Are you a freelance writer wanting to build up your portfolio and land more clients?
Or are you at the beginning of your writing career and worried that you don’t have enough experience?
Even with no professional writing experience, you can begin building your writing and blogging portfolio to help you generate paid writing gigs.
With these 8 easy tips, you will be well on your way to making your freelance writing career a reality!
Why You Should Have a Writing Portfolio
Building your writing portfolio is a great first step in landing paid writing jobs!
Most potential clients will want to see examples of past work in order to know that you are able to deliver amazing results. Having a portfolio shows your skills, provides reviews of your work, and gives insight into who you are as a writer.
If you don’t have this experience yet, have no fear – the tips below will help you build your portfolio in no time!
1) Start a Blog
The best and easiest way to grow your writing portfolio is by starting a blog! For less than $3 per month, you can get hosting, a URL, and have a blog set up where you can write about your chosen topics and showcase your skills to potential clients.
Your blog can cover a variety of topics, or pertain to a certain industry. If you aim to target potential clients in a particular niche, we recommend that you cover those topics in detail. Be sure to put your best foot forward by maintaining good grammar, organization, voice, and style. Have fun with it, be creative, and show potential clients what you can do!
Interested in starting a blog? Check out our free guide on starting a blog today!
Note from DC: When looking for freelance writers for this site and others I own, I always look for blogging experience. There is more that goes into a blog post than simply writing the post, including formatting the post, adding links, and getting the post set up properly in WordPress. If you want to be a freelance writer you need a blog.
2) Publish Articles on Medium
Medium.com is an often underrated platform for growing your writing portfolio, but it is one of the best ones out there! For one, it is absolutely free to use, and you have the potential to reach a wide audience!
Like blogging, you have post about whatever topics that you like – so you can build out a pretty expansive portfolio over time. Though it may not be the ideal platform for generating potential clients, it’s still a great way to showcase your work and share it with readers online.
With consistency, you can build your Fan base, gain likes, and show to potential clients how others enjoy your work. This can really help you if you aim to pursue copywriting and blogging!
3) Post on LinkedIn
LinkedIn has a reputation for being a bit stuff, but it has proven to be a platform on the rise! With the ability to virtually “brush shoulders” with big people in the business, it is worth it to share your writing on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn really thrives off of professional connection, particularly for businesses that serve other businesses (B2B). This is where you are likely to find business owners that are in search of copywriters.
Here, you are able to write articles to be shared across your connections, and potentially further. Be sure to optimize your LinkedIn profile so that people can contact you if they like your work!
4) Find Guest Posting Opportunities
What better way to share your writing with the world that to guest post on reputable websites? Guest posting is a great way to grow your experience and show people your professionalism and writing style.
To get started with guest posting, search for websites that pertain to your industry of interest or writing style. Many of these sites will have an option to sign up to guest post. If you don’t see any information about guest posting, contact them via their contact page or via email. Ask them if they accept guest posts, what their guidelines are, and explain what you want to contribute to their site.
Be prepared to adhere to their unique guidelines and write for their target audience. This is great practice for your eventual client work, as you will have to follow instructions and stick to a deadline. Once your guest post is life, you can send the link to potential client as an example of your work!
5) Share Value in Facebook Groups
With so many people utilizing Facebook groups nowadays, it’s a smart move to get ahead of the curve and use them to their full potential!
This can be done by sharing instructional posts, opinion pieces, and much more. This does not mean spamming Facebook groups with your latest blog posts, but by sharing actual value to the group members. The point is to write posts that are well-organized, interesting, and encourage engagement.
Though you can’t necessarily refer potential clients to these posts, you build up your reputation as a skilled writer. Over time, users will recognize you and your writing, and may reach out with paid writing jobs. Essentially, you are growing your writing portfolio by creating a personal brand and reputation for yourself as a freelance writer.
6) Respond to Quora Posts
Quora is a platform where users share their questions about a variety of topics, to be answered by users in those fields. For example, someone may ask, “What are the best places to visit in Thailand?”, and be met with answers from travelers, agents, and bloggers alike.
As a writer, you can answer questions on Quora and share your experience on various topics. You will want to give detailed answers, include references, and present information in a helpful way.
Not only may this encourage potential clients to reach out to your via Quora, but it is great experience in writing content with certain types of readers in mind. Clients will want to see that you are versatile and can write for their target audience.
7) Create a Facebook Business Page
If you are serious about launching your freelance writing career, we recommend that you create a business Facebook page to gather reviews and showcase your work. Not only will this be a place for potential clients to find out more about you, but you can publish content on a regular basis.
With the latest Facebook Notes feature, you can essentially write articles to be published on Facebook – including images, headers, links, and more. These will be showcased on your business page for potential clients to see, and can be easily shared across social media!
8) Offer Free Blog Services
To build your portfolio as a professional writer, you will want potential clients to see that you can write content for reputable websites and businesses. One of the easiest ways to do this is to pitch free blogging or copy-writing services to sites and business owners that are in the industry that you are hoping to go into.
For example, if you are hoping to highlight your skills as a blogger, you may want to reach out to travel bloggers, tech bloggers, etc. and offer freelance writing services at no cost. You can ask for them to write you a testimonial in exchange for your services, or leave a review on your business Facebook page (if you have one).
With a few professional examples under your belt, potential clients will be impressed that you were able to write for authoritative websites and bring them great results!
Do you have questions about landing your first paid writing job? Let us know in the comments below!
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really interesting post, this ireally helpful for someone is looking for extra income into writing field, thanks for sharing!!!
You’re very welcome! Be sure to let us know if you have any questions!
I’ve done the Quora thing with moderate success; what I really need to work on is doing guest posts.
It’s a great place to start! It will really help you get your name out there and build your portfolio. Be sure to focus on sites that are in your preferred niche, and have a large reach (if possible).
Wonderful ideas. I’m thinking about ‘attacking’ Medium with some well researched articles, it’s one of the content venues I have never tried before.
I’m beginning to love Quora. I’ve been answering questions over there since the beginning of the year. It’s helped me gain a little following over there. I need to focus more on guest posts, but I just don’t have the time.