10 Writer Websites That Kick Butt and Get Clients
Have you been wondering how to create a standout writer website that would impress clients and get you hired?
You know you need one. Without a site, it’s like you’re invisible. You just don’t seem legit, especially if you’re going after online markets.
I’ve talked about writer websites before, and do reviews weekly in Freelance Writers Den, but today I thought I’d just show you some fine examples of successful writer websites. These sites have a few things in common:
- They have clean, uncluttered design.
- You can get a good sense quickly of the type of writing the writer does.
- The clips are presented in a way that’s easy to read.
- It’s easy to figure out how to contact them.
Some of them were done very affordably, too.
Take a look for yourself. There’s a lot of variety in the approach in these sites, and they each have some particular strengths. They’re in no particular order:
- Mary Yerkes – An example of what you can accomplish with the basic WordPress blog site you get when you join the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NAIWE). Clean, simple, and gets the job done with some clips and a really inviting photo that makes her seem happy, professional, and accessible. If you don’t want to learn a lot about WordPress and which host would be best for you, this NAIWE site offer is a turnkey solution. Plus, you get a whole writer support organization thrown into the deal.
- Yolander Prinzel — I likes this site’s all-in-one home page approach (which you’ll notice I sort of adapted for my own site). Note how some of the client mentions are live links to clips, and how she plays up her expertise as a financial writer in her “about me” box. Love the testimonial right at the top, too. Only thing missing here is a nice shot of her for the home page.
- Oscar Halpert – This is one of my favorite writer photos — check out how friendly, approachable and yet business like Oscar is looking here. Also take in his great, concise landing page copy. Shows he knows how to sum it up, one of the big skills pro writers have over amateurs. Most writer sites have too much blather instead of showing they can pack a powerful punch in few words.
- Kristi Hines – The popular Kikolani blogger’s own writer site is a top-ranked one for the search term “freelance writer.” Hines put it all on one page, and it’s clearly working for her. If you have more than one skill, check out how Kristi presents herself smoothly as a writer, blogger, and photographer.
- Sally Bacchetta – A fairly busy-looking site, but packed with clips, and a top-ranker for “freelance writer.” A basic head shot is enough to make her seem friendly and relatable.
- Emily Suess — The Suess’s Pieces blogger takes a risk with the rotating header, as some people won’t be able to see Flash elements, but she makes it work with a great photo that really shows her personality. A top-ranked site for “freelance writer.” For copywriters, she shows you how to lure prospects by crushing the copy on your own site, with her great headline, “Say it with me.”
- Pat Howard – Dig his young attitude in the photos, which also plays into one of his specialties: TV writing. Nice testimonial page. Great example of how to show your personality on your site without oversharing or seeming unprofessional. A simple, effective site.
- David LaMartina – This writer recently joined the Den and got his site done by Sean Platt’s new WordPress design/hosting/support company, OutstandingSETUP. I’d been hearing about this company but hadn’t had a chance to check out their work, and now that I have, all I can say is WOW. Real nice for $17 a month, eh? If you’ve been considering shelling out hundreds to a designer to custom-make your site, you might want to think about this as an alternative. I find many designers are in love with flashy things and don’t know a lot about conversion, where OutstandingSetup’s team understands what your site needs to have, and leaves out the distractions. This is a visually pleasant, clean, simple site that gets the job done on a budget.
- Ed Gandia – The Wealthy Freelancer co-author recently told me he hasn’t updated his writer site in years. You can see why he doesn’t have to, as it’s got everything you need. Especial awesome here: His free-for-subscribers product that’s focused on his prospects, The Software Marketer’s Lead Generation Report. Can you say “Way to build a prospect list?” Also his landing page headline immediately shows he gets his software-company audience: “Results-Driven Copy and Strategy That Resonate with Today’s Overmarketed (and Hard-to-Impress) Technology Buyer.”
- Carol Tice – OK, obviously, I’m biased here. But I did work hard redoing my site, and I do get a lot of nice gigs through it. I’m particularly pleased with my resume page, which is now a tab called Where I’ve Been.
Seen any good writer websites lately? Leave us a link and tell us why you like the site.
P.S. Need feedback on your writer website? In Freelance Writers Den, writers get complimentary website reviews. Find out what’s in the Den by clicking below:
Great sites to and great writers to emulate! Thanks Carol!
