In the United States, 45% of freelancers offer skilled services. These skills include digital marketing, business, consulting, creative writing, and more.
But with so many other freelancers competing for the same gigs as you, you need to make your creative writing portfolio stand out. You can achieve this in a few ways, no matter your budget or skill level.
Working from home has perks, and many people freelance for the flexibility it allows. But you might have to review your portfolio if you’re struggling to find work as a creative writer.
To learn more about making your creative writing portfolio more eye-catching, you’ve found the right article. Keep reading to learn the top nine ways to improve.
1. Pick a Genre or Niche
When building a creative writing portfolio, you want to pick a genre or niche. For example, there are many types of writing.
You may write about several niche topics as a creative content writer. These niche subjects can include but are not limited to:
- Addiction
- Real Estate
- Law
- Sex and Relationships
- Pets
- Cannabis
- Travel
If you’re a creative writer who writes short stories or fiction, picking a genre is wise. For example, if you enjoy fiction writing, decide whether you prefer writing comedy, romance, sci-fi, horror, or murder mysteries.
2. Design a Creative Writing Portfolio Website
The next step in improving your creative writing portfolio is to create a way to showcase it to readers and potential clients. A portfolio website doesn’t have to be complicated and can be easily created using sites such as Squarespace or Wix.
Check out sites like Urban Exploring for excellent examples of writing portfolio websites. You want your website to include pages that:
- Showcase your writing samples
- Give your clients an idea about who you are
- Provide contact details so clients can get in touch
3. Showcase Your Best Samples
Once you have a way of showcasing your writing samples, like an online writing portfolio, you want to be selective in what pieces you upload. While you may write several articles daily, potential clients don’t want to read everything you’ve ever written.
Instead, select around three to five samples of your writing to upload. If you write on multiple subjects, choose three of each niche to upload. This way, clients can see the parts of your portfolio relevant to their industry.
If you write different-length articles, showcase this by uploading both short and long articles you’ve written.
4. Update It Continuously
If you’re not posting regular new content to your creative writing portfolio website, your competition will quickly surpass you. Search engines nowadays consider several factors when offering search results, and one of the most crucial is how updated your content is. If you last uploaded something months ago, search engines will ignore your website in favor of one that updates regularly.
To remain relevant to pages like Google or Bing, ensure you upload new content at least once a month. Ideally, a post a week is what you should be aiming for.
5. Utilize SEO
It’s all fine and well having a creative writing portfolio, but if clients can’t find it, then you’ll get no new customers. As a creative writer, a great way to ensure you increase your organic traffic to your website is to utilize the power of SEO (search engine optimization). An example of this would be to use keywords within your writing samples.
Several websites will analyze keyword metrics for you, but you can use free tools like Google Suggest to find relevant keywords if you don’t have the budget for these sites. For example, if you write about addiction, targeting keywords like the following are all great keywords to target within your portfolio:
- Addiction recovery
- Substance use disorder
- Inpatient treatment
- Addiction treatment centers
6. Format Posts Correctly
You must formulate your posts correctly if you want to get ahead with your creative writing portfolio. Many readers who visit your website will often scan posts rather than read the entire thing.
For this reason, you want your posts formatted in a way that’s easy for the reader to skim. Some guidelines to keep in mind are:
- Keep paragraphs under four sentences
- Include bullet lists
- Use headings effectively
- Have a winning intro following AIDA guidelines
- Have a solid conclusion wrapping up your article
7. Add Graphics
Posts that are nothing but walls of text can be very offputting to readers. For this reason, adding graphics to your posts can improve your creative writing portfolio.
However, there are some guidelines you want to remember, such as only using images that are relevant to your writing. If you’re writing on real estate, then displaying a picture of a dog isn’t going to make sense.
Additionally, it’s vital to use images you have permission to use. This means finding images in the public domain, free for commercial use, or purchasing the rights to photos using a stock image website. Infographics are also a great addition to your online creative writing portfolio.
8. Update Old Content
Don’t despair if you’re struggling to find new content for your creative writing portfolio (writer’s block can strike at any time), don’t despair. Instead, look to your old content for inspiration. Posts six months to a year old can sometimes have significant updates. You can refresh the information by revisiting old posts to include new, updated data.
This way, you already have the topics and keywords you need; you just have to rewrite the content. This can be less time-consuming than doing all the research from scratch.
9. Focus on a Great Biography
Finally, an overlooked part of a great creative writing portfolio is an excellent biography. This is where you can really showcase your writing talents. However, there are some tips to keep in mind.
You want your biography to speak less about who you are and more about what you can do for your client. You want to highlight how your interests and skills add value to your services. This lets the client know from the beginning they’re hiring the best.
Get Ahead With a Winning Creative Writing Portfolio
A solid creative writing portfolio is vital for freelancers to attract new clients and work. Clients will overlook your services without a strong portfolio and hire one of your competitors instead. To avoid this, use SEO wisely, publish new content regularly, include engaging graphics, have a powerful biography, and showcase only your best samples.
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