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[B617]Best Web Design Portfolios
by Jeff De Lara, Jef
Let's face it, when applying for a web design job, you always want to give to show your best foot forward. It is that simple. Show the best of your skills by showing the best of you works. I have once experienced being turned down by not having an online portfolio. I have a portfolio on my flash drive that I brought in the interview but lacking of an online portfolio won't cut it.

Freelance Web Design

If you want to be a freelance web designer, it should be you’re number one goal to set up a rock solid web design portfolio. No one’s gonna gamble their money to know how good (or bad) you are at web design. They WANT PROOF. So before you win a client, they already did their research and most of the time, the quality of your work reflected from your portfolio is the best way to win a client.

How To Build Up A Web Portfolio

Now that we know the importance of web design portfolio in this business, lets talk about how we can build your own portfolio.

By all means, join contests - This is by far the best way to build your portfolio. You earn while you learn and build up your sample works. Web design and Webmaster forums conduct such competitions, take the time to participate.

Do Free Web Design For Friends - If you have friends that needs a web site design, even if its free, do it. But only take a handful, you can always expect friends to abuse free stuff from you, decide only a number of web design works that you will accept and keep in mind your true goal �" to build a portfolio.

Free Themes - Learn to design blogs and submit it to free wordpress blog themes sites. Wordpress.org lets you upload your own theme and be used by many people. The more people using your theme, the more you know that you have a great design. And a great design is always a great addition to your portfolio.

Setting Up A Site

Now that you have a portfolio, there are two things you can do with it. Either showcase it and host it in a free hosting. Or paid hosting, your own site and domain. My personal suggestion would be buying your own hosting and domain. Why? This is business, so treat it like one. Invest on a domain and hosting, it is the most professional way to go and brand your site.

Anybody who has advertised on Google Ad words or Overture knows what it costs to generate leads, build a sales pipeline and convert the orders. The cost per click for the keyword ?web design? can be as high as ?2 per click. Try to generate enough good leads and your pay per click budget could run into the thousands. Obviously getting the leads is not enough to secure web design orders. A lot of time and money can go into following up on the leads and converting these to web design orders. There is no doubt about it: securing first time customers is hard work and expensive. A viable business option is to generate web design orders through word of mouth. Whilst anybody would probably with this statement, the question remains?how do we sell web design effectively through word of mouth?

The obvious answer is by getting yourself known within the web design industry and by your potential customers. There are a number of ways of achieving this objective. Your existing satisfied web design customers are an excellent starting point. Notice I say ?satisfied? customers. Although it is our aim to have satisfied customers, it is not always possible to keep all our customers always happy. Let's face it, there are some web design customers out there that you just cannot please, no matter how hard you try. Yet, every web design company should strive very hard to keep excellent relationships with existing customers because there is no better reference for your web design business than your happy clients.

Assuming you do have a reasonably good web design customer base, use it. From time to time call these customers and ask them how they are doing with their web sites. You will often find that a past customer needs some kind of web design updates and additional work done to their web site. What's more, by keeping in touch with your clients, you are reminding them that you are here if ever they need web design work. People in business talk and anybody searching for a web design company will more than likely talk to a friend or partner before starting to search for some anonymous web design company on search engines. Somebody who has heard good things about your web design services will find it compelling to get in touch and at least find out about your web design offer. People instinctively trust their friends if the later are genuinely happy with your web design services.

The bottom line is, your existing happy web design customers are your best references and your ?word of mouth? source of web design business. Whilst we do need to spend resources and time into advertising for new web design business, let us not lose sight of our portfolio of clients and the potential web design business that they can bring us.

Article Source : Pg. 223

About Author
Both Jeff De Lara & Ralph Ramah are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Jeff De Lara has sinced written about articles on various topics from computers and the internet, Skin Care and Computers and The Internet. The author's web site aims to teach people about web design and building an online web design portfolio.. Jeff De Lara's top article generates over 90500 views. to your Favourites.

Ralph Ramah has sinced written about articles on various topics from Information Technology, Computers and The Internet and Web Development. Ralph Ramah is the webmaster of Discount Web Design, one of the leading company in the UK offering quality. Ralph Ramah's top article generates over 12100 views. to your Favourites.
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