My Secret of Creating a Stunning Portfolio
Yayyy! This is helping me in getting clients.
When I got some experience of writing articles and Medium stories,I decided to take my writing to a professional level and to make a living out of it.
For this, I needed clients.
You know how can clients come to you?
Yup, if you have a good portfolio.
So, I went through a lot of things and a long process before finally having my own portfolio.
Due to this, I didn’t post anything on Medium after this story:
But when I figured out my things, I immediately started planning for building my portfolio. I’m glad that it was a success.
By the end of this article, you’ll learn some insights of my portfolio which got me many clients.
No matter what your profession is, you can use these to build an amazing portfolio which will help you in getting selected.
What I Did Before Creating My Portfolio?
Before starting thinking about what to include, I asked myself some questions which were:
- What comes first in my mind when I think about writing?
- Is it something positive or negative?
- Does writing excites me or am I just writing for making money?
- Why do I want to be a content writer?
- Will I compare myself to others in this profession or learn from them?
- Do I believe in myself?
- Will I be happy and satisfied?
In the same manner, you can ask yourself such questions. When I got positive responses to these, I was ready to rock. You will also be more confident about yourself in your career.
Why Having A Medium Account Came In My List Before A Portfolio?
We all are on Medium. We have different ‘Whys’ of joining this platform. I came to explore the field of writing before actually becoming a Content Writer and to create my samples of work. When you are creating a portfolio, you need to mention some of your work samples.
Why? Because the client will get to know what is your level. How better you are from your peers. If you have a strong portfolio with amazing work samples, you are more likely to get high-paying gigs. Samples can be any of the projects you’ve worked on.
If you are a newbie,
Don’t worry. I got your back. Like you, I also hadn’t worked for anyone. So, I didn’t had the option to include any project. I was like a tiny sapling in the forest.
Therefore, I didn’t had wonderful articles to present in my portfolio. Then, I came here on Medium to be my own client.I gave myself projects. I wrote for myself and published them.
When I had enough samples, I decided to jump to the next step.
PDF v/s Online Portfolio?
There are several ways to create your portfolio. You may choose to have it in a PDF document or a Word file or store it in your Google Drive. But the best of all, is to have an online portfolio. This gives you many benefits like making changes easily than other options (which you have to do frequently in portfolio).
Sites like Wix and Blogger.com can be used to have an online portfolio. When I tried, I found creating portfolio in Wix to be complex and time consuming. It actually allows you to have a website but you have to spend many hours to create and design it as per your choice.
Hence, I went to the easiest one, Canva. I built my portfolio there and copied its link which I sent to my prospects to showcase my work who became my clients later on.
What Is In My Portfolio?
Let me be clear, there’s no need to have a fancy portfolio in the beginning of your career. I made it simple yet beautiful.
Firstly, I made a table of contents to make it look presentable ad formal.
I gave my Introduction.
Next was 4 sample articles from my medium account. I used hyperlink for the headings and gave a little description about the article below it.
The reason why I chose 4 samples is because 3 or less appears to be insufficient and feels like something is missing. 4 is fine. If you wanna add more, you can do that. But don’t make it look more like a list with 7+ samples of your work.
After that, I showed the results I got from these articles. You can simply present a screenshot of your medium stats.
If you are a beginner, testimonials aren’t necessary. Even I didn’t have it. Build your portfolio without testimonials. Work for free or less than others, for the Beta Clients to get testimonials and then include 3–4 in your portfolio.
In the end, I gave my Contact Information so that people can get in touch with me to hire me.
That’s it. It’s done.
In the same way, you can also build your portfolio to get started. Later on, make changes as you get some experience.
Thank you for reading :)
