When you post an online portfolio, your audience includes both potential clients and employers. You can post your online portfolio at some of the recommended sites below to give your work the best visibility possible.

Also realize, nothing is really free and to get exposure on some of the better sites below you will have to pay. The good news is that “most” are fairly reasonable. And some may fit your eye/style better than others. You will be able to find this out very quickly by checking out the sites.

Here is a list of the top portfolio websites to consider:

Carbonmade – This is a very cool (looking) free site that gives you a lot of freedom to create a portfolio that represents you and your body of work. Reasonable upgrades available.

Creative Shake – Creative Shake, formerly portfolios.com, was established in 1995 as the first comprehensive online resource showcasing creative talent.

Coroflot – This site offers a job board, numerous resources for designers looking for work and portfolio options that are very impressive. There’s also a blog for designers to connect and communicate.

Foliolink – Is a website building tool designed specifically for artists and designers. They offer features that are unique to an artist including a Gallery slideshow and image search. They offer a free trial.

Impactfolios – This site is another website designed to help artists create their own online portfolio website. They offer a free trial.

Creative Hotlist – Communication Arts has a website that allows you to post your portfolio online. Nice, simple interface.

Designers Toolbox – This site says “Effortless Design Portfolios” – hey, sounds good to me! I like this site so I am biased, I guess.

Qfolio – Pros: Qfolio can make you look like a budding design star AND they can handle multimedia. Cons: Under order it says: “Call for a free (no obligation) Quote and consultation with one of our designers” – now who wants to do that?!

Big Black Bag – Site description: “The quick & easy way to create, maintain & control your own online portfolio website with no coding” – well, I hope they weren’t going to make me code anything. Under the pricing tab they have a nice comparison chart.

FolioSnap – Very robust site with an excellent set of features. Check out their sample gallery. Also a good range of pricing plans.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Other forms of search engine marketing (SEM) target paid listings. In general, the earlier (or higher on the page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a website web presence.
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.
The acronym “SEO” can refer to “search engine optimizers,” a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site and site content, SEO tactics may be incorporated into website development and design. The term “search engine friendly” may be used to describe website designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure.
Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or spamdexing, uses methods such as link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.

Search Engine Reputation Management (or SERM) tactics are often employed by companies and increasingly by individuals who seek to proactively shield their brands or reputations from damaging content brought to light through search engine queries. Some use these same tactics reactively, in attempts to minimize damage inflicted by inflammatory (or “flame”) websites (and weblogs) launched by consumers and, as some believe, competitors.
Given the increasing popularity and development of search engines, these tactics have become more important than ever. Consumer generated media (like blogs) has amplified the public’s voice, making points of view – good or bad – easily expressed. This is further explained in this front page article in the Washington Post.
Search Engine Reputation Management strategies include Search engine optimization (SEO) and Online Content Management. Because search engines are dynamic and in constant states of change and revision, it is essential that results are constantly monitored.
Social networking giant Facebook has been known to practice this form of reputation management. When they released their Polls service in Spring 2007, the popular blog TechCrunch found that it could not use competitors’ names in Polls. Due largely to TechCrunch’s authority in Google’s algorithms, its post ranked for Facebook polls. A Facebook rep joined the comments, explained the situation and that the bugs in the old code had been updated so that it was now possible.
Also until social sites like Facebook allow Google to fully spider their site then they won’t really have a massive effect on reputation management results in the search engine. The only way to take advantage of such site is to make sure you make your pages public.

It is suggested that if a company website has a negative result directly below it then up to 70% of surfers will click on the negative result first rather than the company website.

Hutchinson Island is a barrier island on the coast of Martin and St. Lucie counties, Florida. The southern one-third of Hutchinson Island is in Martin County while the northern two-thirds is in St. Lucie County. It is bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the St. Lucie Inlet, on the west by the Indian River, and on the north by the Fort Pierce Inlet, which separates it from what is known in St Lucie County as North Hutchinson Island, or sometimes “North Beach.” North Hutchinson Island extends into Indian River County, but it is rarely called that north of the county line. In fact the Indian River county portion which extends to the Sebastian Inlet is usually called Orchid Island, although it is not a separate island.

The Martin County portion of the island is all unincorporated. Its southern part, which is sometimes called Stuart Beach, receives its mail from Stuart Zip Code 34996, while the northern part receives its mail from Jensen Beach Zip Code 34957. Martin County has successfully limited buildings on the island to four stories and thus has no highrise or midrise buildings, unlike St. Lucie County to the north. The closest incorporated places to the Martin County portion are the towns of Ocean Breeze Park and Sewall’s Point. The city of Stuart is west of Sewall’s Point.

Points of interest

• The House of Refuge is a National Historic Site located on S.E. MacArthur Boulevard near the southern end of the island.
• The Elliott Museum is on N.E. Ocean Boulevard.
• The Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center is across the road from the Elliott Museum.

Sailfish Point

Sailfish Point is a luxury residential community located on the southern tip of Hutchinson Island. The community is resort-style with a Jack Nicklaus golf course, marina & yacht club, oceanfront clubhouse, fitness complex and spa. Residences at Sailfish Point are offered in single family estate homes, condominiums, villas and townhomes. There is still land available for development as well.

The St. Lucie County portion of the island consists of three parts as follows:

Hutchinson Island South C.D.P.

The southern part of the St. Lucie County portion comprises the Hutchinson Island South Census Designated Place, but that name is rarely used by residents, who receive their mail from Jensen Beach Zip Code 34957. The Jensen Beach post office has a postal contract substation known as Hutchinson Beach located at 11007 South Ocean Drive, but it offers only post office boxes and counter services.

The ocean front is lined with mid-rise luxury condominium apartment buildings with a few hotels or motels mixed in. On the Indian River side there is a mix of single family homes, duplexes and mobile home or travel trailer communities, the largest of which is Nettles Island, where the county building codes have allowed what started as travel trailer lots to be used for site-built homes.

St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant

In the middle of the St. Lucie County portion is the large St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant., which runs from ocean to river.

City of Fort Pierce section

Most of the area north of the power plant is in the Fort Pierce city limits and is locally called “Fort Pierce Beach” or sometimes “South Beach,” not to be confused with the area of Miami Beach by the same name or with the C.D.P. in Indian River County called South Beach, Florida.

The main north-south highway on the island is State Road A1A which enters the island several miles north of the St. Lucie Inlet at Stuart Beach via the Ernest Lyons Bridge across the Indian River from Sewall’s Point. A1A exits the island via the South Bridge in Fort Pierce. In Martin County, A1A is known as Northeast (or N.E.) Ocean Boulevard based on that county’s naming system, while in St. Lucie County, A1A is known as South (or S.) Ocean Drive from the Martin County line north to the Fort Pierce Inlet, based on that county’s naming system. At the Fort Pierce Inlet, A1A turns west onto Seaway Drive for the short distance to the South Bridge.