When you start your freelance writing career, you need to set up your own website. But what kind of pages should you put on it?
There are four main pages that every freelance writing website should have:
- A home page
- An about page to let people know more about you
- A portfolio page with examples of your work
- A contact page so people can get in touch with you
Optionally, you may also include a page for your blog, or any products or courses that you offer.
Setting Up Your Freelance Writing Website
It’s common for freelance writers to either provide too much or too little information on their websites. Especially when they’re creating a site for the first time.
On the one hand, you want to be sure to answer any potential questions that visitors and prospective clients may have about your services.
On the other hand, you don’t want your writer’s website to be too cluttered. You want to have just enough pages to hold all of your necessary information, but in a way that’s easy to navigate too.
That’s why I would focus on creating four main pages for your website.
Home Page
The homepage of your writing website can either be a static page or a blogroll.
For most freelance writers, I would recommend a static page that always provides a good summary of your most important information. Tell people in a few sentences what you do and what you’re all about.
The homepage is the first impression that you’ll make on someone visiting your site. Keep it manageable and easy to read. If you write a wall of text, people may give up on you and your site before even giving you a chance.
About Page
An about page lets potential clients get to know you a little bit better.
Depending on your brand and what kind of message you’re going for, this can vary a lot.
Maybe you want to be super quirky and tell them about all your hobbies and interests. Or perhaps you want to take a more professional approach. Either is fine, and different niches are more likely to look for their own kinds of writers.
You probably want to at least partly tie it back to your writing and talk about topics that you’re the most experienced in or passionate about writing about.
Portfolio Page
Your portfolio will help clients to see examples of your writing. They can directly get a feel for what your natural tone and quality of writing is.
Having an extensive portfolio helps to show off what you can do. That way clients won’t need to be constantly asking you to do free sample pieces for them.
When I first started as a writer, I specifically wrote four short blogs and articles on a variety of different topics specifically for my portfolio. If you don’t have any previous experience, this is what I would recommend too. Spend an afternoon and write out a handful of blog posts on topics that you naturally find interesting and want to get paid to write about.
If you’ve got a blog, bylined articles on another website, or any other external examples of your work, you can link out to those from your portfolio page as well. Recently I changed up my own portfolio page to basically be a link to my blogs instead of having samples on the site. That way people can click through and see over 100 examples of blog posts and articles that I’ve written.
Contact Page
If you want people to hire you as a freelance writer, they need to be able to contact you!
Install one of many free contact form plugins for WordPress and then add a contact form to your page. It will allow people to send you a message with their name, email address, and other details.
Truthfully, I haven’t received that many people who just happened to find my website and then contacted me through my contact form. The people who look at my site typically get there because I’ve applied for specific jobs or cold emailed them. Or in some cases, because an existing client has referred them.
So expect to mostly get spam emails through your contact form. But it’s worth having just in case anyone does want to contact you for any reason. Plus it gives a higher sense of credibility to your page, both for real visitors and also for Google.
Optional Pages
If you have your own blog directly on your freelance writing website, then naturally you’ll want to include a link on your menu to that as well. That’s one additional way that people can see examples of your writing, aside from on your portfolio page.
If you happen to sell any products or courses of your own, then you may want to include a page for those too. Alternatively, some freelance writers will have a “services” page where they outline all of the different packages and services that they offer to clients.
In The Footer
In the footer of your website, there are two pages that you absolutely should have.
These are the Terms & Conditions page, and also a Privacy Policy page.
Google wants to see these! It will impact how trustworthy it considers your site, and could affect where you rank in search results. So take the time to include them.
There are some free online templates and forms that you can use to easily create these pages for your website in just a few minutes.
Conclusion
Every freelance writing website should have a home page, an about page, a portfolio page, and a contact page.
In addition to these, you need to have a privacy policy and terms & conditions page in the footer of your website.
Beyond that, you can experiment with adding some extra pages. For example, a services page, or a link to your blog. However, avoid making your menus too cluttered and difficult to navigate.