They say that a website should be like your shop window on the internet. It’s a bit of a cliché in web design and online marketing, but it’s meaningful. You should make what you are selling clear, obvious and attractive on your site. Easy enough for those selling products, but more of a challenge for a service provider or creative. Here’s an overview of the three best ways to showcase your work.

Portfolios

What is it?

A collection of media produced by you or your company. This can include texts, images, videos or audio files

Good for…

Media producers, artists and companies with visually appealing offerings they want to show off, from double-glazing fitters to chocolatiers.

Bad for…

Companies with functionally complex offerings or those whose successes can’t be appreciated directly through audio, visuals or text. Counsellors and administrative companies, for example.

Best format

Many people like to keep all the media on one page, but it’s often useful to have relevant portfolio examples available on all your product, service, sales and contact pages. Everywhere the customer makes a buying decision. 

Whatever you choose, keep the surroundings minimalistic so the focus is on the work.

Case studies

What are they?

Concise, punchy explanations of cases or challenges you were presented with and how you resolved them, focusing on your successful results.

Good for

Companies whose work involves abstract and potentially complex processes targeting a clear positive result.

Bad for

Offerings where there is no single defined process or universally agreed definition of success, such as artistic ones. 

Best format

Give each project its own page or pop-up.

STAR is a great acronym for laying out your information: Situation, Task, Action, Result. Aside from this, be as concise as possible, analyse and evaluate your result specifically in terms of the original task and illustrate it. Do this all in 100-200 words per project and you’re doing well.

Testimonials

What is it?

Customer assessments of how well you did a particular job.

Good for

Almost everyone, especially companies who rely on trust and word of mouth for their business. 

Bad for

Companies whose clients can’t or won’t discuss their services – because of confidentiality issues for example.

Best format

Like portfolios, these are often collected in one place, but can benefit from being spread throughout the site’s marketing and sales pages. Make them big, bold and obvious.

Remember, it’s can be best to use more than one of these options. Once you’ve found the best mix for you, there’s no limit to how you can showcase your work on your site.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog on the various ways to showcase your work on your website, including portfolios, testimonials and case studies, which can be found here. While the first two methods are quite straightforward, I felt there was a little more to say about case studies, which are a little more complex.

As a reminder, they’re concise reviews of successful projects you undertook for customers. They’re good for companies whose work isn’t easily viewable, but whose successes can be straightforwardly appreciated, at least by their target market.

Avoid the mistake everyone makes

Many case study writers do a diary-style article logging their project from start to finish, along with what they did and how they did it. Some can be long and off-putting reads, but even the short ones are often focused on the wrong person. The focus should be on the customer, what they wanted and how you achieved it, and the first thing to get across is the success you achieved for them. This should be bold, punchy and placed at the start of the study, not the end. 

E.g. “+250% on-site sales for ecommerce site”

This single line delivers the main punch of the case study and tells the visitor most of what they need to know to assess your services. You succeed way beyond your client’s expectations. This would make a great header or main page link to the case study.

After this, go back through the case, but stick to the need to knows. What was the situation and task you were given; what did you do; and what was the result?

The right level of detail (and not too much)

Some business-to-business sellers with complex offerings may need a lot of detail in their case-studies, but even this should be eased into, starting with a review of the main points above and going into more detail further into the site or down the page. For most businesses though, the header and the four points – situation, task, action, result (remember STAR) should be enough together with some attractive and relevant graphics. 

Remember to focus on the client’s perspective on the task and success. Adding a testimonial to a case study can give you a very strong proof of the quality of your work.