Website Design – My Personal Portfolio

Business of Graphics

Site Objectives My personal portfolio will be used to attract and gain new potential leads. With this website, I will be using it to showcase my print design, as well as my web site design work and the experiences and clients that I have worked for and with. With it being my personal portfolio, it will show potential clients my competitive advantage by explaining to them in depth what I exactly do, whether that’s logo design, brand identity, marketing materials (brochures, flyers, bi-folds, and product inserts) or a simple e-commerce web site design, they will be ever to view my work and decide for themselves whether my design style will work will for their company. This will be similar to an e-commerce site, without a shopping cart, which will be explain in further depth later. My USP (Unique Selling Position) would be my ability to be flexible in my design and offering my clients the best design that works well for their business. My target market will mostly be smaller business companies, but there is a possibility that I will attract larger corporations and even consumers who just want a simple design. My site will be designed to generate qualified leads and bring in new customers, especially in the design and marketing fields since this will be my specialty. It will also be designer to increase my name recognition so that consumers will think of me when they need to have a unique design for their company. I will be selling my services online, through the use of emailing and consulting, but my site will help me generate sales. I will also be converting marketing literature from print material to online material and making it available online for the companies that I would be producing work for, as well as producing print material for them to use as another type of marketing material, in conjunction with their websites and online catalogs and brochures.

Definitions and Measurements A qualified lead would be a small or large company that is interested in my design work and wants for me to design a mock-up concept for them, as well as wants a bid to do their work. I will measure my success by tracking other designers pricing, since I would not want to undercharge just to win a job, since that would be unrewarding to myself. I will also track my progress by having a goal of reaching a certain amount of target market consumers within a consecutive amount of months. Since, I am still a potentially new designer, my short-term goal is going to have at least twenty five clients by the end of the year that have become loyal and continue to do business with me. Long-term goals, such as five year goals, would be to have a client base of at least one hundred loyal clients that come to me for their annual design jobs. We will be tracking our SEO and our site traffic with web monitoring software. We will also set up site surveys, that consumers will be able to take to make sure that our web site is user friendly and keeps them navigating through the site, as well as to see where there attention levels are on actually contacting me to do some work for them. One main thing of the survey would be to find out why the consumers showed up in the first place and to find out about their company. We will also have surveys for clients after they have received services from me, to make sure that they were pleased with the time frame, the design, and everything else in the process of design (such as communication). This will help us make sure that we are on top of our customer service, since customers will make or break your company. Our site visitors would first show up to our home page and from there we would have 4 blocks of large images that are clickable. These would be About Me (Jamie’s Story). My Print Design. Web Site Designs. Need a Quote? From there, we would like for the initial process to follow one where the consumers would search through the work, find something that they like, and then read my story to find out exactly what I do and how I can help their business, as well as a call to action to have them go to our Need a Quote? tab to talk to me more about how I can help market their business through marketing print materials, as well as either brand new web designs or redesigning a website to make sure that they are utilizing their SEO strategies or that they have effective web sites that are easy to navigate and keep their consumers on the site longer and makes them want to buy a product.
Marketing Strategy Since this will be a design portfolio and I am a student, I will be sure to showcase this, especially for small businesses who would like to receive good design but would prefer to not pay as steep as prices. My Search Engine Optimization techniques will be to utilize my metadata and headings to make sure my search engine ratings are correct and when someone searches for me under specific keywords, they will be able to find me. I will be sure to focus on placing keywords such as design, affordable design, print design, brochure design, marketing material design, web site design, e-commerce web site design, WordPress themes, and product packaging. These will have some variations, in case some consumers spell these words incorrectly, but otherwise they will be the same concept. All of these key words and metadata will be my specialties and will make it easier for people to find my web site and find exactly what they want. These will also be the key words and phrases that people will be looking for when they are trying to find my web site. They will also be able to find my name, since that will be website’s URL. I will make sure to keep my headings relevant and easy for people to skim through the headings, so that they find exactly what they are looking for when they are going through my design galleries. Overall, I want the web site to draw attention to my name and attract small companies that would like help marketing their business through web site redesigns or touching up their marketing materials so that it holds their brand equity and communicates clearly with their consumers. I will showcase all of these with real word examples and with my about me page and direct them to my quote page, where they will be able to see general quotes and then they can also fill out a form or send me an email to explain to me in detail on any of the jobs. With tracking software, I can also see how consumers found me and what search words they found me by, and then add those into my metadata, if they apply to my company.
Budget and Launch Date Initially, I will be designing and maintain the web site by myself, with some general help from the web site, so the budget will be fairly simple and will allow for me to save some money, since I will only have to pay for a domain. This can be fairly cheap, so I will be able to focus on developing relationships, instead of focusing on finding as many clients as possible to pay off my web site design debt. The launch date will be in forty five days from when I begin designing it. This requires me time to get feedback from potential consumers, as well as from friends and families to make sure the web site is easy to use. This also allows me time to make sure that my keywords and rankings with the search engines are where they need to be, and that all of my links and buttons work effectively on not just personal computers, but on tablets and mobile phones, as well.

