1. Show Yourself

If you don’t have an About Page, or no photo of yourself on your About Page, get one. People are hiring you to show up at their workplace, wedding, event or venue. They want to feel like they know who you are before you show up. If your potential client is trying to decide between you and someone who has a clear About Page or bio, you’re out of luck.

2. Don’t Look Cheap

Don’t have a cheap looking website.  Hire someone off of Upwork.com, or maybe find someone on Linkedin. If you have the chops to do it yourself, by all means go for it. But if you don’t, hire. Search your local area for “(local area) Videograpy” on Google and check out the top results. I bet you their websites are looking sharp. If you want to be competitive, make sure your site can hold its own.

 

3. Reel them In

Keep your reel visible, and up to date. Keep your reel’s project-file easily accessible so you can swap old shots whenever you get better ones. Then just export, upload and replace the embedded video. Don’t try to fit all your work in your reel, only show the best. The sweet spot for length is around 1:30 – 2:00 minutes. I know some freelancers making over $100k a year, and their reel is just one minute long. Hit your clients with the reel on the home page, but if you have audio make sure to turn off the auto-play feature. Auto-play reels are great, as long as music doesn’t come blasting out of your client’s speakers.

 

4. Narrow Your Scope

Just promote your videography skills. You may be a photographer, or have experience with logo design, but those skills will not help you get videography projects. If your website showcases portfolios from other fields then your potential clients won’t think ‘specialist’. Don’t give your potential clients too much to sift through to find work that relates to their project. Only show the type of work that you want to get more of.

5.  Polish it Up

Show only your best work. If your clients are serious they’ll click around on your portfolio, watching segments of your videos to see if you have the talent they need. If you have any garbage work on your portfolio they will find it. Focus on quality, quantity may do more harm than good. I’d suggest no more than fifteen videos on any given portfolio page (i.e. weddings, events, corporate profiles, etc.)

Keep your video showcase clean. Have minimalistic thumbnails that you put some actual work into. Vimeo is wonderful for hosting your videos. Uploading videos directly to your website can cause lag on load-time or playback, and Youtube videos have too many overlaid links and information.

 

Are you a videographer with some tips to share? Let me know if the comments!