Make a Copywriting Portfolio Website: 15 Examples + Process

Let’s be honest – sending cold pitches sucks when you’re a freelance copywriter. Finding clients can take a lot of time, and more importantly, time spent pitching clients is time when you’re not getting paid.

Wouldn’t it be better if you could get clients to come to you instead?

With a copywriting portfolio website, you can hang your shingle online. Not only does this make you look more professional for the times when you do pitch clients, but it also means that clients can start finding you all by themselves.

Once a client lands on your site, it can do the work of convincing them that you’re the right person for the job. And from there, the client can reach out directly via your contact page.

Now, you might be saying, “I’m a writer, not a web developer. I don’t have the time or money to create a portfolio website”. Well – creating your own portfolio website to sell your copywriting services might be a lot easier than you think. Just keep reading…

In this post, you’re going to learn how to build your site without needing to be a web developer and without needing to invest a bunch of time. We’ll start with some information on what your portfolio should include, along with some real copywriting portfolio examples. Then, we’ll get into the step-by-step guide on how to build a copywriting portfolio with WordPress.

What Is the Purpose of a Copywriting Portfolio?

At a high level, the main purpose of a copywriting portfolio from your perspective is that it helps you find more work and earn more money. More importantly, it also helps you spend less time achieving these goals.

Creating a quality portfolio website is a big part of switching your client pipeline thought process from “I need to search for clients” to “clients search for me and reach out when they want to hire me”.

Personally, since launching my own copywriting portfolio website (and getting a few bylines linking to it), I’ve never had to cold-pitch a client. For at least the past six years, I’ve had a full client pipeline, all without ever pitching anything myself.

Achieving that should be the main purpose of your copywriting portfolio.

From your potential clients’ perspectives, the purpose of your copywriting portfolio is to help them decide whether or not you’re the right person for the job. It also gives them a way to get in touch with you if they’re interested in hiring you.

This also makes their lives easier because they don’t need to waste a bunch of time posting ads around the internet and dealing with writers who may or may not be qualified.

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What Should Your Copywriting Portfolio Include?

While you have a lot of flexibility in how you set up your freelance writing portfolio, there are some core elements that all portfolios should include (or that you should at least consider including):

Samples of your work
Information about the services that you offer
The industries and business types that you focus on
Details about your experience
Testimonials from existing clients
A contact form or other straightforward way to get in touch with you

With respect to the actual samples of your work, you should consider the following notes:

Make sure that you’re showcasing your best work. Beyond the quality of the work itself, you’ll also want to try to highlight your most noteworthy clients.
Share different types of content in different niches (if applicable). For example, if you offer both landing page copywriting and long-form blog posts, you’ll want to include samples of both types of work.
Explain the piece if needed. If you’re sharing blog posts, you probably don’t need to add any extra context. But for landing pages, it can be helpful to share a little bit about your thought process and how the landing page performed.

Not all portfolios need to include every single item – you’ll see that some of the real freelance copywriting portfolio examples that we dig into below don’t include every single element. But in general, you should aim to incorporate as many as possible.

In-Depth Look at a Real Copywriting Portfolio Example

To make those ideas more concrete, let’s walk through a real copywriting portfolio – my own.

While my portfolio isn’t perfect (and your portfolio doesn’t need to be perfect, either), it has helped me develop a solid pipeline of clients and be successful as a freelance copywriter.

Most copywriting portfolios will typically include core pages such as the homepage, about page, and contact page, as well as a dedicated portfolio page that showcases your work.

On your homepage, you want to specify exactly what type of copywriting you offer. This could be a specific type of content – e.g. “long form blog posts” – and/or a specific type of client/industry – e.g. “SaaS companies”.

On my own portfolio, I specify that I write about topics involving WordPress, and you’ll see this same formula on pretty much every copywriting portfolio example below:

To showcase your actual work, you’ll typically want to create a dedicated portfolio page, though some writers showcase work in other areas, such as on the homepage or on the about page.

For my portfolio, I created a dedicated portfolio page. On this page, I used categories to divide my work into three different categories. I only write long-form blog posts, so I didn’t need to showcase different types of work. But I did want to let potential clients see my work across a few different areas:

At the bottom, I include CTA buttons to either view my writing services or visit my contact page:

Based on my own experience, one thing that I would emphasize again is that your portfolio does not need to be perfect – it just needs to be good enough to get you work.

