The Importance of a Website for Freelance Writers

Video Transcript

"REBECCA SATO: Hi. I'm Rebecca Sato with ExpertVillage.com. Let's talk about Web sites. Now, you're a writer, and so you probably--a lot of writers, new writers, especially, they're not thinking about how to market themselves and how to get their samples easily accessible to clients. But you'll find that in today's day and age, people just don't have time to look at a paper portfolio. You can have a beautiful paper portfolio and I don't think it's a bad idea because you can bring it with you when--on jobs that you end up having an interview with the client. But a lot of times, things are done through virtual offices these days. I have great clients that I've never met but I have a relationship with, and it's entirely through the Internet. So you want to make sure that you have a digital portfolio. And one of the best ways to have a digital portfolio is to have your own Web site, or the very least, have a Web site where you have your own--for example, like iFreelance and some of those other freelance sites, they'll let you build your own portfolio. So it's free, and you can have just little portfolio and people can go there and look at your writing samples. But I think, actually, it's a little better if you could just have your own Web site. If you can get your name or your business name or your own name, then that's great. Because that's something that people go to and they won't see anyone else because I will be hesitant to send someone to a site that looks at lots of writers and my portfolio is there. Because what are they going to do? They're going to think, "Wow, this isn't my only option." And they'll start looking at other writers. If you can set up your own site then you're a step ahead from those other writers. So--and what you want to do is when they get there, you want to make sure that it very clearly says portfolio or writing samples or somewhere where they can click, and that it will have links to some of your writing. Now, if your writing is not available online, like you didn't do it for a Web site or a company or some way where it's probably already going to be online. If you can do a direct link, that's great. But if it is something that only came out in print, then you can still go ahead and scan that and have a link to that work, where it will just pull it up in PDF or whatever. It doesn't matter just so long as that's easily accessible. You want them to be able to go to your site and look at what you've done and also, of course, you want to have an "about" section and you might want to have that tells about you and your credentials, and then you'll probably also want to have services and maybe even pricing. It depends on how much you want to come upfront or how much you want to discuss with them first. But those are some things that you want to keep in mind when you're getting your Web site. And Web sites are cheap. Don't be intimidated by that. You could get Web sites these days that look great. Templates are already built for you for four bucks a month. So don't let that deter you."