The New Rules of Viral Marketing – David Meerman Scott
Marketing Apple – MarketingApple.com
Masters of Marketing – Startup Internet Marketing
Podcast Marketing eBook – Christopher S. Penn
Google Adwords Secrets – SEOBook
Get Viral Get Visitors – Stacie Mahoe
Marketing With Case Studies – Dynamic Copywriting
How to Write a Marketing Plan – Geisheker Group
SEO for WordPress blogs – Blizzard Internet
Social Web Analytics – Social Web Analytics
Geeks Guide to Promoting Yourself With Twitter – Geekpreneur
The Zen of Blogging – Hunter Nutall
What is Social Media – iCrossing
A Primer in Social Media – SmashLab
Effective Internet Presence – Effective Internet Presence
Introduction to Good Usability – Peter Pixel
Increasing the Response to Your Email Marketing Program – CRM Transformation
We Have a Website. Now What? – Craig Rentmeester
Blogs & Social Media – PRSA The Podcast Customer Revealed – Edison Media Research

YouTube – How to Build Your First Web Design Portfolio.

Hi everyone and welcome to my tutorial on how to build your first web design portfolio.

Remember DIY stands for DO IT YOURSELF so feel free to start off by googling templates if you are a print designer, fashion designer, developer, writer, gamer or anyone else who needs an online resume but doesn’t know how to build there own site.

Option b. is to hire someone like me to do it for you, but just remember you get what you pay for and bad programmers or people who disappear mid-project are a dime a dousen.

Why do you want a portfolio?

Showcase your work and to get employed. If you have other goals always try to integrate them. One other example may be to connect with people via social media or to control your personal branding.

Not to be salesly but this site is really all about promoting you. Who you are and who you want to be. Your name, is your brand and your reputation precedes you.

Let’s start with chatting about what all can go into a custom portfolio and then I’ll quickly review some do-it-yourself options.

Step 1.

Make a logo or hire a friend to do it. It should show off your personal style, be practical, unique and the subtext should quickly tell people exactly what you do.

Step 2.

The actual portfolio can be laid out in a million plus different ways but every portfolio needs to display a few basic pieces of content to really showcase your work and help people get to know everything they need to make a decision about you.

So use

•    Big high quality images
•    link to the live version of the site but if your a programmer keep a copy of the original that they can click to and see. This is essential because you have no control over a site once it gets to the client they may edit or break things and you want people to be able to check if your work is clean and up to web standards.
•    Testimonials are always a great way for visitors to know that your clients love what you do for them and that your personable just remember to ask for them.
•    You don’t have to use EVERY single piece you’ve ever made, especially not the ones your not particularly proud of. Try to have at least 5 different ones that show off your ability to diversify in style anything after that just make sure is a complete and beautifully finished product with great attention to detail.
•    If you are a studio it’s nice to list them team members on a project.

•    If you offer more then one service, don’t make people guess what you do. List them off and be clear and concise. Not everyone understands geek lingo, so if you have time you may even want to have descriptions of what those services mean.
•    Case studies are your friend and give potential employers and clients the opportunity to really view your process and how competent you are.

The About page

Is your opportunity to shine. This is where you tell people who you are, what you do, where you came from, it’s your story and experience summed up in one beautiful package. If you know a photographer, try to get a professional photo done and add it to this page so people can see your face. This comes in handy when your meeting a new client for the first time at a coffee shop, at least one of the two of you should recognize each other.

If you have awards, are involved in professional organizations, volunteer or have other recognitions show them off.. no one is just going to know about them if you don’t add them to your site.

Portfolios are personal so be friend but don’t ramble.

Contact Pages are essential to any website.

Don’t make it hard for people to connect to you. I know lots of people are afraid of stalkers or whatever else, but if you make it impossible for people to contact you the majority of people will give up on it. Don’t just hide it in your footer! So list what your comfortable with but I would recommend adding at least:

•    A phone number, Skype, or Google Voice number
•    Tungle if you have it, it’s an awesome tool for letting people see your free/busy schedule and set appointments with you plus it’s free.
•    Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and any other major social network you are regularly involved in.
•    An email address or contact form. Google documents will event let you set up contact forms.

