to the fact that you've got much more content by saying something in your ‘About Me’ page about your experiences and the many projects you’ve contributed to and completed. And then just add at the end, "additional clips available upon request."

Make your digital portfolio stand out by choosing only sample works relevant to a client’s niche. A client will already know the results you can give them by doing this. You’ll gain their trust by implying you already have experience in a task they need help with. Explain how previous clients benefited from your services when creating a digital portfolio. An example would be demonstrating how a client’s business increased sales after working with you. Build your portfolio with authority in mind, as showing expertise results in landing new clients quickly.

One great way to create a digital portfolio that will help you attract new clients is to showcase your work on a personal website. Your website should be easy to navigate and include clear examples of your best work. You can also use it to share your professional biography, list of skills, and contact information. If you don't have the time or resources to create a website, consider creating a profile on LinkedIn or other social media platforms. These platforms are great ways to connect with potential clients and showcase your work.

Focus the portfolio on your work that gives you the most fulfillment—this will help you attract similar work that will make you happy. What’s the point in showing work that you don’t like to do? If a prospective employer likes it, and wants more of it, and you don’t like doing it, then that is a recipe for an unhappy experience.

One way to make your portfolio stand out from the crowd is to create a story around your work. For example, let’s say you work in marketing and you have a piece of content about the history of marketing. Instead of just writing a few paragraphs about the topic, take a story-telling approach. Start with a problem, then explain how the marketing method in your story solved that problem.

Selecting your strongest samples, including detailed caption information, and focusing on user experience are three tried-and-true techniques to craft a killer portfolio. Do not overdo it in terms of the number of samples, remember that quality beats quantity, especially when your viewer might have a short attention span. The clearer and easier everything is to access, the better chance you have of engagement.

Whether it was during school, an internship or previous employment, can you show a real example of a time when you made a difference? If so, put together a case study that tells that story. For example, maybe you helped increase a business' social media following by 22% in a 30-day timeframe. Use appealing graphs and visuals to show the data. Detail the steps you took and the impact it had.