What exactly is a portfolio? And how do you create one if you haven’t done any work?

Well, you start by offering free work to friends, colleagues and family. Does anyone you know need some copy written? Do they know any small businesses who might be interested?

File examples of any work you do in a folder on your computer.

Then offer free work to charities and small businesses in the area. Send letters, write emails or put cards through doors. Start offering low-priced copywriting to businesses in your area. And get yourself a good website, one that gets traffic.

Keep doing this until you have a range of examples of work: web  pages, email letters, direct mail letters, press releases and press ads.

If you aren’t sure how to create these different types of copy, register on the copywriting course here: www.inst.org/copy

On the course, you’ll carry out assignments that will form the basis of your initial portfolio, so it has real-world value. Put the examples of your work in a display book, one that has transparent sleeves. You will take that to local clients, to show them what you can do.

Have a page on your website called Portfolio. Add examples of your work to that page. Ideally, they will be in the form of a clickable thumbnail. That way you give the visitor an overview of your work, and they can examine anything that interests them in more detail. You may need a web person to help you with that.

If you seek work online from sites like Upwork or Guru, you can upload examples of your work to the page they will allocate you. That, too, becomes a portfolio.

So your portfolio comes in many forms: it can be in a physical book, a page on your own website, or a page on a freelance job site.

Try to ensure your portfolio is broad and covers many types of copy and many industries.