How To Build Your Freelance Portfolio From Scratch

(Even if you don’t have any clients yet)

Having a trustworthy portfolio is essential for any freelancer. 

But what happens when you are just starting out and don’t have anything to show? You might be in the same boat as I was, having great ideas but no real work experience that supports them. The good news is there are plenty of online platforms where designers can post their skill sets on an all-inclusive platform without needing physical samples!

Creating a quality portfolio can seem like so much pressure sometimes which isn’t surprising since we want it to look perfect before sending it off into the world with our dreams riding on its back. 

In this article, I am going to give you a blueprint on how to make a portfolio starting from nothing.

What is a portfolio?

The purpose of a portfolio is to show your potential clients that you can actually do the work. It’s proof of your work. There are two forms of proof. One is a portfolio, and the other one is a testimonial, which is a whole other topic.

A portfolio is as important as testimonials – maybe even more so! Portfolios are often considered to be more trustworthy than testimonials, as let’s be honest, who HASN’T asked their friend or family member for a glowing 5-star rating?!

Here are the key questions I’ll seek to answer in this blogpost:

• What do you include in your portfolio? 
• What else do you need? 
• What if you’re not a designer, copywriter, or virtual assistant? 

What do clients look for in your portfolio?

The primary thing your dream clients are looking for is a portfolio is authenticity – If you’re a web developer and your portfolio is a bunch of cookie-cutter “example” websites – it doesn’t look as professional as if you can send your potential client to 5 different websites – each beautifully designed, each fully-functioning.

The second thing a potential client is looking for is a good variety. If you’re a blogger and you send 5 blog posts all from the same website, all on the same topic, this does not demonstrate your ability to write about multiple topics. 

If you’re a graphic designer and you send 5 logos that are all the same, but with slightly different colorings, you are not demonstrating an absolute mastery of the niche.

Make sure you demonstrate a full range of your abilities when you submit a portfolio, and potentially change it to fit the specific niche of your client – this shows initiative also! 

Think about what the client wants – and show them a portfolio that fully demonstrates your abilities in that niche.

Other things you may want to consider, are:

• What experience do you have? 
• Have you taken any online courses? 
• What are your natural talents & abilities?

You just have to prove that you can do the work, you don’t need some big fancy portfolio site.

You don’t have to spend tons of money or time to get a good portfolio.

Like what I’ve said in the first one, 2-3 is enough. If there is too much to look at, people or potential clients get overwhelmed. But where do you put it if you don’t have a website yet?

You can create PDFs with Canva. If you’re not familiar with Canva, it is a free online tool that you can use to create PDFs. It’s actually pretty robust especially for a free tool, and it has so much that it can do aside from PDFs. 

You can sign up to Canva for free (you can log in using your Facebook account as well). Canva has a ton of free templates for presentations that you can use. These templates are laid out for you, with an outline that you can follow, and you’ll just have to edit or fill it in with your stuff and information. After creating your portfolio, you can download it as a PDF.

After downloading your PDF, all you have to do is to have cloud-based storage (Dropbox or Google Drive) and save your PDF into any of them. Get the link to the folder where you saved your PDF and send that link to a potential client asking for some examples of your work and that’s it. You already have your portfolio. Many people don’t even get that far and that already made you ahead of the game. You can also use Canva even if you already have your website. You can create the same document and put it as a menu item on your website. 

Another thing to remember is that your social media is your portfolio. You can create a Facebook business page and anything that you are doing, you can share it on your Facebook page. 

Again, I want you to remember, this is just a placeholder for you to get started. You can always add to it later.

But having real evidence of your previous work is absolutely vital for any freelancer, so sometimes a placeholder is enough to get you started.

Once you’ve started to establish yourself, it’s definitely recommended you look at setting up your own personal freelancing website with a professional email address.

You don’t need any freelance client work to get your portfolio started.

What you want to do is create practice projects. If you have been to design school, or if you’re a writer, or if you went to school for any of this stuff, they have you do practice projects.

If you’re a writer, or SEO content creator, you could also use a free website like Medium and produce a few example SEO optimized pages and then share them with clients including the statistics. Let’s say you build traffic to that webpage – that is actionable proof that you can write good SEO content.

If you’re a graphic designer, you can find a logo and redesign or remake it to make it look better. It doesn’t have to be a business that you even know but if it is someone that you know or a friend of yours, you can offer to redesign their logo for free so you can have something to add to your portfolio.

Another thing that you can do is to swap work with someone in similar niches. My Facebook group “Break Up With My Boss” has over 500 members that you can ask to swap work with for testimonials and portfolio work. If you’re a virtual assistant, you can also ask someone who’s just starting out a business and ask them if you can create some social media posts for them just so you can have something on your portfolio.

You might think that you don’t have time to do these or  it sounds like a lot of work, let me tell you something if you’re serious about starting your business;

1. You have to do it. You have to have something to show. People rely on social proof to make informed decisions.
2. Every day, when you’re in your business, there’s gonna be time that’s scheduled for client work. If you don’t have clients yet, use that time that you will be spending on client work to work or your business.

Don’t be afraid to work for free – This is something that a lot of people do when they first start freelancing, and it gives you a way to dip your toe into the market and start to prospect clients. 

At the very least you should start by selling at a lower price, as this gives you the original proof you need to charge a higher price. 

Remember, you don’t need a ton of proof, you just need a few examples. This is going to reassure your potential client that you can actually do the work.

What if you’ve signed an NDA Agreement? (Non-Disclosure Agreement)

For example, you are working for an agency as a ghostwriter and you’re not allowed to feature your work on site. Some agencies will allow you to use the work that you’ve done for them as long as you credit them. For example, putting a credit like “Done as part of the team (agency name)”. But if the agency won’t allow you, you can change the work enough to where you’re not starting from scratch, but so that the work isn’t recognizable, regardless of what it is, whether it’s graphic design, whether it’s copywriting, whether it’s social media, change it up enough to where it’s not recognizable.

Remember, whenever you’re creating your contract, always try to include in your contract that you reserve the right to use any and all work that you do for that client for advertising and portfolio purposes. 

Example of line/paragraph that you can use in your contract: “By signing this agreement and submitting your payment, you agree that I, Rita Ester, reserve the right to use any of all worked on this project as part of advertising and display purposes.”

Bottom line:

All you need to do is that you have to prove that you can get the job done. A big portfolio is great, but this happens over time.

Also, once it gets past a certain point, then it’s almost overwhelming for potential clients. 

The most important piece of advice I can give you is to try your best to make a varied, beautiful portfolio. If you only work in one niche, show 5 examples of different websites or niches you’ve worked for inside that niche. For example, if you’re an SEO, show 5 different websites you’ve worked for in different niches.

This is why it’s sometimes necessary to work for free, to get the ball rolling!