As a freelancer or business owner, it’s important to power up your video portfolio website to increase your chances of getting more clients and helping your brand stand out from the competition.
It’s essential for you to better showcase your work so that it improves the visitor’s experience on your video portfolio website. In addition to that, it’s also a great way to boost conversions and gain new clients.
In this post, we’ll go over some of the best tips that can help you take your video portfolio to the next level. We’ll also go over some great video themes that can help you power up your video portfolio.
#1: Get a good theme
If you have lots of videos that showcase your work, you need a quality WordPress video theme that is optimized for video portfolio websites. Ideally, you want to showcase your skills effectively on your WordPress website, even if you don’t know how to code.
A great WordPress video theme can help you showcase your videos professionally and engage visitors to your site. A WordPress video theme comes with all the functionality and tools you need to power up your video portfolio. This means that you don’t have to worry about finding multiple compatible plugins to get your video portfolio website up and running.
Here are three of the best themes that can help you power up your video portfolio in an intuitive way:
Reel
Reel is a WordPress theme designed with professional video makers and editors in mind. It allows you to create your professional video portfolio website quickly, even for new users who aren’t familiar with coding. You can add a video lightbox, video background, and customize your website using the live customizer.
Inspiro
If you’re looking for a modern photo and video theme that can help make your video portfolio website look professional, Inspiro might be the theme for you. It lets you showcase your video portfolio through a beautiful full-screen slideshow video background that supports YouTube, Vimeo, and self-hosted videos. Additionally, it comes with an intuitive Page Builder integration and has a built-in gallery module.
Rezzo
Rezzo is a video portfolio theme made to impress. Due to its outstanding design and layout options, it will catch the attention of those who view your online portfolio and even potential clients. The theme fully supports self-hosted videos, as well as YouTube and Vimeo links. Also, the video autoplay on hover for the portfolio thumbnails will definitely be an eye-catching experience for your viewers.
#2: Create a video portfolio
Once you’re done installing a quality WordPress video theme on your website, you can start creating your portfolio. Ideally, you want to be able to display videos in a slideshow background. This way, you can minimize distractions. You can either display a self-hosted (.mp4) video or one from YouTube or Vimeo.
You should also create and display a gallery of your work on your video portfolio site. You can also add categories to let viewers browse through your work easily.
Examples
This is possible with our recommended WordPress video themes.
Here is the Eidolon Films website that uses Reel to power its video portfolio website. They use Reel to showcase their work in a beautiful and professional way. This allows visitors to quickly browse through and find what they’re looking for. Not only that, but it also gives your video portfolio website a more visually pleasing look.
You can also create a beautiful video portfolio using the Inspiro theme for WordPress. Check out this example:
skfilms uses Inspiro to showcase their skills and past projects for potential clients to check out. Using the Inspiro theme, skfilms was able to share their work with everyone visiting their site using beautiful video tiles with the option to browse through multiple categories.
#3: Add video on hover items
Another great way to enhance your video portfolio website is by adding video on hover items. This provides a better visual representation of the item a user is going to click on. It helps give a quick preview of the item before the user clicks on it. This way, you can show the best moments of the video on hover items in order to boost engagement and get more clicks.
In addition to this, it’s also possible to make all the videos play automatically without hover. This can be used for adding dynamic elements or motion to your video portfolio website.
Examples
With the popular WordPress video themes — Reel, Inspiro, or Rezzo — you can add video on hover items to give a sneak peek of your work and give your video portfolio website a professional look and feel.
Let’s take a look at a great example of a website that uses the Rezzo theme to display a video on hover items:
genesisfilms uses video on hover items on their video portfolio website that is powered by the Rezzo WordPress theme. Visitors on their website can simply hover their mouse over the video tile and the video will start playing and give a quick little preview of the final version.
#4: Add a showreel
A showreel can help display and showcase your video skills quickly and professionally. By adding a showreel on the front page of your video portfolio website, you not only boost engagement but also pique the interest of people visiting your site. You can add your showreel as a video background in the homepage slider or in a video lightbox. Both options can be easily configured and work great within our recommended video themes.
By adding a video showreel of your work into a clickable button, you can display some of your best work compiled into a single, digestible video. It can also help put up a good first impression which is essential for the success of your video portfolio website.
Examples
You can add a showreel to your video portfolio website using Reel, Inspiro, or Rezzo WordPress video themes. Let’s look at some websites that display a showreel using these powerful video themes.
London Music Video’s website displays a beautiful showreel of their past work using the Reel video theme for WordPress. It also lets users click on the video and play it in fullscreen mode. In addition to this, there are options to play, pause, and mute the video.
You can also display a showreel using the Inspiro video theme for WordPress. Here’s a great example by Steam Films that displays one of their masterpieces in a beautiful, modern-looking showreel. Users can click on the play button to view the showreel video in fullscreen mode.
#5: Set up vital pages
Every video portfolio website needs essential pages to be set up properly and in a way that doesn’t distract users from the main content. Let’s take a look at some important pages that need to be set up on your video portfolio website:
- About us page. The about us page tells people about your brand, the owners of the business, and the services you offer. The about us page doesn’t seem like much but it can help provide a much-needed outlook on your brand.
- Testimonials page. People who are thinking of working with you will turn directly to testimonials left by clients you’ve worked with in the past. This gives a better representation of the work you do and adds more credibility to your claims. Additionally, providing testimonials of previous clients can help attract (and potentially score) new ones.
- Clients page. If your brand works with big-name clients, showcasing them on a separate page might be beneficial. This can help give out the impression that your brand is top-notch and professional. It can also motivate potential new clients to try out your services.
- Contact us page. The contact us page is a simple web page but serves a very important purpose. It tells people how they can get in touch with you. Clients or people who are interested in your work will go to your contact page to ask questions or book discovery calls.
Examples
Let’s take a look at how some websites use Reel and Inspiro video WordPress themes to set up and display vital pages on their website.
Brain Blasiak’s website has an about us page that gives out basic information regarding the man himself: Brain Blasiak. The video portfolio website uses Reel WordPress video theme to showcase beautiful videos and display vital pages.
Here’s another great example of a contact us page by Steam Films which uses the Inspiro WordPress video theme.
#6: Add social icons
A great way to boost engagement on your video portfolio website is by adding social icons. It can also help boost your following on social media platforms. This helps you promote your skills and services to a wider audience than before and enables every type of user to reach out to you.
This means that people who only use social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter can keep up with you, view your work, and reach out to you on their platform of choice. This also helps you stay connected with existing clients as well as potential clients. You can easily add social icons to your video portfolio website with Social Icons Widget.
Examples
Here are a few examples of websites that add social icons to further boost their video portfolio website engagement.
Tung Bui displays social media icons in the footer by using the Reel WordPress video theme.
Similarly, here’s another great example by Teskey Mediaworks website which uses the Inspiro WordPress video theme to display social icons on their video portfolio website.
Conclusion
Creating a video portfolio, displaying a showreel video on the front page of your website, setting up vital pages, adding social icons, adding video to hover items, and most importantly, getting a good video theme can help you power up your video portfolio.
By following the tips we shared above, you’ll be able to improve the user experience, showcase your work better, and attract new visitors to your video portfolio website.
Ready to start implementing these tips to your video portfolio website? Get Reel, Inspiro or Rezzo today.