Don’t make your contact forms too long but I would recommend adding:

•    A name field
•    Phone number
•    Email
•    Address
•    Twitter
•    Website
•    And a drop down menu with options as to why they are contacting you
•    A drop down that asks how they found you.
•    Use check boxes to give them options of services they may be interested in.
•    Ask if they want to be connected to your newsletter if you have one but don’t just auto add them.
•    You may also want to ask how they prefer to be contacted and when.

Blogging

Adding a blog to your portfolio can be a great way to show off your recent work that you don’t want to add to your portfolio, and it also gives you an opportunity to tell people who you are while teaching them about your area of expertise. The best part about a blog is that it can work like a frequently asked questions are but also help you increase your google rank which will make your site show up higher in search engines and give you more and more opportunity to be found by people searching for you.

•    Do let people leave comments and feedback.
•    Don’t make people leave comments.
•    Don’t make it hard for people to leave comments by using anti-spam captcha software.
•    If you want to prevent spam I recommend using wordpress and installing disquis.
•    Keep your blog classy and choose your niche then stick to it. What you do may be broad, but what you talk about should not sway from it’s focus.
•    Remember to use interesting headers, photos, links and not to infringe on other people’s copyrighted work.

Every site should have a Call to action.

Why are people there and what do you want them to do? The call to action is bold, or a picture, should stand out with color or video. Help lead people where you want them to go. More then likely you want them to contact you or give you the information so you can contact them. So use images, buttons, or video to accomplish your mission. Just remember every page should have this “next step” mentality.

A few examples of things you should have on your contact page:

•    Follow me on twitter
•    Hire me
•    Request an estimate
•    View my portfolio
•    Follow me online
•    Call me
•    View my store
•    Buy something

If you don’t have any client work yet there are a few things you can do to fill your site with samples:

•    You can create a wordpress theme
•    Design a few free twitter backgrounds
•    Design an icon set
•    Develop an api
•    Design a few logos for yourself
•    Get an internship somewhere, even if it’s unpaid at first
•    Take a workshop or class
•    Volunteer to do a site or work for a non-profit or charity
•    Do some work for a friend or family member at low or no cost

If you want to do-it-yourself:

•    Check out sites like smashing magazine and go media for inspiration
•    Read blogs like Chris Brogan and Seth Godin to learn about how to market yourself
•    Make sure your site is user friendly, if you don’t know what this means just always remember to keep it simple, less is more and if all else fails Google UX design. It stands for usability design or user experience design.
•    Don’t put too much information on one page or you will overwhelm people and get no where. One call to action per page and white space IS your friend.
•    Don’t try to be a fancy pants designer when it comes to your navigation. It’s ok to stand out but if you make it complicated and no one gets from point a to point b like you want them to then the only person you are hurting is yourself.
•    It’s ok to have more then one portfolio if you have a dozen skill sets.
•    Don’t change your navigation or design style on every other page. Be consistent.
•    Approach your own project like you would a client. The shoe maker’s children better have shoes.

A few places to host your portfolio and not have to build too much yourself or hire someone else (back to DIY):

•    Tumblr
•    Posterous
•    WordPress
•    Deviant Art
•    Behance
•    CPLUV
•    Flickr
•    Coroflot Portfolios

If you want to promote your work…

•    Join professional affiliations like AdFed, MIMA, AIGA, AMA, your local city commerce, or volunteer.
•    Consider also joining a few online communities such as linkedin, forums, Chris Brogan’s Third Tribe, Twitter and others. Then leave comments and try to help other people and answer questions. You’ll make friends and get people interested in your work.
•    You can also submit your design to gallery websites.
•    List your site(s) on directories like merchant circle and dmoz.

Well that’s all for now. I look forward to reading your comments or seeing your video responses on YouTube. Don’t forget to subscribe to my blog at DesaraeVeit.com and my YouTube channel DesaraeV6!

You can find me on Twitter @DesaraeV

With the permission of the recipient of this email I’ve posted this email in its entirety but have omitted her name for privacy reasons. We’ll call this person Sarah just for the sake of having a name on the document.

I can sit down and put together a more concrete plan with you but at
some point well need to do at least one call. It really shouldn’t take
too much time to layout what I need but to be honest my inbox gets
overwhelmingly full. I’ll do my best to be accommodating and not take
too much of your time.

