Tips for Building a Web-based Project Portfolio

Mark Cahill -- Expert Business Source, 2/27/2007 6:00:00 AM

When a customer asks, “Can I see some jobs you’ve done?” a construction pro’s typical response is to whip out the ol’ photo album and flip through some project sheets with a few pictures. But there’s an underutilized tool that contractors and trades can use to really show off their work: an online portfolio.

You may use think of your website as an initial point of marketing contact, used to attract new prospects and let them know how to reach you. But you can also use the Web to seal the deal with customers by giving them a rich, online photo gallery that demonstrates the range and quality of your work. With the right photos and descriptions of your best jobs, your work can literally speak for itself.

There are two ways in which these online portfolios can be created, with varying levels of sophistication:

• You can do a very simple system, either hand-coded or using one of the readily available “open source” photo gallery options like Plogger or Coppermine.  Here is an example of a very simple photo gallery I put together for a contractor that rotates pictures and can be easily updated with new photos.

• Spice up the gallery using Flash animation. A little “Flash” technology adds some multimedia flair to the portfolio. Options range from a small flash animation on the homepage to a more extensive offering (with audio) on the gallery page.  You can also create a fully categorized Flash animation that plays automatically. For one landscape construction company’s site, we created a basic animation on the homepage, and then built separate galleries for the individual categories. 

Note that these examples are all from smaller businesses, not major corporations. Here are six best practices for any contractor or trade looking to create an online portfolio:

1. Take high quality digital photos of all your projects.  Before and after shots are excellent for remodeling.
2. Schedule frequent updates for the portfolio. The more you update, the richer and more effective your gallery will become.
3. Use strong project descriptions with each of your entries. Here’s an example of how A.J. Martini, a mid-sized construction company, has enriched its photo gallery with text (the site was designed by Silverscape).
4. Make it easy on your customers. Keep the text short, perhaps using bullet points to provide the highlights of each job.  Offer an automatic “slide show” option in addition to the traditional “next/previous” buttons, which will provide a payoff for customers without a lot of clicks.
5. Categorize by job type. Allow your customers to look only at the jobs that interest them – galleries for bathroom remodeling, kitchen renovation, additions, and the like should be separated in a manner that makes sense for your business. 
6. Don’t forget the branding. Get your project sign or trucks in some of the pictures if possible.