A valuable resource for sharing your work?
By Anttoni J Numminen
Screengrab of the Journo Portfolio website.
Disclaimer: The author received a free version of the Journo Portfolio page as part of the review.
As a freelancer and a student journalist, it’s important to be able to keep your past work in an accessible place but also at an affordable price, and there are several platforms from Muckrack to basic WordPress accounts that cater to this.
Alternatively, a popular option among many freelance journalists, bloggers and copywriters, in particular, is Journo Portfolio.
I first signed up about two years ago, when the full version was free for registered students. Now if you’re a student, you can still get an academic discount of 50% by sending an email to support@journoportfolio.com from your academic email (to prove you're a student) and they say they'll send you a coupon code, which is still decent.
But they do offer a basic free version that guarantees a “.journoportfolio.com” domain name, allows you to upload up to 10 Articles, and has one Home Page. Especially if you’re a student journalist or only starting to gather commissions and articles, this could be a great way to start.
You can also upload as many articles as you like with the free version, though only ten articles of your choice will be visible to people visiting your page. You can also have links to your social media accounts and include photos and a biography to go along with it.
One of the things I most like about Journo Portfolio is how customisable it is to suit various styles, needs and looks, which can give you added credibility as a writer.
Importantly, not only is it a place for you to keep your articles, but it acts as a resumé of your work that editors and other writers can look over. When pitching articles, in addition to linking to individual pieces, I also usually link back to my Journo Portfolio page which allows editors to get a better idea of my past work and experience.
The website also offers two paid subscription plans, currently priced at £3.75 for the ‘Plus’ plan and £7.50 for the appropriately named ‘Pro’ version.
The Plus plan is in many ways similar to the free version, but it allows you to showcase an unlimited number of articles (which can be very handy) and it also lets you expand from the basic Home page to as many other pages as you like, and I’ve come across some creative uses of this feature.
As of now, I’ve personally opted for a Home page with all my selected bylines, a blog page with updates that I’ve written specifically for my Portfolio page (which I’ve underused so far), and Blog, Contact, and Featured In pages. But your needs and imagination are really the limit with this version.
However, if you feel like you need to go the extra mile, the Pro version is there for you. In addition to the features of the Plus version, it comes with quite a few extra features, including Password Protected Portfolio, Automatic Article Import, Advanced Integrations.
The Pro plan also lets you create a unique username, which means you don’t even have to go with the “.journoportfolio.com” ending.
On the whole, if you’re looking for a place to showcase your articles and want to be able to modify and display them in different ways, the Journo Portfolio is a good place, including the free version. But do also hunt around as many other websites have very decent free versions.
You can find my current portfolio page here.