My company normally builds sites for companies and social causes with
a set fee based on goals and site functionality or we decide on a
retainer budget and build the site then offer ongoing recommendations
on strategy. I say “we” because I own an LLC called Agency Couture
it’s a virtual agency made up of 30 freelancers all over the USA (I
refuse to offshore).

What we do is build integrated strategies that think of the site as a
storefront or brochure for sales and personal branding. Then optimize
the site as a passive agressive way of reaching people, or offering
them a faster mode to find your site higher on search engines. Frankly
with all the videos you put out this is almost a moot point but
understanding how it works and being proactive can really make a big
difference.

The next step I think you already have covered is online promotion by
leveraging social media. I don’t mean that in the spammy guru kind of
broadcast marketer way but let’s face it if you set up a fan site and
people follow or like it they probably, with in reason, want updated
when you make new makeup how to videos or have something interesting
to share.

I think the trick for you is offering a little bit extra like
customizing those pages (facebook, YouTube, Twitter, myspace) and
branding them to all look the same. You already do a good job of
staying consistant with your bright rainbow colors, using the same
font on your sites as you do when you end your videos etc. If you’d
like we can keep that or we can show you a few different design ideas.
It’s really up to you.

People love you for your personality but I like to think of some of
these aesthetic effects as icing on a cake or in your case thing of it
as professionally done make up vs. a Mary Kay party: you’re going to
be a beautiful girl either way but the tools you use do make a
difference but you can’t cover up an ugly sole. In your case the
content is great, I’m just offering professional makeup.

At this point I’m not sure what you can afford and I’m used to working
with corporate clients and small luxury businesses so I’ve been on
both sides of people with lots of money and people who can barely
afford anything. I really don’t want to scare you with a number. So
I’ll lay my cards on the table then if you’d like my services offer me
a budget and let me put a link to my company on your site and I’ll
help you for whatever you think is fair. I have a lot of ideas and
it’s not that I can’t get clients but lately the ones with money, I
just don’t believe in their cause. I love working for myself but
decided I need to switch from companies and start actively pursuing
clients I’m proud of. Honestly your the first one ever I haven’t
recieved via referral or someone emailing me.

Step 1. Pick a budget whether it’s 1 time fee, pay per performance or
a monthly retainer.

Then I’ll send you an official proposal. You accept. I start work asap.

Step 2. Download dropbox for file sharing. Bit.ly/desaraevdropbox

I’ll also send you a login for basecamp. It’s our project management
tool (where I store transcripts, meeting notes, ideas, and
future/completed to-do lists or milestones.

Send me your hosting FTP username, password and hosting company login
information. We also do hosting but you don’t have to use my company.
We resell rackspace and godaddy. Your hosting just needs to be a Linux
server with php5/mysql.

Step 3. Put together a folder in dropbox with four other subfolders.

1. Folder full of screenshots of websites, magazines, or pictures that
you just like the color scheme.

2. A folder full of screenshots for sites that you like the layout.

3. Screenshots of sites with any special icons, buttons or
functionality that you like. (examples would be sites with video,
rotating banners, cool social media icons, banner ad layouts that you
like, tag clouds, contact forms)

4. Make a folder of sites you don’t like for any reason. Especially if
you think they are pretty but just not you.

if you don’t know how to do screenshots let me know or just download
pizzaz (it’s free).

4. Well need to do a quick phone call to set goals for your site and
determine what you’ll consider a success. We’ll also review how you
choice a couple of the pictures in your folders.  You’ll tell me any
last minute details you’d like to see integrated into your site. Tell
me a couple things you don’t want to see.

5. Send me a list of pages you want on your site. Ie. Home, about,
services, glaminar workshops, contact page, blog

6. I’ll design 3 seperate site layouts. You tell me what you like and
dislike about each, be brutally honest.

7. Redesign 2 new layouts, you pick one.

8. We don’t talk for 2-3 weeks while I code your site. And just when
you think I’ve disappeared I re-emerge to show off the masterpiece.
You look at it, tear it appart with revisions. I take a week and a
half to fix it and then you let me know if their is anything else you
see that needs changed. (If I’m not overloaded with clients we can
multitasking during this step and the next two)

9. I’ll setup all your custom email addresses. I’d recommend getting a
gmail address, import your hotmail and yahoo emails then I’ll make it
so that your gmail looks just like your website ie.
[email protected] or [email protected] etc.