Oscar’s site is my favorite. So simple…
Glori Surban recently posted..This Introvert Wants to Enter the Den
Oscar’s website is my favorite too.. Clean and simple..
Interesting mix. Some 3rd rate actor stole my name, so I was unable to make my name my blog address. However, now that I’ve gone commercial on my blog, I’m thinking of starting a subdomain for my portfolio. Do you think that would be appropriate? It would be robschneider.myexistingdomain.org
The longer I read your blogs, the more I want to try out your den mother services. As you manage to say without sounding seriously egotistical, your website “kicks butt.”
While I think having a site is better than nothing, it seems to me most of these have a lot to be desired in the design department. They seem very flat and two-dimensional, and only a couple would I mark as simple and easy to get right off the bat what the writer can do for you. Emily Suess’s site is the best in my opinion in that it has a design that is young, fresh and what most websites look like these days. The rest seem quite dated. I’m in the process of finishing up my site that I built for free via WIX. I don’t mean to promote them directly, but I found they have many templates that can provide a great looking site for freelancers that, I think, makes them competitive with younger up and comers.
Once I have the site up it will cost something like $12 per month for the domain, that’s it. AND I can control the SEO settings of my site too fairly easily.
I just want to throw WIX out there as a possibility since I haven’t seen it mentioned on here and think it’s a great alternative to a professional designer.
Maybe when my site is up I’ll come back to this and post its address so people can see what I’m talking about.
Thanks for the reminder about Wix. They have amazing templates and it’s user friendly. Why isn’t it more popular? I agree with you – some of those sites do look flat. I was kind of surprised 2 or 3 of them were even included as examples to follow.
Rob recently posted..How to Improve Your Writing with Grammarly
I feel a better option than wix is self-hosted wordpress.. There are so many wordpress themes and wordpress is so flexible that you can make it into anything.. For some reason, I am not a big fan of wix..
Vinil recently posted..Few Basics You Must Know About the Security of an Ecommerce Store
I know this is way late, but I’ve just published my site and for anyone who comes across this post, feel free to check it out in terms of what Wix has to offer. I’m not a Wix employee, not trying to promote them, but did a lot of research on which self-website-building platform companies offer the best, most modern-looking templates. I’ve not done the SEO on it yet, but there it is.
Some of those examples are absolutely fantastic! But to some I would say… “White space is your friend.” One of those sites has over 350 words on the home page; another has over 250. Too much! I understand that you chose them for having all of the most important elements of a great site. But let’s not forget to pay attention to the elements that detract in addition to the ones that add value.
I believe you also have a separate ‘writer site’ just like Kristi, do you really recommend it for all the others, Carol?
Ali recently posted..Finally, Master The Art Of Writing Killer Headlines In 25 Minutes
Really depends on what you’re trying to do. If you mainly want to get paid blogging work, a blog with a ‘hire me’ tab might work.
I separated mine because the audience were sort of opposite — writers and then business clients. I wanted to be able to talk about problems with clients freely…and didn’t want that to be the first thing prospects saw when they looked me up, too.
Makes sense
Ali recently posted..At Last: Google Answers ‘Are My Pages Indexed In Google?’
Some of them appear jammed-up. Too much writing in a small space. What I like is the fact that they all appear to be well managed and very functional, which is a big seller.
Thanks for giving some examples of how basic a site can be and still generate business.
J. Delancy recently posted..The Last Taboo: The Truth About Senior Citizen Sex
There’s definitely a variety of approaches here. I personally prefer less copy and more whitespace…though I have a hard time cutting it down on my own site!
These are great portfolio examples – I was very surprised to find mine in there too! I’m into minimalism, and wasn’t sure how that would translate when it came to attracting clients. But so far, the design has worked well as I get most of my requests through that site vs. my blog. Thanks for featuring it!
Kristi Hines recently posted..40+ Tips on How to Become a Social Media Rock Star on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+
I liked most of them. I think that some of them are a bit typical, dusty writers’ sites (sorry). However, 90% of them are great and I spent a long time looking through them and what they offer.
I’m quite impressed.
Anne @ A Blogger’s Books recently posted..Common Misused Words In English
Agree with Vinil. I use a WordPress template I purchased, and although it took me a while to figure out where to stick my widgets (yes, it was as painful as it sounds) and I still need some design help with my background, I’m happy with the set up.