I know that my portfolio could be improved in certain areas (especially because I haven’t updated it in a long time, which is a phenomenon you’ll see with a lot of successful writers).

But while it’s not perfect in every way, it is good enough that I haven’t needed to cold pitch a client in over six years. For me, that’s all I really care about. I recommend you think about your portfolio in the same way.

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14 More Copywriting Portfolio Examples to Inspire You

When you’re trying to create your own portfolio, looking at a copywriting portfolio example from a successful writer is a great way to get some inspiration.

To that end, we’ve rounded up another 14 real-life examples from successful copywriters. These examples cover a range of different styles and niches, so there should be some inspiration for everyone.

Crazy Cat Copy

Crazy Cat Copy is a copywriting portfolio example from Rachel Amies, an Australia-based copywriter.

Her dedicated portfolio page shows a three-column grid that lists her various projects. Below the grid, she also includes client testimonials (though you can’t see these in the screenshot above).

If users click the View Project button, they’ll see a dedicated page for that portfolio item that includes full-page images of her work on that project.

Michael Kravitz

Michael Kravitz is a copywriter who offers website copy, blog posts, product descriptions, and other types of content.

He used WordPress.com to create a simple portfolio of his work. To help potential clients find examples that match their needs, he divides his portfolio into different sections.

Michael’s portfolio is a great reminder that you don’t need to pay a designer to create a completely custom look – sometimes simple and straightforward is all you need.

Joel Klettke

Joel Klettke is a well-known SaaS and B2B copywriter who has worked with clients like HubSpot and WP Engine.

His dedicated portfolio page shows his work and highlights some key data-backed improvements. For his example, his HubSpot landing page variant led to 20% more visitors signing up.

If you’re in the conversion copywriting space, including this type of data (with a client’s permission, of course) is a great way to showcase your value.

He also does a great job of including testimonials in the sidebar.

Amy Harrison

Amy Harrison has been working as a copywriter since 2008. She has one of the simpler freelance writing portfolios on this list, but it’s clearly helped her have a successful career spanning multiple decades.

Instead of listing individual portfolio items, Amy just showcases some of her clients on her about page, along with a generous number of detailed client testimonials sprinkled around her site.

Jen Havice (Make Mention Media)

Jen Havice is a successful freelance copywriter who does business through her Make Mention Media website.

To showcase individual pieces of content, Jen just goes with a simple list approach. However, if you browse around her entire site, she does a great job of explaining her services and sharing testimonials from happy clients.

Laurence Blume

Laurence Blume is a UK-based copywriter who works with companies in a range of different industries.

His portfolio site offers an array of different writing samples. He also goes above and beyond, letting potential clients filter by both work type and sector.

Gari Cruze

Gari Cruze is a copywriter and creative director who works directly with brands as well as with agencies. His copywriting portfolio website gets straight to the point, with an image grid that displays his work.

Potential clients can click on any one of the portfolio items to see more work about the project.

Dave Harland

Dave Harland is a Liverpool-based freelance copywriter who can help with both print and digital publications.

For his portfolio, he lists portfolio items in a grid. At the top, he offers a number of filter items. Visitors can click these filter buttons to filter the relevant portfolio items without needing to reload the page.

If you want to achieve a similar effect for your copywriting portfolio, you can use a dedicated WordPress portfolio plugin – more on that later.

Apryl Beverly

Apryl Beverly is a freelance copywriter who does business via her BAAB Writing and Marketing Services brand.

While Apryl doesn’t showcase individual pieces of content in her portfolio like some other writers, she does a great job of explaining her services in detail and sharing lots of detailed testimonials from her happy clients.

Marijana Kostelac

Marijana Kostelac is a freelance copywriter who works with SaaS and marketing brands.

On her portfolio page, she explains a little bit more about what she focuses on and then shares a grid of some of her notable work. At the top and bottom, there’s also a CTA to go to her contact page.

Brittany Berger

Brittany Berger is a freelance copywriter who coined the term “content remixing”. On her portfolio site, she really leans into this “remixing” angle as a way to brand herself and help her stand out when compared to other writers.

She shares lots of great informational content and testimonials, as well as some of her published work on her “Applause” page.