10.) Design/customize Twitter, facebook and YouTube backgrounds &
profiles to match your beautiful new site.

11. other stuff: Talk about ideas for custom tabs on facebook,
customize myspace, give makeup advice on linkedin, design an email
newsletter, develop swag items to sell on your site (like shirts,
Sarah makeup cases, Sarah compact mirrors, shirts ripped and made by
Sarah- love that video btw but my shirts didn’t look as good as
yours, mugs, stickers, tattoos, armbands etc. – you name it I’ll find
someone who can make it for us.. Minus those ripped t’s that’s all
you)

12. Ongoing I can help you with:
- tracking your site analytics
- giving you ideas on how you can optimize content for google
- give you tips on new sites or cool new online innovations (I go to A
LOT of geeky events every week to step up on my industry)
- design new things you may need like endings for videos, business
cards, swag, banners, email newsletters
- update your site for security updates, new browsers or just fix the
occassional Oops when you mess with something on purpose or
accidentily.
- help you update your site so you don’t have as many of the
afformentioned “oops” problems
- come up with more cool random ideas and share them with you (trust
me this is only the tip of the ice berg)
- help you get your videos on iTunes
- tell you about cool things people like you are doing: (ijustine has
a customized YouTube header, you can make interactive videos on
YouTube, if you sign up for affilate programs you could add links to
your blog about the makeup and products you mention but get paid for
it.. Not in a scammy way just in a “I’m sharing something that I like
but happen to get a little money for sharing it with you” kind of
way.)
- help you set up more events and share with you things I’ve learned
from planning events and how you can integrate social media to make
your events even better.
- help you find sponsors, media interest, send out direct mail
advertising, set up contests online, and try to be original

What I won’t do:
- pay per click
- media buying
- traditional pr
- spam people
- anything I think will seem spammy or make people hate us
- do my best to be honest and innovative
- pretend to know everything.. I know a lot but despite myself have
lots more to learn so I’ll do my best to continue reading and going to
weekly events
- do it all myself: I can’t/won’t but if we don’t have the budget to
hire other people I’ll do my best to give you lots of viable options
-answer the phone 24/7: I work for myself and frankly don’t get paid
near as much as I used to at agencies but I do work hard. Leave me a
message and I’ll figure out your problem and always do my best to get
back to you. Just remember I have lots of clients, events to attend
but their is only one me.. I strive to someday get a social live in
the mix
- sometimes I wake up early other days I have so much work I stay up a
full 20 hours and go to bed at 8am, it’s the nature if the beast
working for yourself
- I’m not a very good copy writer or programmer, but can pass some
intermediate skills on both. I’d recommend giving me a budget for
these things if you want them done but if that’s not in the cards I’ll
do my best. I have copy writers and coders on staff but they won’t
work for free.
- no flash coding option b. Is a mix of Ajax, java script and php ..
If that all sounds like a scary geek foriegn language let me know and
I’ll explain.

Lastly if your going to pay me.. I send out invoices on the 20th of
every month and expect paid no later then the 1st. If you dint contact
me before then with a good excuse I charge late fees and for ling term
noshiws I reserve the right to pull down sites after 3 months of no
payment. Not that I’ll do that, it would be a first. It’s just if I
expect an icon and you don’t deliver I go hungry, so better to warn me
so I can find alternative ways to keep my roof and fridge.

I’m sure I missed a few steps and I’m sorry if I overwhelmed you with
information or lost you in this long email. You wont be the first or
last person to glaze over when I go over my ideas for them and start
setting up strategy for a project. I hope we get to work together and
apologize for any poor grammar, I typed this up on my iPhone before
bed thinking I’d just tell you I’ll send you something tomorrow but
got excited and just laid out my whole plan instead.

Desarae A. Veit
Agency Couture

Basecamp Wish list

Get MORE Done with Basecamp, sign up. (affiliate link)

- I want to be able to set priority to different to-do lists. (high, medium, low) I realize setting a due date is similar but not the same.

- I don’t use milestones because I can’t setup recurring ones. It would be nice if I could just create a google calendar and it would auto sync with Basecamp. That calendar could JUST be for tasks in Basecamp.