Carol, your blog has been the biggest help to me in relaunching my freelance career, especially the posts on improving your website and writing LOIs and queries. Many, many thanks…
My pleasure!
Also, thanks for sharing the other writers’ sites! Emily’s rocks. I know we deal in words, but Marisa has a good point about design. It is an important element on our sites as it makes the first impression before our words have a chance.
Amanda Cleary Eastep recently posted..Someone Tell the Librarian—Are You Doing These 3 Things to Enhance Your Internal Communications?
All great sites, but if I may, *insert subtle self-plug here* http://systemato.com/services/content-writing/
I see what you mean about Oscar’s photo. It’s a nice mix of friendliness and professionalism.
Missy recently posted..oDesk Scam Artists: Signs Writers Need to Look For
This was rather interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed working my way through it.It has motivated me to do a better job of my own blog, as I tend to find it quite difficult to come up with any good ideas to post to be fair but it has certainly broadened my horizons. I was curious what plugins you may use to help your SEO and if you can share any tips on that subject I would be very grateful? I would appreciate any advice on how to get a wordpress blog to rank as well as yours. Keep up the good work.Kind regards.
Great article, great examples, great inspiration for my own new site. Thanks.
Cash Tilton recently posted..Call Her “Ms. Wizard”
Carol, I love you site and your articles. GREAT advice. Keep up the good work!
Fantastic list! And such a needed resource. I recently revamped my online portfolio (I blog at a different site) and went for a super clean, minimalist design. I ended up doing the same for my blog and services for writer’s website as well.
One thing I felt truly revolutionized my portfolio was having a straight-forward client list. Before I had a very long list of every project I’d ever worked on. I’m a generalist writer who specializes in travel, but I have a very diverse set of clients. It was impossible to figure out what I was doing and with who.
Instead I created a simple client list that anyone could easily skim. Then on the right-hand column, I built out a widget that read “Get my clips by specialty” so someone could easily click on “travel writing” or “custom content” or “TV promos”.
It’s also improved my mindset. I loathed my portfolio before, so I was never updating it or sending it out. Now I’m proud of it and it’s easy for me to see how much I’ve accomplished as a writer.
Susan recently posted..How Snow Skiing in a Bikini with a Toddler Helped My Career Outlook
Thanks for sharing the writer sites. Extra kudos to Kristi Hines, Sally Bacchetta, and Emily Suess for the mobile-friendly sites. This is especially important if readers come to your site from social media or email – around half of that traffic comes from mobile. (And responsive WordPress themes are the norm now.)
Great information! Thank for sharing these freelance writing sites.
I do think however that copywriting agencies have gotten a bad rap over the years due to all the low quality content that keeps cropping up. Hiring a writing team versus hiring a single freelance individual writer is simply a no brainer. When hiring a writing team, personally I think it adds more value to the client because not only do you have a quality writer, you also have an editor and a content coordinator. This to me ensues the most quality.
Julia McCoy recently posted..How To Bond (Personally) With Your Blog Readers
I’d like to point out that Julia appears to work for a writing ‘team.’ Hiring one can also be a way to spend a lot, and for writers to earn less.
Many companies don’t have the budget for this, and manage their own editing in-house just fine. I always advocate writers be part of an agency type setup only when it gives them access to a major client they could not freelance for directly.
Hi Carol,
I do maintain a writing agency, and writers are paid over $1.2-2K monthly in my agency. Your entire argument was based on the presumption that agency prices are high. Have you heard of $15/blog? Well, we charge that rate. Our prices are lower than the standalone fastidious “copywriters’” rates.
So writers are paid $15 a blog post and making $2K a month? That math seems to add up to having to write more than 130 posts a month…where I make a similar amount writing 15 or 20 posts.
Or that writers are getting $8 of that, and need to write 250 or more posts in a month to earn that rate?
You’re not convincing me going through an agency is a better way to go here as a freelance writer, especially yours…going with a really low-pricing agency isn’t an improvement over using one that gets professional rates from clients.
Hi, all!
I too have been pondering about the creation of my own website. As a freelance writer, I’m ready to move up in the world from my meager beginnings of just making ends meet. Recently, I’ve been creating a blog sequence about the steps to take for someone who knows absolutely nothing about web design (me) to come out shining.
The above blog post left me with a great idea of what I can shoot for!
Jessi