Elise Dopson

Elise Dopson is a freelance copywriter who offers “journalistic B2B content” for companies like CoSchedule, HubSpot, and more.

She opts for a simple style to showcase her work. Instead of including images, she just uses a simple unordered list.

Below that, she also includes some hard numbers on how she helped improve a piece of content for Shopify.

Kaleigh Moore

Kaleigh Moore is a well-known copywriter who’s worked with a range of eCommerce and SaaS companies including Stripe and Shopify.

She opts for a simpler style, just listing some of her featured work. One thing she does very well is to also include prominent contact buttons above and below her work, along with a testimonial from one of her clients.

Alex Cattoni

Alex Cattoni is a freelance copywriter who’s done an excellent job of branding herself, which has helped her move beyond just writing and into other areas such as speaking and strategy.

In general, her portfolio website is very polished and well-designed. While she doesn’t list individual pieces of work like some other writers, she does include very detailed testimonials that include actual data on how she helped those businesses.

How to Create a Copywriting Portfolio With WordPress

Now that you know the theory and have some inspiration, let’s get into the actual step-by-step process of how to build a copywriting portfolio using WordPress.

Collect the Work That You Want to Include In Your Portfolio

Before you get into the technical aspects, you’ll want to think about the actual work that you want to include in your copywriting portfolio.

Try to collect projects that cover all the different services that you offer, rather than just focusing on one area. Of course, if you only offer one type of copywriting, that’s all you need to focus on.

For example, let’s say you offer landing page copy, blog posts, and email copy.

As part of your portfolio, you’d want to include examples of all three types of work, instead of only including blog posts that you’ve written.

And remember – you don’t need to collect every piece of content; you just want the best.

If you want to include data about conversions (such as the Joel Klettke copywriting portfolio example above), you should reach out to your client and ask for permission before including any hard data in your portfolio.

Create Your WordPress.com Account to Make a Site

Once you’ve collected the work that you want to include in your copywriting portfolio, you’re ready to get into the technical aspects of setting up your WordPress portfolio website.

With WordPress.com, you don’t need to mess around with hosting or installing the WordPress software.

Instead, all you need to do is sign up for a WordPress.com account, choose a pre-made design, and add your portfolio content.

For a very simple portfolio, you might be fine using the free WordPress.com plan. For example, Michael Kravitz, whose portfolio we featured above, created his portfolio using the free WordPress.com plan.

However, there are also a lot of benefits to using the WordPress.com Business plan for your portfolio site. Most notably, it lets you install your own custom WordPress plugins and themes:

Plugins let you add new features to your site. While WordPress.com already includes all the core features that you need for a portfolio site, being able to install your own plugins can help you enhance key areas. For example, you might want to use a dedicated WordPress portfolio plugin to add features such as letting potential clients search and filter your portfolio items.
Themes let you control the core design of your site. While WordPress.com includes lots of theme options by itself (including themes that work great for portfolios), being able to upload your own custom themes would let you use a dedicated portfolio theme from any developer. This gives you even more flexibility for controlling the design of your site.

Once you create your account and make a new website, WordPress.com will take you through an onboarding wizard to help you quickly configure some important basics.

If you want a deeper look at the basic process of launching your site, check out our step-by-step guide on how to build a website from scratch with WordPress.com.

Over the next few steps, though, we’re going to hit the highlights for the core steps that you need to complete to make a copywriting portfolio.

Select a WordPress Theme (Or Upload a Third-Party Theme)

Once you create your WordPress.com account, you should be prompted to choose your preferred WordPress theme as part of the setup process.

To find themes that work best for a portfolio, you can use the Portfolio filter:

If you use the WordPress.com Business plan, you’ll also have the option to upload one of the thousands of third-party WordPress portfolio themes, as well.

Again – if you want a more in-depth look at setting up these types of foundational elements, check out our full guide on how to make a website with WordPress.com.

Write Your Content and Add Key Pages

At this point, you have a solid foundation for your copywriting portfolio website. Now, you’re ready to start adding your own content and making it your own.

