How to Build Your Portfolio as a Content Writer
By: Fatima Naseem
Tags: Writing Tips, Portfolio Management, Content Writing

Following are the steps to build your portfolio as a content writer:

1. Run a Google Search

The easiest is to run a Google search on the niche you want to write for + “write for us.” You can search for literally anything + write for us to get guest blog opportunities.

2. Read The Guest Blog’s Guidelines

Every place you guest blog for your writing portfolio will have a different set of guidelines to submit your post. Some may want a Google doc while others want you to send an attachment via email.

There may be strict rules on what types of links to include, who you can mention in your post and how to write your post and the length of the post. Here are Brazen’s guest guidelines.

3. Create Your Guest Blog Pitch

Now comes the fun part — crafting your writing pitch based on the guidelines you just read!

Again, different blogs want different things. Some want 3–5 topic suggestions while others want an outline of one post idea. Figure out what they want and come up with a great topic or list of topics.

I suggest you research how to craft a pitch for guest blogging. It’s important that your pitch comes off personal and sounds like you know the blogger’s content. Simply using a template for your guest pitch, won’t work in landing any guest posts.

Instead, read the blog you want to guest post and learn about:

How long their posts are

The format for their posts

Their popular high sharing topics

Their headlines

This information can help you stand out in your pitch. The blog owner will know you did your research.

4. Write the Guest Post

When you get accepted, it’s time to write the guest post. One thing to note — don’t pitch the SAME topic and outline to multiple guest blogs.

If you pitch the steps to eat paleo to five health blogs and two of them accept your pitch, you can’t write that post. And you can’t swap another idea either.

Instead, think of similar blog topics to pitch. So, for the health example, if you want to guest post on a health site, come up with several ideas that can be similar if you have a hard time coming up with blog topics:

5 Steps to Get Your Family Eating Paleo

Why Paleo Eating Isn’t Just a Fad

25 Easy Paleo Snacks to Take on The Run

5 Easy Ways You Can Start Eating Paleo

5. Craft Your Author Bio

One of the best reasons you want to build your writer portfolio using guest posts is you get an author bio.

Your author bio is the place to market your freelance writing business!

A good bio has these components: what you are offering, what type of content you provide, how to reach you and some kind of way to tell your personality.

My author bio has evolved over the years as I’ve grown as a freelance writer. Here is my most current author bio:

6. Submit Your Post And Wait

After you submit your post (via the way the blogger indicated in the guest post guidelines) it’s time to wait. You will probably get a response from the blog owner saying that they received it and give you a timeline of when your post will be published.

Other blogs may want you to edit and revise your content before they publish your post.

Once all of that is handled, you wait until your post is published. During this time you can pitch for more guest spots, work on your writer website and start pitching to job boards.

As a new freelance writer, you gotta hustle every day. Figure out the tasks you need to do to get your business up and running!

7. Create Your Writing Portfolio

You hear back! They published your guest post and you have a link now!

That’s great! Now you can create your writing portfolio.

Create a page in your WordPress site and name it Writing Portfolio or writing samples. From there you can drop your link or stylize it with a page builder or with WordPress’ editor.

Here’s an example of using WordPress’s native builder Gutenberg, a page builder, to create a writing portfolio.

Now what?

8. Fill Up Your Writing Portfolio

You just have one writing portfolio item.

You need more!

My suggestion is to have at least 3 to start out with. I would choose writing topics that are somewhat similar, unless you state different writing niches.

While guest posting is the best way to create a writing portfolio, another way is to create a Medium profile and submit your writing to publications on Medium.

Medium has thousands of publications that have submission sections. For these places, you don’t need to pitch, just sign up or send your draft link of your Medium post.

9. Create Multiple Writing Portfolios

A trick I use to look like a highly credible writer is to be everywhere online! You can do that easily by having multiple writing portfolios online.

Steal-it tips:

Make your portfolio page more of a dynamic story than a static page on your website.

Make your portfolio a reflection of who you are, whether it’s a funny guy in a convertible with his dog or a momma bear writing in bare feet at her kitchen table.

Hire a website designer?

How to make your freelance writer portfolio stand out

Make your portfolio visually compelling. Add visuals like graphs, icons, and pictures. Don’t bore people with blocks of text. Break it up with color and images.

Include more than just your writing samples on your portfolio. Add other compelling pieces to your portfolio page such as testimonials, statistics, FAQs, results, and other helpful information.

Get clear on your exact audience and make your portfolio more about your specific audience and less about you.

Allow your personality to shine through on your portfolio page. Professional doesn’t mean sterile.

Make your portfolio “different” than everything else out there.

Name drop like a son of a gun! If you’ve been printed in Washington Post, claim it! Add one of those “Featured In” strips across the bottom of your website. Those strips say, “I’m competent AF.”

Oh, and hire a website designer already!

The Content to Use in Your Freelance Writing Portfolio

So, do you only put blog posts in your writing portfolio?

No. You put the type of content you want to get paid for. This might mean sample emails, mock-ups of white papers, site content for an About page or a blog post.