Easy to Update Portfolio Site
Consulting + Adapting + Training
David is a book designer with strength in multiple types of published materials. He needed a new website that let busy editors and art directors quickly find samples relevant to their potential projects.
Project Overview
Choosing a Client Friendly Page-Builder and Template
David’s site needed the following:
- Filterable portfolio
- Clean design
- Easy to update
It was constrained by budget. As a freelancer, David didn’t have the budget for custom development.
A WordPres site with the Divi Builder was a perfect fit. I researched Divi portfolio child themes. A theme intended for a photographer had the clean design and filtering function we wanted.
This photography child theme was a near perfect fit.
Customizing the Site
Branding and Templates
It was simple to replace the placeholder photographer’s branding with a more playful typeface.
After that, I worked with the designer to write the short text to label each category of books he designs.
Next, with his input, I made a template project page.
Learning to Build with His New Site
After the template was complete, I sat down one-on-one with David to show him how to use it.
The Divi builder was easy for him to learn to use. He also took on assigning the page image and category in the WordPress backend. By choosing the image, he had control over the way his portfolio/home page looks. By checking off the category, he could control how the projects are filtered.
While he built his portfolio, I added content and images to the about page and the contact page.
SEO and Search Strategy
Clicks from organic search are not the mian purpose of the site. David doesn’t expect the site to generate leads. Rather it fits into his marketing more like a brochure. It is a place that people he is in contact with can review his body of work. Therefore, I did no keyword research or implementation. However, I installed Yoast and Google Site Kit so I can be sure the pages are available on line.
I will follow up with monthly WordPress maintenance like updating Plugins, downloading a local copy, optimizing the database. I’ll check Search Console to be sure pages are showing up in search and solve any crawl errors.