11 Tips for Building Your Freelance Portfolio
How do you start building your freelance portfolio? When you’re fresh to freelancing, one of your first priorities is to grow a client list. But when you don’t have a portfolio or samples to show them, what can you do to earn their trust?
I asked other freelancers and professionals for their advice. Here are 11 tips for building your freelance portfolio.
TL;DR:
Volunteer Your Services
If you are looking to build your freelance portfolio, you can volunteer your services to your favorite nonprofit organization or any charitable group in your area. A lot of nonprofits could use help with marketing, content, social media, photography, graphic design, accounting, or anything else you have to offer. This is a great way for your to build your skills and your portfolio while helping a worthy cause.
Jennifer Klemmetson, Klemmetson Communications
Use Contently for Content Portfolios
Contently is a free online portfolio website. When I freelance or guest post, I post the URL of the published article to Contently. Contently then asked what skills I used to make the article. In this way, I show off my writing and my skills. For instance, I get to choose from a dropdown that includes skills such as article writing, research, SEO writing, and copywriting. Even my article's dominant graphic shows alongside my work. I never have to search to find my online portfolio. I go straight to Contently.
Janice Wald, Mostly Blogging
Save Your Backups
Regardless of whether you are a copywriter or an IT specialist, you should always save evidence of your work on your hard drive or cloud. The point is that the result of your work may only be visible online for a while. Your clients may delete or significantly change your work after a while. When building your portfolio and inserting links to the results of your projects, you should also have a database of backups.
Bartek Trzmielewski, PhotoAiD
Collaborate With Other Professionals
One of the best ways to build your freelance portfolio is to collaborate with other professionals in your field. Not only will this give you the opportunity to showcase your skills, but it can also help you develop new ones. When you collaborate with others, you’ll have the chance to see how they work and learn from them. Whether you create your own projects or join the projects of other professionals, collaborating is a great way to show off your creativity and skills as you build your portfolio.
Oshen Davidson, Oshen Davidson Photo
Arrange Projects Chronologically to Reflect Growth
When clients read through your portfolio, their interest is not limited to just how well you can deliver on their project, but also in your growth. This goes especially for freelancers who are cold pitching without much experience in the industry. Arranging your projects chronologically and adding a few notes to detail the stage you were in your career inspires confidence in clients that any desirable skills they would like to have the project executed at different stages can be drilled into you. It is easy for clients to gauge how teachable you are by looking through your portfolio.
Ivy Bosibori, USBadCreditLoans
Barter Your Services to Build Your Portfolio
If you are new to freelancing and building your portfolio, you are also likely new to building your business. That makes it a perfect collaboration where you can barter services with other freelancers. Both of you would receive work that you need to be done to grow your business, a portfolio sample, and a testimonial. That's a win-win-win scenario!
Tara Reid, Tara Reid Marketing
Create a Compelling Story
What clients are looking for in every portfolio, whether consciously or unconsciously, is a clear conviction that the freelancer can solve their problems. Creating a compelling story around each piece of your work includes: explaining the process of getting your end result; stating the challenges you faced and overcome; and creatively highlighting the key results you achieved. While doing this, ensure you are highlighting your target audience's pain points and providing solutions to them in your samples.
In other words, each sample has to maintain its individuality while they all work in sync to form a big picture. Doing this shows the client that you are not just pulling together random samples, but each sample went through thorough processes that can be beneficial to them in the long run.
Simon Bacher, Simya Solutions
Feature Client Feedback
If you have ever been featured in a major publication or have garnered a fair amount of reviews and feedback from past clients, then you should keep updating your portfolio with this information. While quality work is a vital factor that clients consider, many of them also need to be convinced that you are also a professional that is worth dealing with. The best way to reassure them is by using testimonials from satisfied clients that they may have left on an email, feedback report, or even a thank you message. You can also include client lists and/or highly-recognizable logos from reputable companies that you have previously worked with to help make yourself seem like less of a gamble in their eyes.
Jory Hunga, iPaydayLoans
Develop Your Online Profile
Start with a website. Your website is your portfolio. If you can create a simple WordPress site with a hosting service, also make sure you include an SSL certificate. If you don't, then a viewer's browser will flag a website as dangerous because it is insecure. It's not too expensive, but it also isn't cheap. To build a website on the cheap or free, use a free Squarespace site or another free hosting site to showcase your work. Provide enough information to give a potential client a reason to hire you.
Debbie Elicksen, Digital Public Relations
Do “Almost” Free Work for Clients
I say "almost" free because there are very many desperate clients on freelancing websites who don't have a lot of money but they need to have work done ASAP. You'll find someone paying $6 for 1000wrds or even worse, $10 for 4000wrds. It doesn't get you the kind of money that you want, but it sure does build up your portfolio.
Speaking from a freelancer perspective, (one who had spent a lot of time not getting any work when I first joined) this really worked for me. This is because clients are reluctant to hire you when you have zero jobs listed on your portfolio. But these clients are desperate, so they'll take the risk and hire you, even without a work history. Do the job to get a great sample for your profile. This is your real payment.
Lydia Mwangi, Barbell Jobs
Include a Call-to-Action
One overlooked aspect of a freelance portfolio is not including a call-to-action. Suppose the potential client is impressed with your skills and wants to hire you. But you haven't indicated what steps they should take next. The result - they move on. You need to tell them whether you will need an email communication or a virtual meeting to take things forward. The sole purpose of a portfolio is getting hired, so make it easy for your potential client to hire you.
Radhika Gupta, USCarJunker
Start Building Your Freelance Portfolio
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