Clips are samples of your published articles, and creating an impressive article or clip portfolio can land you a job in journalism. Editors like online clip portfolios because they're an effective way to show off your work, and having one shows you have some web skills. So here are six steps to creating your own online clip portfolio.
1. Decide: Do You Want a Blog or a Website?
There are pros and cons to both. A blog can be set up for free using services like Blogger, and they're generally very easy to use. A website takes a little more time and expertise to set up and will cost a little money, but it will give your portfolio a more polished, professional look.
2. If You Decide On a Blog, Pick One.
As I mentioned, Blogger is free and I've found it to be quite easy to use. Here are instructions for creating an online clip portfolio using Blogger.
3. Want a Website? Choose a Web Host.
The host provides the server where your website will be located. Some are quite cheap, but look for ones that provide good tech support as well.
There are free web hosts out there as well, and some examples are listed below. But unless you're on a very tight budget it's probably worth it to spend a little money to have a more professional-looking site. Along those lines, it's very impressive if you have a custom domain name specifically for your site, such as (in my case) TonyRogers.com.
Free web hosts:
- Google Sites allows you to create web pages quickly and easily for free.
- Webs allows you to create a free website. Hundreds of different templates are available.
- Homestead is geared toward e-commerce sites. It has a 30-day free trial.
- Weebly allows you to create a free website and blog.
- Wix allows you to create more sophisticated-looking Flash sites.
4. Choose Your Webpage-Creation Software.
You can find free software here and at CNET.com. Two programs I recommend:
- Nvu allows you to create web pages and manage a website with no technical expertise or knowledge of HTML.
- PageBreeze is another webpage-making program; it includes a drag-and-drop form builder.
5. Archive Your Clips
If your stories are online, archiving them can be as easy as posting a link on your website or blog. But if your publication doesn't maintain a web archive or deletes online articles after a few weeks you'll need to create your own copies. The programs listed below allow you to create jpegs or PDFs of webpages.
- Pearl Crescent Page Saver is an extension for Mozilla Firefox that lets you capture images of web pages that can be saved in PNG or JPEG format.
- HTML to PDF Converter lets you convert the webpage that contains your story into a pdf file.
Once you've converted your articles into jpegs or PDF files, it's easy to upload them to your blog or website.
6. Don't Forget Your Resume
Your online clip portfolio should also include your resume, which you can easily upload to your blog or website as a Word document or PDF file. Here are tips on creating a great resume.
