When you're offering writing services, one of the most important sales tools you can use is samples of your work. People will want to see what kind of writing you've done in the past, what topics you've written about and just how good it actually is. The easiest way to offer these samples for people to review is through a portfolio website.
When the term "portfolio" website comes to mind, most people think of photography or web design but it works just as well for writing. Your portfolio should include enough examples to give potential customers a good look at your abilities. Ideally, you should provide several different types of content:
- Articles - Blog posts - Short reports - eBooks - Longer training courses
Basically, whatever type of content you are offering your clients should have examples in your portfolio.
There are a couple of ways that you can come up with this content. The simplest is to write some example content that you can post to your portfolio.
If you want to kill two birds with one stone, write about topics that would be of interest to the people who visit your portfolio. This can not only work as examples of your writing, it can also help your website get ranked in the search engines and generate more traffic - and more potential customers.
Another way to generate samples for your portfolio is to use some of the work you've done for past clients. This can be an excellent source of examples since it's actual client work, but you need to be absolutely sure to get the client's permission before you do this. If they don't want you posting it on your website, don't.
Web content like articles and blog posts can be posted straight to your portfolio site. But longer content like ebooks and reports should really be converted into PDF format so your customers can download it for review.
This lets you pretty it up a bit by paying attention to the layout and design. Even if people are mainly interested in your writing, presentation is still part of the deal.
If a potential client is comparing you and another writer, don't you think they'd be more likely to choose the content that looks nicer? Even if your competitor's content is every bit as good as yours, chances are they're going to go with the one that looks nicer.
When the term "portfolio" website comes to mind, most people think of photography or web design but it works just as well for writing. Your portfolio should include enough examples to give potential customers a good look at your abilities. Ideally, you should provide several different types of content:
- Articles - Blog posts - Short reports - eBooks - Longer training courses
Basically, whatever type of content you are offering your clients should have examples in your portfolio.
There are a couple of ways that you can come up with this content. The simplest is to write some example content that you can post to your portfolio.
If you want to kill two birds with one stone, write about topics that would be of interest to the people who visit your portfolio. This can not only work as examples of your writing, it can also help your website get ranked in the search engines and generate more traffic - and more potential customers.
Another way to generate samples for your portfolio is to use some of the work you've done for past clients. This can be an excellent source of examples since it's actual client work, but you need to be absolutely sure to get the client's permission before you do this. If they don't want you posting it on your website, don't.
Web content like articles and blog posts can be posted straight to your portfolio site. But longer content like ebooks and reports should really be converted into PDF format so your customers can download it for review.
This lets you pretty it up a bit by paying attention to the layout and design. Even if people are mainly interested in your writing, presentation is still part of the deal.
If a potential client is comparing you and another writer, don't you think they'd be more likely to choose the content that looks nicer? Even if your competitor's content is every bit as good as yours, chances are they're going to go with the one that looks nicer.
No comments:
Post a Comment