Are you a freelancer? If yes, then do you have a freelancing portfolio? If so, then you are on track. For the ones who don’t have a portfolio, just go through this article. You can be a graphic designer, web designer, web developer, illustrator, or content marketer, a portfolio will help you for a great move.
What is a freelancing portfolio?
A freelancing portfolio will help you to get more clients around you. It is proof of your talent. Simply, a freelancing portfolio shows your expertise in the relevant field. It includes all the information that you need to market. A portfolio can give a quick idea about your previous work and professional achievements like client reviews and reference letters.
Why is a portfolio important for a freelancer?
A portfolio can make you unique from others. So a good portfolio can drive you towards the head in the competition. A portfolio itself can showcase your talent.
Your freelancer portfolio can play a vital role during an interview. It will give make a whole figure of you in the mind of the interviewer. It will also help when applying for scholarships.
The portfolio will attract more clients to you. You won’t miss big projects that match your capabilities when having a portfolio.
What should be there in a freelancing portfolio?
You don’t need to complete hundreds of client projects to build your freelancer portfolio. Even with small projects, you can make an eye-catching portfolio. A beginner in any field can have a portfolio to attract more clients.
You need to add a small introduction about yourself in the portfolio. It can contain objectives, professional qualifications, and interests.
You can add professional credentials to the freelancing portfolio. Projects, leadership highlights, recommendation letters, awards, and transcripts come under professional credentials. Remember to get testimonials from teachers, clients, and employers. Those will act as proof of your services. You can simply make a testimonial draft and send it to the resourced person. It is easy for both parties.
Work samples are another field that you can add to your freelancing portfolios. Remember not to load it with all your past projects. An overloaded freelancer portfolio can ruin the first impression of your client. You need to make it simple. There can be a gap between the tasks you have done and the project that the client is going to hand over. You can fill that gap to a certain extent by including the things that you can do. Explain how you did the past projects and describe the work style and contribution you made for the project. You can include the practice projects in the portfolio. Small projects that you did in school can be shown in the portfolio.
How to create your freelancing portfolio?
First, you need to collect the samples of work you have done. As mentioned earlier, the works can be either tiny works you have done for practising a skill or an order completed for a client. You will come up with so many completed projects. You don’t need to add all of them to your portfolio, as it will become a mess. Now, you need to identify the tasks you are going to add to the portfolio. Don’t just throw out the projects here and there on it. You need to add artistic work together with the projects. So it will be nice to the person who checks it.
You can add photos of your work. They will act as proof of your work. If you have completed well-known companies’ projects, don’t forget to add them to the portfolio. Clients will understand that you have been part of the success of the particular company. You can provide the links to your work. So the client can easily access them.
You can add a brief explanation of your education. You can add information about how you improve your skills, which will help clients know about your capability to complete a project. So try to add the background of your education to the portfolio.
Your portfolio needs to be attractive. It must grab the attention of clients. A good and well-organized freelancer portfolio will bring you massive projects.
What are Freelancer Portfolio Websites?
There are several freelancer portfolio websites that offer the insight for creating unique portfolios. Radium is one such famous freelance portfolio website of a designer and architecture. The simplicity of the portfolio tends to attract customers towards him. Miro Hristov also has a clean and well-defined portfolio. He is a brilliant web developer and UX designer. Designers can refer to his portfolio when making their own. Flamy is another best freelancer portfolio website that you can find on the internet.
I recommend you take the idea and creativity behind each freelancer portfolio website. Then make your own creation without copying from anything. Different websites offer freelancer portfolio templates for free. Freebiehive.com is one such website where you can find graphic resources to use in your portfolio.
What are the freelancer portfolio websites you can use?
You don’t need the coding knowledge to make a portfolio. Most of the websites offer drag and drop features as well as free plans. Try to make a unique portfolio and attract more clients.
WordPress
WordPress is the first website that comes to anyone’s when talking about websites to make a portfolio.
You get unlimited options to customize your portfolio in WordPress. It has plugins for any required website.
You get complete control over the site which you built. You will need some sort of coding knowledge to make a portfolio using WordPress.
Wix
You don’t need to be tech-savvy to build a professional-looking portfolio with Wix.
There are a variety of templates on this platform. The drag and drop feature in Wix is very useful in building a professional portfolio. The high-level functionality and customization options will offer a unique website for you.
Jimdo
Jimdo allows freelancers to create their portfolios. You can get the maximum use of the free plan in Jimdo.
Weebly
Weebly is the most accessible platform that you can use to set up a website. The latest and professionally designed themes are available here. The drag and drop feature in Weebly allows anyone to make their portfolio.
To Sum Up
A freelance portfolio needs to be creative. Your portfolio itself can act as a great piece of work that showcases your talents. It must supply details about your experience and skills. You should not overload it with too many projects. Instead of that, you can add the capabilities you have already build up to complete any work. It will let customers select you for their projects. Try to make your own freelancer portfolio website.