They say first impressions are everything. Not only do they determine how people will view you forever, they are also usually hard to fix if they go wrong. On the internet, a profile page is the conventional way to make a great first impression. It is the place most people go to get familiar with what you have to offer. Thankfully, a lot of platforms offer a great deal of flexibility in designing and customizing profile pages.

While some allow the basic profile picture, background, and bio text customizations, some go as far as to allow complete background overhaul through custom graphics design. Regardless of which platform you find yourself in, below are some invaluable points to take your profile to the next level with optimized graphics.

Things to Look Out for When Customizing a Profile

Generally, there are two critical elements to designing a beautiful profile with high conversion potential. The first is the visual element while the second involves the text-based aspects.

Visual Elements

The visual element is usually regarded as the most important aspect seeing as we humans are highly visually inclined. We’re more easily swayed by the pictures we see than the things we only read. At any rate, maximizing the potential of your profile to convert visitors into followers usually involves making use of a handful of high-quality photos. Most platforms, as mentioned earlier, will encourage the use of a profile picture or avatar.

Along with this, there will also most likely be an arrangement for a cover image at the top of the profile. When used correctly, both of these elements are enough to send across a strong message to your visitors in terms of aesthetics and call to action. Furthermore, for platforms where background images are allowed, there is even more potential to increase conversion.

More on that in the upcoming sections below.

Text-Based Elements

Visual elements may be the most appealing to visitors, but this doesn’t mean that text-based elements aren’t important or that you can’t use them to incredible results. The way we see it, the visual elements and the text elements are two sides of the same sword.

The best way to use them is together. While you employ the visual elements to attract new visitors, a simple paragraph of text in the bio section is enough time to convert them into long-term fans and followers. Obviously, most profiles allow a limited set of text characters, so you’ll have to literally choose your words wisely, and that’s the challenge. Of course, you can also mix both mediums by employing some text in your images.

Conventions

Lastly, it is usually advisable that before you proceed with your actual design you should try as much as possible to check out similar accounts in your niche to identify the conventional styles and themes. The aim of this is for you to make a variation of this without straying too far from conventions.

Tips to Keep in Mind for a Perfect Profile Design

Now that you know the key aspects of designing a perfect profile, below are some tips to have in mind when the actual design process begins.

Information Balance

What we mean by information balance is simple. An optimized profile is one that strikes the perfect complement between passing enough information without passing out too much information – and yes, there is such a thing. Your profile is a great way to reach out to people, but it also has a limited space to do this with. While you don’t want to pass across too little information, you also don’t want to go overboard with it.

Passing across too much information tends to overwhelm visitors to the extent that they end up getting nothing from the message. On the other hand, passing across too little information means you’re not using the medium to its full potential. Striking the perfect balance between these two extremes is the way to go.

Uniformity & Consistency

Uniformity in style, color, fonts, and other elements all ensure that you have an overall design that users are comfortable with and can easily consume without being distracted by contradictions.

It also helps your profile become easily identifiable, which itself is a key aspect of proper branding.

External Linking

The aim of a profile is to attract users. But what happens when you get these users? Well, first of all you want to keep them entertained with interesting, relevant content. From there, you want to use your platform to further your business growth.

Now this may involve monetizing on the same platform, but most of the time there’s a need to redirect these users to another platform. And that’s where external links come into play. Luckily most platforms allow a space for external linking. Simple as it is, this step is invaluable in determining your overall success.

For what it’s worth, even platforms that don’t allow linking can be circumvented by writing the link on your cover image or background banner. 

Getting Your Profile Design

Do all of the above rules seem daunting for you? Well, you’d be happy to know that there’s no rule that says you have to design your profile banners and themes on your own. You can easily hire a freelancer to design one for you or make use of a site like Designurbate that offers high-quality theme templates for free.

Breaking the Rules

On a closing note, we’ll end with a few words on a somewhat paradoxical note of breaking the rules. All of the tips above are great, but we understand that there may be times when you will need to break the rules a little bit, and guess what, that’s more than okay. Don’t want to go with the conventional approach in your niche? Then don’t! Want to add a little bit of variety and less consistency? By all means! 

Of course, breaking rules means that you’re essentially removing a great deal of safety net, but if you’re ready to take the risk, then we say go for it! The most successful endeavors usually involve a lot of risk anyway.