Just like you make time to keep your home clean, you need to make time to keep your portfolio clean and updated. Think of yourself as your own client and plan time to update your site with new work; keep your portfolio fresh. Keeping your portfolio current and up to date is important because you never know what could happen. You may unexpectedly get fired or that dream client might visit your site out of no where. Your portfolio is a reflection of yourself and your skills, if you have grown as a designer you should share that.

Not only should you keep your site updated but you need to keep your exposure up also. Keeping your exposure up goes further than just updating your own portfolio on your website. You should also submit your websites to galleries, post videos on YouTube or Vimeo and post your work on behance and deviantArt. The more opportunities people have to see your work the more likely you are to get noticed and land the dream job or client.

If you’re smart, by now you have some sort of portfolio website promoting yourself and showing off your skills. Having the site is the first step but the next issue to think about is how to get people to come look at your work. Sure if you do good work people will find you eventually. But you shouldn’t just sit around and wait to be discovered. People should be able to find your work when they search in google or whatever their favorite search engine might be. I thought I’d take a moment and share a few tips that anyone should be able to do on their portfolio site that will help boost traffic. The first goal of your site as a designer should be to provide users with an attractive site but also one that is easy to use. Now I know the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be somewhat intimidating and scary, but there are some simple SEO things anyone can do that really isn’t that difficult. Here are five tips that should help bring in some more visitors.

Number 1: Content!
Your design should look good but no one is going to want to look at your site if it doesn’t have good content that people want. Search engines want new content to index, they love and can’t get enough of it. But the important thing to remember is that good content is what you want on your website. Posting new work is useful, you don’t want your site just sitting there with an out of date demo reel. People may think you have stopped working. The best thing that can generate content is a blog. Sharing with people the knowledge you have is helpful and rewarding. Potential clients also like to see that there is a voice behind the art. There have been a few times that people I do work with have commented on some photos I posted or something I’ve written about. But blogging full time is a lot of work and everyone just doesn’t have time for it. If you can’t blog then make sure to update your site with new work as soon as you can, it is well worth it.

Number 2: Header Information
There is a lot of code that goes into the header of a website and one of the most important things in it is the title tag. The title of each page is that page’s topic and represents the content of it. A unique title for each page isn’t only helpful for users to know what page they are on but also when search engines index your page the title is displayed in the result as the most important piece, it is the first thing users will notice in the results. The usual place where search engines take the keyword from to rank for your site is in the title. If the content on the page is different, the title tag should be too. Also in the header is the meta information. The meta tags these days are no longer as important as they were in the past so coming up with keywords shouldn’t be something that keeps you awake at night. A long time ago meta tags were the secret to SEO, but thats the past. It is still good practice to put in a few meta keywords just so they are there because they do have some effects. But todays search engines are looking for great content, written in by real people. The only meta tag that really matters now is the description tag. You want to make sure it describes the page in a way that explains what a user searching for your content and what they might find on that page. Think of the meta descriptions as a kind of mini ad that should be descriptive.

Number 3: The Alt Tag
When you use images, don’t forget to describe what the image is in the alt tag. The alt tag provides alternative text for when images cannot be displayed. Images are an essential part of a website especially for designers. As smart as search engines seem to be, they currently have no easy way to tell what an image looks like. This is where the alt tag comes into play, it helps search engines know what the image might be. When you do add the alt tag information please don’t just dump a bunch of random keywords into them either. For example on your header image you don’t want it to read “Cool Designed Neat Web 2.0 Header” all this tells me is that it is some sort of header. You also don’t want it to to be non-descriptive either like “Header Image” again, this just reads as some sort of header and will just get lost in the search results. Instead use something like “Your Name / Title – Header Image”. Now the alt tag contains descriptive and easy to understand information that search engines will be able to display to the users and now the users will understand what the image is if it doesn’t load correctly on your site. Overall just make sure the alt tag of an image is titled properly so that it describes what it is.

Number 4: Build incoming links
The number and the quality of incoming links can play a huge role in the placement of your site in the search results. Having quality and unique content is a good way to get people to link to your site. Again this is where good content comes into play. Good content will get shared and posted on other blogs and that will bring more traffic to your site. Another way is to be generous with links on your website. On my site I have a friends section on my about page. Some of those friends also list me on their friends page so this is helping both of us without getting in the way of the sites content. While you’re working on building your links make sure you have submitted your site Google otherwise it can sometimes can take several days if not weeks to get listed.

Number 5: Sitemap
Make sure you have a site map. This is an xml file that describes the structure of your page. Just a few clicks of buttons and you can take care of this. There is a Google sitemap generator that create an XML sitemap and will update as needed, informing Google of any new pages you may have.

If you’re a designer and don’t dive into the code very often, I hope these tips will help get your feet wet and maybe boost some traffic to your website.