-Instead of saving files in Basecamp I’d prefer to just sync it with a dropbox folder.

- Wish I could have the high priority tasks emailed out to the appropriate people at the beginning of every week.

- Wish that basecamp accepted support requests the same way that Freshbooks does. Then we can approve them, set a price, and assign them to the appropriate person.

- Wish that I could have a completed task list emailed to me and the client on a weekly basis.

-Wish basecamp had analytics for who is getting the most work done or tasks checked off.

- Wish you could assign people to template to-do lists and not just in template projects.

-Wish template messages etc. Could be added to a project after it’s started.

- The ability to make it so people can only check off tasks they’ve completed but not anyone else’s or to add any new ones.

- Make it so clients can only see reports (when/if basecamp would make reports) or completed tasks or messages that you want them to see.

-Wish you could easily see which projects where archived and readd them faster.

-Wish you could merge message categories or to-do lists.

Highrise wishlist:

Get MORE Done with Basecamp, sign up. (affiliate link)
Use the affiliate code: DESARAEAVEIT

- Add more social networks (facebook, linkedin, youtube) so you can quickly skim through what that person has recently talked about. Perhaps you should even consider using AOL Lifestream to make implementation of this faster.

- Wish you could set up a template email you’d like to follow up with and have it sent out once a month to people about doing meetings and then request they add themselves to your calendar using Tungle.me

37Signals in general:

Get MORE Done with Basecamp, sign up. (affiliate link use code DESARAEAVEIT)

- A better iPhone Application
- iPhone alerts when a new support ticket is submitted from a client, or when a task list hits a due date.

You can submit your own wish list to 37Signals by visiting: https://37signals.com/help/

OR if you agree with my wish list do one of two things:

1. Feel free to copy and paste the whole thing and send it on over to them.
2. Tweet the link to this post and CC: @37Signals

• CEO of AOL wants to fix “technologically challenged” journalism
• New AOL CEO Wants to Buy Twitter’s Web Cool
• AOL CEO Discusses Google, Search Deals
• AOL CEO Tim Armstrong says he doesn’t know if he would have bought Bebo, excited about Patch
• AOL CEO’s Letter To Staff Regarding Layoffs
• LifeStream

From the looks of these emails, AOL is really making an effort to revamp their brand. Thank God. From buying Bebo to the old AOL CDs and poor customer service that made it nearly impossible to cancel service with them (let alone all those wasted CDs.. my dad used to use them as coasters). I’m curious to see what Tim Armstrong is going to do with AOL. They are still a web giant but a little behind on technology. I must admit, I applied to work there a week ago and I’m still excited about the opportunity but between BEBO and the recent employee spam scandal (someone in the company sold tens-of-thousands of people’s logins/passwords) let’s just say AOL needs some PR help. I think their recent idea with Lifestream and a brand ambassador could be just the trick to put them back on the map, but after further investigating the tool I think it could use quite a few tweaks to make it more user friendly and addictive. My initial review of AOL Lifestream is available on my blog, but my real thoughts on tweaks I think I will keep to myself in case I get the job. If I do, at least then I’ll get paid to share them.

By the way, way is it so hard to find Tim Armstrong on Twitter? Seems a bit ironic.

I organized our company shared folders today to look very similar to the way I organize my personal folders. I like to keep a consistent structure because you never know how many people will end up on a project and to have chaos is to invite anarchy and a mess when we are in busier times.

Gage Marketing and Mike Kraabel taught me a lot about organization when I worked there. Gage has an amazing organization structure, it was immaculate. To start off organizing my company folders, I developed a template project set of folders for us to work off of. Once you develop the structure you’d like to keep lease leave it the way it is and if you start on a new project simply copy and paste the folders from that one and start adding in files as needed. I’ve also added little notes inside each of the folders to help any new comers understand what belongs where. An example of things that I think need addressed for each project are:

• design guide
• structure for navigation (information architecture)
• strategy notes
• client meeting notes
• ethnography information
• portfolio: before and after images as well as team information
• contract backups (proposal/invoices etc)

Questions? Please don’t hesitate to ask. Please keep you folders clean, it’s like our shared work space. A tidy house keeps happy guests and less pests.