Point of Contact I will be the main point of contact to handle all of the situations with the web site. Until the business begins to take off, within two years is the goal. When this goal is reached, it will be passed down to a qualifying web developer, so that I can focus on building relationships with consumers and bringing in more leads. I will search for this web developer on creative resume web sites. From there, I will look for someone with attention to detail, a strong background in web development and maintenance. I will also want them to be able to manage conflicts with consumers, since they will be calling her specifically, or will be transferred to her, when they are having issues with the web site not being responsive or having a hard time navigating around it. She will also be handling the calls to direct them how to receive custom quotes on design work, so she will have to be personable. I will conduct interviews and will require that they have an online portfolio that they have designed themselves, without templates, and have maintained throughout the process. They would have to have at least three to five years of experience and their web site needs to be over two years old. I would want to look at their SEO and realize how their rankings are on Google, as well, so that I know they will be able to help direct traffic to our web site as well.
Site Design and Concept My web site will be specifically for attracting small businesses whom need help attracting consumers to their web site and want marketing expertise to help build brand equity. Due to this, we will want the web site to have a clean and elegant feel to it. It will be branded with black and white, for a nice contrast. My logo will be up top, with just a simple calligraphy K and Designs written in cursive underneath it. The web site will also need to be responsive, since many business people do a lot of their interest searches through their tablets or cell phones while they are travelling or at work. We want them to be notice that we can also create responsive web sites, so that they know we can provide this service to them as well. The two galleries will allow the consumers to slide through each individual project, as well as if they click on the image it will bring up a larger photo so that they can see the detail of the work better and a quick overview of whom it was for and what it has done for the consumer (if I have any numbers to back this information up). I will want the four tabs on the front page to have a slide and fade over effect to keep with the elegant, simple and newer approach. We aren’t looking to attract a certain consumer age, since business owners’ are of all age, so the simpler and cleaner the web site and focusing solely on the navigational aspects, will help attract them and let them realize that I can create an effective web site, without needing anything too flashy. I honestly don’t want to complicate the web site, so we will only have five pages. One will be the home page that will show them the other pages, which will be the story of what I do and how I do it. The other two pages will be galleries for web site design that I have done, as well as print material and packaging that I have produced. With the web site design, I will allow them to view the developmental code to see how clean the code is, as well as the metadata and any traffic information for that web site that the company might give me. The last page will be one for general pricing with a simple form to allow them to either send me an email. I will also put my contact information on this web site and they will be able to contact me if they would prefer to have a phone conversation with me, especially on a typically difficult design job.

Site Content Our site won’t be full of videos, but mostly images. We will try to keep these as thumbnails, unless the consumer clicks on the image to enlarge it, to save on load times, since most consumers don’t want to wait for a web page to load. We will have to use flash or java to create the effect of the home page, especially the fading and scroll over effects for the tabs on the front pages. Otherwise, the site content will be very simple and very elegant, to keep everything clean and easy to navigate. The forms will be created as drop down menus for consumers and radio buttons to make it easier for them to fill the forms out. I will be providing all of my own content and logos, since they will be my own designs. They will be in jpeg formats and most of them will be kept as thumbnails for loading purposes, but there is a possibility for larger image files when it comes to consumers and clients wanting to click on the thumbnail to enlarge it. We will update the content on a six month basis. Depending on what is the best pieces, some may be removed, while others may stay and we will just add additional photos. We would like to have no more than twenty photos for each different category, so that we can keep the load time at a good speed.
Site Features Our site will have a search option for anyone who is looking for a specific type of design or for a specific page on my web site. After a couple of years and the web site has begun to take off and we have over a certain amount of clients (50) then we will add a job application feature that will allow creative types to apply for open positions such as web site development, web site design, graphic design, page layout or print design. This will allow me to keep bringing in clients, while still having people to keep up with the workload. An e-mail newsletter will be set up so that we can send clients information on new marketing and design concepts, as well as anything else that they would be interested in. They will be allowed to check certain boxes for the information they want, whether it’s on building brand equity, utilizing Search Engine Optimization techniques correctly, or designing a product package to entice consumers to purchase their products. Then the newsletters will be customized for that person’s personal interests and needs for their business, which only make them feel more special and loyal to our company. We will include simple contact forms for the consumers to contact me in the beginning, so they can tell me about special jobs that they would like a bid on. This will just require their name, their phone number, e-mail address and a small brief description. As the business begins to grow, the forms will become more complex and will allow for the clients to choose from a drop down menu on what they would like specifically, such as web site maintenance or print packaging design, so that it can be sent to the correct departments and the right personnel can reach them and help them with any issues, concerns or quotes they would like.
Summary
Our web site will be made entirely to be user friendly from the navigation to the color scheme and the galleries of the portfolio work. We will begin by initially targeting small business clients and building loyal relationships with them by providing quality service and designs that they can be proud of and use to bring in their own new clients. This will help us continue to market through word-of-mouth and continue to grow our business. The goal of the web site is to start off small and then have a smooth running business within a year, with an office to run a staff out of. With customized forms, and easy navigation, as well as responsive web site design, we will be able to make the consumers realize that we are talented and we know how to design correctly. With the addition of the galleries, they will feel confident about our design work and will want us to design their marketing materials correctly. Search Engine Optimization will also be a primary point in our web site development, because we will be new to the business world and will want for prospect clients to be able to find us easily and not have to wade through a bunch of search results to never find us and do their work somewhere else. With tracking software, we can see how clients come to find out web site and utilize those keywords and phrases for our own benefit. We can also track what pages a consumer leaves on and try to utilize surveys to see what they disliked about the website. Was it easy to navigate? Did you designs not seem up to par or what they were looking for? What kind of companies do they have? These will all help in creating a web site that is geared towards the correct target market and will allow me to figure out what my market actually likes and doesn’t like and what they want out of my web site and my designs.