Getting a job in the business is mainly based on two things, your show reel and who you know. Your show reel is what makes the first impression on people and you only have a few priceless seconds to impress. Before we jump into some key points let me just mention something that may sound stupid but needs to be said straight up. Never put work in your show reel that you didn’t do. If you just did the opening or ending titles for a spot, don’t put a portion of the spot in the reel that you can’t point out and say, I did that. Passing off work that isn’t yours will not help you in the long run. You could end up getting hired on a job and will be expected to perform at the level of the work on your reel. Also make sure you have the go ahead to use the work in your reel. I got a call once asking for me to remove something from my reel, they were not too happy that I included the work. The work that I had to remove was for a new business pitch and wasn’t meant to be seen by everyone. With that out of the way, here are some things to think about when creating your reel.

Length
The first thing to think about is the length. This is something I personally always have a hard time with. Attention spans are short so if your reel doesn’t have different styles or jaw dropping effects in it people are going to get bored and move on to the next person. The length is especially important if you’re starting out and this is your first show reel. Go short. 30 seconds is a perfect amount of time to make a great impression. You don’t want to try and make your reel longer with substandard work just because you think you should. Or on the flip side even if you have 10 minutes of great work – cut it down. You need to pick your best work, this is your first impression to people. Shorter is always better, leave them wanting more. Save the longer pieces for clips on your web site or DVD that someone can watch if they want to see more. Make sure you do a good editing job and if you don’t think its working then ask for help.

Opening / Title Card
Number one point is to make sure your name is visible and also a way to contact you like your phone number or website. It’s much better to do something simple and done well, then going for something complex that just looks amateur.

Song
Try and find a unique track.There were so many reels in the early 2000’s with Prefuse 73 as the song and it got old fast. Don’t use a song that a company is already using. Their latest reel has already been associated with that track and you’re trying to stand out. Don’t use a song that fights the work. Make sure you like the music too, you don’t want to look at a reel a month later and hate it because the song sucks. Also if you’re using a popular song that’s getting a lot of play by someone like MGMT or Gorillaz, make sure people are looking at the work and not thinking only about the song. There have been quite a few reels that I loved the song so much I searched out the artist to hear more of their stuff.

What To Include
Your best! Everyone who is looking at the reel is looking for the best and your reel should be a representation of the best you got. It should be a showcase of your skills. Put your best foot forward. You might have some amazing pieces of work at the end of your reel and no one saw it because they turned it off after 15 seconds. On the flip side don’t let it fizzle out at the end either, if you can’t keep up the quality of work for the span of the reel, you should make it shorter. Show off the work you want to do and can do. Don’t put all text animations and logo builds if you want to be a character animator.

What Not To Include
These are all personal preferences and can vary depending on who is looking at the reel. Keep political, erotic, or extreme violence out of the reel. Putting yourself in the reel… this is something that should be avoided if you can. Finally if it looks amateurish, dump it.

Packaging
If you’re sending your reel on a DVD packaging this is something to think about. I hear from most people lately that they would rather just have a website or quicktime they could pass around the office if they find a person they like. It is so much easier to just jump onto instant messenger and pass around a link then it is to load up a DVD. But a lot of times the DVD is necessary . On the packaging and DVD, make sure you have a name and phone number or website. Your case will get lost and all someone might have is a DVD and if there isn’t any information on it, then it will just get tossed into the trash. As for the design of the case and DVD, make sure it reflects your style.

Send It Around
Now that you’re finished, get that reel in front of people. Post it online and send out your DVD. Most companies are not going to tell you that they received your reel so don’t feel bad if you don’t hear back. There is a good chance someone looked at it and they are now saving it for when they have a project come up. But it’s always a good idea to send a follow up email just saying that you hope they received the demo reel alright and to check out your website if they wanted to see more examples of your work.

What matters in the end is the work, make sure it’s your best. Nobody cares how old you are, what school you did or didn’t go to, or how cool of a computer you have. If you are a good animator / designer, they will want to watch.

If you’re a freelancer you should have a portfolio website and if you don’t for whatever reason you should be making that one of your most important projects to get done. You should have a place to show off how great you are. Over the weekend I came across a couple blogs that talked about some great steps for creating a better portfolio. I figured I would link them on here and just spread the word about making a better portfolio.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/26/10-steps-to-the-perfect-portfolio-website/
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2009/02/13/7-tips-for-improving-graphic-design-portfolios/

A couple of my favorite tips from these two posts are, keep the portfolio up to date and to use social networking websites. I try and make sure this website is updated at least once a month with new work and I always post a news update when this happens. I hope to update that more often soon, ideas are in the works. As for social networks they only help promote yourself more and allow you to meet interesting folks who do what you do. So those are just a couple of my favorite tips but they are all excellent steps that should be taken when building your portfolio. I for one know I need to think about these as well. One of the tips that I feel like I need take to heart is making the contact information easy to find. I have links at the bottom of my page to see all the social networks I am apart of, but a button to get to my contact information is below that. Personally I think I may have to re-work my navigation area and include a button. As both of these sites say your contact information should be “obvious and easy to access.”