In addition to the actual portfolio page(s) that list your work, your overall portfolio website will also need a few other core pages at a minimum:

Homepage – while you could just make your homepage your portfolio list, it’s usually better to create a more general landing page. You want to quickly communicate your main services and value proposition so that potential clients can quickly gauge whether you have the potential to meet their needs.
About page – provide some general information about your experience, your background, and so on.
Services page – provide information about which services you offer, such as long-form blog posts, email copywriting, etc.
Contact page – make it easy for potential clients to get in touch. Typically, you’ll want to create a contact form that can ask some basic qualification questions about clients, such as what type of work they’re interested in, their budget, and so on. You can set up a form using the WordPress.com Form block.

To get started, you can write the copy for those pages in your preferred writing tool, which will make it easier to edit and refine your copy.

Once you’re happy with the copy, you can create the actual pages in WordPress by going to Pages → Add New in your WP Admin.

Don’t worry about creating the dedicated portfolio page yet – WordPress.com includes a dedicated portfolio project feature, which we’ll cover in the next section.

Add Portfolio Items and Set Up Portfolio Page

To create your actual copywriting portfolio page, you have two main options:

You can create a static page that showcases your work.
You can use the WordPress.com Portfolio Projects feature, which lets you add portfolio items through a dedicated interface and then automatically display them.

Alternatively, you could also consider a dedicated WordPress portfolio plugin if you’re using the WordPress.com Business plan. However, most copywriting portfolios don’t need the advanced features that these plugins offer, so you should be fine with one of the two methods above.

If you plan to regularly add new portfolio items, using the Portfolio Projects feature can make it easy to manage each individual item in your portfolio. On the other hand, if you want to just create a static portfolio that doesn’t ever change, you might be better off adding it as a static page.

Static Page Option

If you want to add your portfolio as a static page, you can just go to Pages → Add New and add the content of your portfolio using the regular WordPress editor.

WordPress.com Portfolio Projects Feature

If you want to use the WordPress.com Portfolio Projects feature, you first need to enable it by following these instructions:

Open your site’s WP Admin on WordPress.com.
Navigate to Settings → Writing.
Scroll down to the Content types settings.
Use the toggle to Enable Portfolio Projects.
Use the Display [x] per page option to choose how many portfolio items to display on a single page.

Once you enable this feature, you can go to Portfolio → Add New in your WP Admin to add a new portfolio item.

From the sidebar, you can also add Project Types and Project Tags to organize your portfolio items:

Project Types – use these for high-level organization. For example, you might have different types for “Landing Page Copy”, “Blog Posts”, “Email Copy”, and so on.
Project Tags – these are optional. You can use them for more granular details, such as the niche/industry of a project. For example, you might have tags for “SaaS”, “B2B”, “B2C”, and so on.

Basically, you want to use Project Types and Tags to organize your portfolio items in a way that makes it easy for potential clients to find the work that they’re interested in.

When you’re happy with things, Publish the portfolio item and then repeat the same steps to add more items to your portfolio.

By default, WordPress.com will create a page at yoursite.com/portfolio to list your portfolio items.

However, you can also manually place your portfolio using blocks or a shortcode. You can learn more about these display methods in the WordPress.com Portfolio Projects documentation.

Publish Your Website

Once you’re happy with how your copywriting portfolio looks, the final step is to publish your website to make it live.

For detailed instructions, check out the full guide on how to publish your website.

If you want, you can also choose a custom domain name for your portfolio website. For example, instead of using jamesbond.wordpress.com, you can use jamesbondwriting.com.

Or, if you’re not ready to do that quite yet, you can always add a custom domain name later.

To learn how domains work, check out the full WordPress.com domains documentation.

Create Your Copywriting Portfolio Today

If you want to attract more work with less effort, creating a copywriting portfolio website is a great way to increase your visibility with potential clients and convert them into paying customers.

With the examples and information above, you should now have a good idea of what your own copywriting portfolio should look like and what types of information to include.

If you want to get started without needing to mess around with technical details, WordPress.com offers the easiest solution for how to build a copywriting portfolio.

For a simple copywriting portfolio, you could be fine with the free plan.

If you want access to WordPress portfolio plugins and third-party themes, you can upgrade to the WordPress.com Business plan for even more flexibility.

To get started, register for a WordPress.com account today and you’ll have your own copywriting portfolio up and running in no time.

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How to Make a Copywriting Portfolio Website: 15 Examples + The Process