If you work in graphic design, you know how important it is to have a portfolio that accurately represents your skills and abilities as a Designer. Once your portfolio is published, you want to ensure it effectively reaches your target audience. There are some search engine optimization (SEO) tips you can follow that will help design portfolios to help them rank higher on Google search results. While SEO can seem overwhelming if you are unfamiliar with optimizing content, there are simple steps you can take to grow your online presence.
A 2019 survey from BrightEdge shows that SEO drives web traffic over 1,000% more than with organic social media efforts alone. These results highlight the importance of SEO practices for design professionals and their portfolios ranking near the top of search engine result pages (SERPs).
Choose a Domain and Hosting Platform
One of the first steps to building a portfolio and optimizing the content is choosing a professional domain and hosting platform. While there are many free options available, purchasing a custom domain name helps your business appear more professional and can also help your portfolio to appear higher on search engine results. When choosing a domain, be sure to avoid using numbers, special characters, or hard-to-read abbreviations for your website. Instead, focus on using your professional name and any relevant keywords for your portfolio.
Choosing an appropriate hosting platform for your portfolio is just as important as creating a custom domain name. There are countless hosting platforms available to choose from, though you should research which option best aligns with your personal design style. Some of the most popular platforms include Adobe Portfolio, WordPress, and Squarespace. While Adobe Portfolio is available as part of a Creative Cloud subscription, WordPress and Squarespace offer differently priced plans based on your specific hosting needs.
Utilize Keywords
Using keywords relevant to graphic design and your unique skill set is an excellent way to boost the traffic to your portfolio. To start, pick several keywords that relate to your portfolio and graphic design services. These short phrases should be featured in your headlines, links, and on-site content, though it’s important you avoid excessive use of these keywords. They should flow naturally on your site, as overuse can result in search engines viewing your portfolio as spam.
For example, if you are a freelancer looking to reach a wider audience, keywords like “Graphic Design freelancer in (your location)” or “Freelance Graphic Design services” can help your site to rank higher on Google.
Consider SEO Plug-Ins
There are a variety of different plug-ins available that help with SEO efforts and can be highly beneficial for those who are still navigating this topic. Essentially, plug-ins are software that works to complement and enhance any existing features on your website. There are plug-ins that can help with optimizing content, tracking SEO efforts, website security, and even how fast your web pages load. For Graphic Designers that use platforms like WordPress, Yoast SEO is a great tool that can manage meta descriptions and provides a report to help you improve traffic over time.
Compress Images
One easy way to ensure your web pages load quickly and keep users engaged is by compressing any large image files. It’s extremely common for users to leave a website if pages take too long to load, and image file sizes are often the culprit. With graphic design portfolios, a large amount of the content found on the site is images, which is why it is crucial these files are optimized. JPEG Optimizer and TinyPNG are two free web-based applications that can compress image file sizes and select your optimization level.
Customize Meta Descriptions
An often overlooked area that can help with SEO efforts is customizing meta descriptions with keywords and relevant information. Meta descriptions are the lines of information that appear under the title of your website in the search engine results. These descriptions are the first summary users read when searching for web pages, which is why it’s important it is professional and concise. Meta descriptions are typically between 155-160 characters and should feature your target keyword.
Don’t Overlook File Names
With graphic design portfolios consisting heavily of images, it is important to properly name these files to help with ranking higher on search engines. It can be tempting to use a random assortment of letters and numbers when naming images to save time, but this can be detrimental to your overall reach. Try to use concise descriptions when naming files and include relevant keywords when possible.
Use Image Alt Tags
An image alt tag, also referred to as “alt description,” is the written copy that is applied to image tags and will display on the page if the image fails to load. These alt tags also help provide important information to search engines, which can help websites rank higher in the results. It can be helpful to incorporate keywords in your alt tags, though they should be used sparingly if not directly applicable to the image. Every hosting platform has different processes for editing image alt tags, so be sure to research the proper steps for your portfolio.
Consider Creating a Blog
While most Graphic Designers focus on creating images and digital designs, creating a blog for your portfolio is an excellent way to boost web traffic. It can be difficult to develop new content regularly to publish on your portfolio, which can lead to it appearing inactive or out of date to your audience. Creating and maintaining a blog that covers topics in your specific graphic design niche not only provides consistent content for your portfolio but is also an opportunity to publish written content with your target keywords. While some designers may feel unsure about writing blog posts, it is a great way to show your audience you can effectively communicate through both written and artistic content.
If you want to learn more about SEO and how to improve traffic to your graphic design portfolio, consider signing up for SEO training classes from a trusted provider like Noble Desktop. These comprehensive courses have all the training needed to master SEO practices. You can search for live online SEO classes to learn more about the available options.