How to Build Your Writing Portfolio — When You’ve Run Out of Ideas

Hey Reader

In my last Q&A session, I came across a question I found funny. The person wanted to know how they could keep up the practice of writing consistently. They asked, “Should I just write anything that comes to my head?’

Well, for wannabe content writers, that’s a bit unrealistic because there’ll be days where nothing "comes to your head." Or, what comes to mind may not be well-suited for content writing practice. Still, you have to write so you can build your portfolio.

If you’re reading this, I assume you’re a content writer who’s serious about their growth.

If you are, then you should know by now that there’s one thing we shouldn’t joke about in our line of work, and that is our portfolio.

What Is a Portfolio?

A portfolio is a compilation of the best pieces of your writing, typically used to showcase your skill and competence to a prospective client or employer. Your portfolio is proof that you can write because getting a job goes beyond boldly declaring that you can.

Potential Employer: If you say you can write, show me proof.

That "proof" is your portfolio.

Usually, for entry-level content writers, creating a portfolio may seem tricky because you’ve not gotten a lot of (or any) paid work yet. That’s not a problem, you can curate a portfolio on your own even if you’ve not worked for any clients yet.

How? By coming up with topics by yourself and writing about them to the best of your ability AS IF YOU WERE PRESENTING IT TO A REAL CLIENT.

You’re not just writing because some writer off Instagram (me) said you should write. Each piece you create to build your portfolio performs three key actions:

1. Helps you practice your writing skill
2. Serves as proof of your skill to your potential client
3. Helps you get familiar with the niches you’re writing about

So, don’t consider it a boring, futile prospect of "writing for no reason."

Scenario One:

Imagine seeing a roadside billboard that says “Fresh vegetables inside, from farm to table,” and because you’re craving fresh vegetable salad, you walk into the store to buy some.

But when you get in, what you find is two pieces of shriveled okra sticks in the vegetable aisle. And then you start looking around confused.

You’ll probably never visit that store again.

Scenario Two:

Now, imagine you walked into the store and found two rows of different vegetables, from spinach to kale, lettuce, okra, cabbage, carrots, and bell peppers, all looking super bright, colorful, well-arranged, and ready for you to add to your cart. You’d be excited, right?

This is what your client feels like when you have a well-curated folio with well-written articles that back up your claims of being capable of writing. They get excited because you obviously know your stuff.

Now, to your main challenge...

What Do I Write About in My Portfolio (when my ideas have hit Zero?)

It’s day 35 of February, you’ve exhausted all that you possibly know and have in mind to write and now you’re staring at a blank screen.

You: What should I write about today? *Scratches head*

Let me give you some handy practices that help the writers I’ve previously mentored:

While you’re growing your craft and building your portfolio, training yourself to write in different niches and industries helps you master them quickly and identify your preferred area. You’ll have a more diversified portfolio, too.

Writing articles for one niche per week helps you never to run out of what to write. One of my mentees used to pick out her four writing niches at the beginning of the month. This made it easy for her to stick with her goal of writing for one niche weekly.

For example, In March, you could choose to write two articles a week for each of these niches:

Week 1 - Travel & Leisure

Week 2 - eCommerce

Week 3 - Interior Decor

Week 4 - Plumbing & Home Maintenance

If you stick to this guide, by March 31st, you’ll have at least 8 new articles in your portfolio that can show off your skills to potential clients.

Pro Tip: Remember to get a senior writer to help you review your pieces and give you feedback on their quality (then implement the feedback.)

I’ve found that this is the best way to write content that provides value to your audience. It’s such a useful practice, that even brands use social listening tools to “listen” in on what customers are saying about their industry and the challenges (pain points) they face. The data they gather from this tool is what they then use to provide solutions to their customers' challenges.

But that’s a story for another day.

Research the common challenges your audience is facing in your select niche for the week. Some simple tools can help you with this, so let’s get practical:

My favorite tool for this type of research is “Ask The Public” or you can run a plain old Google Search. In this lesson, I’ll show you how to use Ask The Public.

Say your niche for the week is Interior Decor, and you want to write an article that discusses painting the living room. To find out what your audience’s pain points are, research the keywords on Ask The Public. Fill the keywords “paint living room” into the search bar and click "Search."

The tool will run a search of the entire internet and find what your audience searches for when they need direction for how to paint the living room. Based on the results, you can then draft an attention-grabbing headline for your article.

​Watch this video tutorial to see how I use the tool to research the keyword above.

There are a couple of other strategies that you can use to build your portfolio or practice your writing in general. I share these with the growing writers in my 1:1 mentorship program.

If you’d like to register for this cohort, feel free to indicate interest here.

Alright, that’s all for now. Refresh your mind on what you’ve just learned with these:

Key Takeaways

• You don’t need paid work to curate a portfolio for your potential clients. Curate one yourself by writing well-researched pieces you'd present to real clients.
• As a beginner writer, it helps to diversify your portfolio by writing in different niches.
• Two ways to keep the ideas flowing: a. Choose to write in one niche weekly b. Conduct research with Google Search or Answer The Public to find your audience’s challenges and pain points in your selected niche.

Have more content writing-related questions? Grab my book: “GET CLARITY: 11 Common Questions about Content Writing, Answered” for just $1!

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Okay, I'm getting out of your hair for real, now. Look out for the next issue.

Toodles!

GloryAnn O. | Creative Lead, Writerlize Grooming exceptional writers, and supporting brand growth one post at a time. ​​

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