Hey freelance friend!

As you know, I’ve been doing a lot of marketing updates so far this year. One thing that really needed some work was my portfolio. For the last several years, I used Contently, which let me manually aggregate portfolio pieces. But over time, it became outdated and was extremely disorganized. Sometimes I’d see other freelancer portfolios on their websites or other platforms and think they look way sharper and professional than mine.

The motivation to make a change finally came when one of my former clients laid off their entire content team and decided to discontinue the company blog. I realized my byline articles may not exist on their website for much longer, which was disappointing because they’re one of my few data journalism clients.

Big corporate name + niche skill = I need those writing samples!

After doing some research and talking to other writers, I decided to try out Authory. There are tons of features that freelancers love, but I chose it because it actually saves copies of your online work. So many of us have lost live bylines because of casualties of the Google manual delistings and other algorithm changes that started in 2024. I have no track record of pieces I wrote for CNN Underscored or USA Today Blueprint during that time.

But my Authory portfolio creates automatic backups - so no matter what happens to my clients’ future content marketing plans, my writing samples are safe and sound.

Have you taken a look at your portfolio lately, wherever you host it? If you haven’t, schedule in 15 minutes this week to reorganize, check old links, and add some of your latest and greatest work. It’s a simple chore, but sending out your freshly polished portfolio will give you so much more confidence when reaching out to potential clients!

I hope your week is off to a great start. If you have a moment, shoot me an email and let me know what’s happening in your freelance world!

Lauren