Leslie Wells

MCOM 7005

Professional Portfolio

12/3/2013

This professional portfolio has definitely been a work in progress throughout this

year. What began as a site to post class assignments on turned into an online identity and

electronic resume. This original purpose of this site was to post story assignments for my

crisis communication class. After finding out that there was an internship opportunity at

my dream job, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, I decided that I wanted to take my

professional online identity to the next level. In order to prepare my site for the interview

process, I added several tabs including: About, Event Planning, Visual Portfolio, and Writing

Samples. I also added a welcome article on the home page so that site visitors would not be

directed to a random article. Since the beginning of this semester I have added a few more

tabs: Resume (originally located on the About Me tab), Contact, and MCOM 7019. The main

goal of this blog was to give future employers an easy way to see all of my work and learn

more about who I am as an individual as well as a professional. After graduation, I plan on

applying for jobs in the non-profit sector; which is why this blog has fun, personal touches

including pictures, quotes, and personal stories. I wanted to show that I have experience

working with non-profits and for profit organizations. I also wanted to show that I am well

rounded (photography, writing, graphic design, videography, event planning, etc.). From

past interview experience, I have learned that it helps to have experience in many different

areas so breaking my skill sets into tabs (event planning, writing samples, visual portfolio)

shows that I have many talents to offer. Overall I wanted to go for a happy, personal, and

professional site. After receiving feedback from my internship interview, I feel like this

professional portfolio was exactly what I needed to get the position.

Link: http://lesliewells.wordpress.com

This site is hosted on Wordpress so I could not use Google Analytics to track

metrics. This would have been helpful, however Wordpress has some very helpful tracking

tools. I love how Wordpress lets me see how many views and site visitors per day, week,

month, and year. I had the most views in March (206) and December (111). I attribute the

spike in March due to the fact that I had my final interview with St. Jude’s in March. I have

been sharing this site with family and friends this month, which is why December was also

a popular month. I had spike in views at the beginning of the semester, which has stayed

level up until now. I have been adding new features and portfolio items so I attribute these

views to the additions/updates. So far my site has received 748 views from the U.S., 1 view

from India, and 1 view from Hong Kong. I expected these results, however I’m not sure

where the India and Hong Kong views came from. According to Wordpress, my best day

was on March 14, 2013. My site received 130 views with 8 visitors. Again, this is probably

due to my internship interview. The top visited pages in the past year were: Home Page

(46), Visual Portfolio (25), and Event Planning (20). Visitors clicked on a total of 16 links.

Total Clicks Top Posts and Pages on March 14, 2013 (Best Day)

Top Posts for Last Quarter (90 days)

Top Posts Within a Year

Jan Feb Mar April May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec0

50

100

150

200

250

Views per Month

Views per Month

Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Visitors per Month

Visitors per Month

I have learned so much from this assignment. First of all I have learned that it takes

a lot of work to create and maintain a site of this magnitude. It was fun being able to flex

my creative muscles, however 30 minutes can turn into three hours for someone as OCD as

me. I also learned that you never know when someone is going to stumble upon your site,

so you must always be prepared and never have outdated material. The metrics showed

most people will only see the homepage, then leave the site. So it is extremely important to

have an inviting, intriguing homepage to get them interested. The metrics also showed me

that people like to look at pictures and videos, aka Visual Portfolio. Plans for the future

include adding more writing samples, visual portfolio pieces, and editing the intro

paragraphs to fit the positions that I am applying for. I would ideally like to apply for a non-

profit so this content is sufficient, however I may have to explore other options depending

on job openings. Having an online professional portfolio gives me an edge on other

interviewees. It shows future employers that I am tech-savvy and creative. It also gives me

a place to keep track of all of my best work.