In the old days when remote work wasn’t even conceptualized, printed resumes and CVs were the main media used to showcase professional experience to a potential employer.
We had to carry a large leather briefcase or messenger bag that held our big portfolio books in it, each one holding the fate of our careers in its hands.
Fast forward now to the 21st century when it’s easy to place all of these portfolio pieces into a single website. Clients can now view your portfolio along with your employment history, educational attainment, projects, and contact information with a click of a button.
So if you plan on giving up the corporate life and jumping into freelance, it’s important that you have your very own online portfolio website to show to your clients.
Dissecting the Typical Portfolio Website
The anatomy of an online portfolio usually consists of the following:
- A website to hold your portfolio items
- Pages for your portfolio site’s content, eg. About, Services, Pricing (optional), and the like
- A contact form for clients to use when they want to contact you about a project.
- A blog where you can announce anything from promos to website updates for visitors
Whether your site is on a free blog (Blogger, Typepad, or WordPress.com) or a hosted content management system (WordPress or Joomla), your portfolio should at least have these informational pages , a blog, and your most recent work/references so that your clients will know just who you are, what you do as a freelancer, what you have done in the past, and where to contact you.
Begin By Gathering Recent Work
“Before considering buying hosting and spending your weeks on theme development, you need to have the main dish ready for viewing: your best work.”
Building your very own portfolio website can be exhilarating for the first-time freelancer. For those who work in the web design industry, the portfolio website can serve as a personal project to start off with.
But before considering buying hosting and spending your weeks on theme development, you need to have the main dish ready for viewing: your best and most impressive work. Start by gathering all of your recent (and completed) freelance projects and putting the links and the screenshots all together in one folder. Make sure that these are at least 6 months old and you have permission from your previous clients to showcase the work you’ve done for them on your upcoming portfolio site.
Once you have enough to fill up your portfolio page, you can then begin building your website.
Your Platform: Free or Hosted?
A lot of impressive portfolio websites are usually hosted and developed by professional designers. You can go for a hosted platform if you got the resources to support it, but if this is your first time building one for yourself, you may want to start out with a free one.
Depending on your field of work, you can register for free or less expensive accounts at specific websites for online work. For instance, online article websites like Helium and EzineArticles are great for freelance writers while Deviantart and Carbonmade work well for freelance web and graphic designers.
Writers will also find free blogs like WordPress.com or Blogger a good choice for a free platform for their websites. Blogger is the more popular choice for Filipinos since it’s already available with your Google account, but if you want flexibility with your widgets and plenty of good themes to use, WordPress.com is a better choice.
Update Your Portfolio Website
Once your clientele grows and a lot of people are visiting your site, you can rebuild your portfolio website on a hosted or paid platform in order to make it more attractive, inviting, and easy for your present and future clients to use.
There are two popular ways to improve the usability of your website and that is to use plug-ins and install impressive themes:
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Plug-ins, otherwise known as “add-ons”, are another reason why freelancers would opt to upgrade to a hosted platform. With plug-ins, you can now have features that were once limited such as social media widgets, related posts, SEO packs, and many more. For instance, instead of only linking your email address to “mailto:”, you can now create your own contact form for your visitors to use if they need to contact you about a project.
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Themes are also a great incentive to hosted platforms since you get to choose or edit the HTML/CSS of the theme you’re using for your site. There are plenty of theme marketplaces online to find great themes to use, so all you need to do is to search and choose the theme that best fits your site, your preferences, and your field of work.
A Wise Freelancing Investment
Building a portfolio website can take time and a lot of effort on your part, but if you want to establish yourself as a freelancer, you need to have a site of your own to showcase your best work to your clients.
Go for a free platform if you don’t have the resources to buy a hosting plan. Once you build your list of clients and have enough to buy hosting and a unique domain, that’s the time you can upgrade and improve your site.
Do you have an online portfolio site to showcase your work to clients? Share your experience and even a link to your site in the comments!
Photo credits to asifthebes
About the Author: Stef G.
Founder of The Freelance Pinoy, Stef is a freelance copywriter and blogger who loves writing high quality content for blogs and e-commerce. To receive free special updates and freelancing tips from her, sign up for the TFP newsletter. You can also follow her on Twitter @stefgonzaga. Related Posts
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This post (well, all your posts for that matter ^_^) was really helpful. I shall put your pointers to use! That is, when I get the time @_@
I still miss you Stef! Hehe
Aww thanks Johna! ^_^ I’m glad this post proved helpful for you. I miss you girl! How’s work coming along?
Probably even when you are thinking about taking the job you should consider how it is going to look on your portfolio.
Interesting point you have there. The usual advice is to highlight projects you’ve completed that you know best showcases your skills as a freelancer and that you are very proud of, so if you think or feel that work from a particular job isn’t worth being in your portfolio just treasure the experience gained.
[...] [...]
[...] couple of weeks ago we took a look at the basics of building a portfolio website where you’ll find tips and advice for freelancers new to the idea of building an official [...]
[...] a simple, direct-to-the-point, and easy-to-navigate portfolio website. At this point, your main focus is to tell your prospects who you are, what you can do for them, [...]
Oh, I really need this information. As in! Thanks Stef!
[...] a simple, direct-to-the-point, and easy-to-navigate portfolio website. At this point, your main focus is to tell your prospects who you are, what you can do for them, [...]