The website and the online channels
A freelance website, blog, mailing list and online marketplace offer different ways to demonstrate expertise, reach prospects and obtain work.
The value of a website
In a 2010 IPSE survey, clients ranked a website or online presence as the least important factor when selecting a freelancer, behind qualifications, price and evidence of training as the leading three factors. Large investments in a website may therefore be less worthwhile than other business-development approaches, while inexpensive options can still support a professional reputation. A free blogging platform can provide a simple website, with therapy-area posts attracting attention from the writer's network.
Website use varied among freelance medical communicators: in a survey published in 2017, 48% of 307 respondents had no business website and 82% used LinkedIn. One freelance with a manageable workload had no website a year into business, relying on a LinkedIn profile and EMWA and BELS listings, and was reluctant to become more public. She nevertheless considered whether a website might attract more good clients. In 2023 another freelance with more than 20 years' experience considered LinkedIn better suited to marketing educational materials for pharmaceutical and biotechnology sales representatives and medical science liaisons: none of the work was public, leaving no shareable samples or links. That writer could not rule out having missed good clients earlier through lacking a website.
By contrast, a freelance coach in 2022 considered a website important for showing professionalism, demonstrating investment in the business and moving prospects towards a contact form without repeated personal sales effort. In her own writing practice, prospects who remained uncertain during email or telephone conversations repeatedly decided to hire her after viewing the website. A site could also build trust by explaining the writer's work and place in the industry, give contacts something to share when making referrals and make the writer discoverable through searches.
Website content and costs
A portfolio on the website can make the writer’s niche, audience and specialisms easier to recognise than a large collection of articles on another platform; sample quality matters more than quantity.
A client-focused website should quickly explain the services, target clients and benefits, using conversational, concise, scannable text with headings and subheadings that emphasise benefits. Much of the content can be adapted from a client-focused LinkedIn profile. Its design should be engaging, clear and easy to navigate; a professional designer can guide development, while poor design can send prospects to other freelances. Essential pages are Home, About, Services, Samples or Portfolio or Work, Testimonials or Clients or both, and Contact, with Home the most important. Services, portfolio and client material can be combined in different ways, and new freelances can add testimonials and client information later. Images should communicate the marketing message, and important messages belong in subheadings.
A six-part website checklist from 2012 recommended:
- Include words potential clients might search for in the text, including text associated with images.
- Choose text and visuals for the target audience, with accurate spelling and grammar and careful alignment.
- Avoid excessive text; use pictures and white space to ease screen and phone reading.
- Provide clearly marked navigation and internal links so visitors can reach detail when needed.
- Seek links from related businesses and link back to them.
- Use a blog to update content, increase search visibility and traffic and keep in touch with clients.
In 2013 one freelance used her website to give more detail about services than directory listings allowed, show client testimonials and link to writing examples on a blog. She linked association and industry listings and social profiles to it and embedded a Twitter feed to keep the homepage updated, considering the channels' contribution to site traffic and search discoverability at least as important as their direct business opportunities.
Professional design and a do-it-yourself builder can each suit different circumstances. In 2015 advice favoured hiring a designer to handle design, search optimisation and country-specific legalities, while the writer produced authentic copy in their own words. A business-name domain and email address could add a professional appearance, although successful freelances also used generic addresses; websites and other profiles needed updating.
One writer built a basic first website in 2002 and hired a designer for a 2008 revision costing nearly $3,000. Researching and writing the expanded content took many hours, but positive client and colleague feedback convinced her the investment was worthwhile. In 2022 another writer described building her first website without prior experience or money to hire help, using it for about a year to eighteen months and readily adding testimonials as work grew. Hiring a professional later was quicker, less stressful and allowed a custom design, but spending $10,000 at the outset was not essential.
A realistic estimate offered in 2022 for a simple site was two to three weeks, covering copy, structure and navigation, design, and production with adjustments. Prior experience could shorten this, while professional development could take several months. An attendee reported four to six hours, which the coach attributed to a template service; greater customisation and branding took longer. Another participant had built a simple first site quickly but spent a month or two on a second. A writer should begin finding clients with the available profile rather than wait for the website to be finished.
In 2012 the free Web Design from Scratch tutorials covered HTML and page structure, creating and linking pages in a text editor, uploading to a server, CSS, JavaScript and search optimisation. They also addressed web copy, landing paragraphs, grammar and marketing, including affiliate marketing and treating each page as advertising; repeated topics made selective reading possible. In 2017 a web-design business owner suggested Squarespace templates for a limited budget.
The blog and the mailing list
A static website can present services, past work, contact details and testimonials, with occasional updates. A blog is also a website, or one section of a website, where new content is published daily, weekly, monthly or at another suitable interval. A newsletter becomes useful when there is new content to send, and each new post can also be shared through social accounts.
Blogging can build a portfolio for a new medical writer without client samples, establish credibility, improve search visibility, connect the writer with a niche, advertise services and provide creative writing practice and experience. Editors and translators may find a running blog less relevant but can still show work examples and services on a website. Examining comparable professionals' sites and asking what they like or dislike can help a writer decide what to build.
An undated comparison distinguished free self-hosted WordPress software, requiring separate hosting, from the hosted WordPress service; both required some learning or paid help. Blogger, Tumblr, Wix and Weebly were described as easier options, mostly with free tiers but fewer features. Mailing services such as ActiveCampaign and MailChimp could deliver new articles to people who did not see social-media posts or preferred inbox delivery. Search-engine optimisation also deserved separate research when blogging and mailing.
In an undated webinar poll, most attendees reported marketing through a website or blog, with referral-only acquisition the second-largest group; the number voting was not recorded.
Freelancing platforms
Freelancing platforms can help writers select projects, explore topics existing clients do not offer, showcase medical knowledge, writing, other languages or graphic-design skills, and track time and payments. In an undated assessment, Upwork was considered the largest of three named platforms for medical-writing opportunities, but admission had become more selective and an undifferentiated medical-writing profile could be difficult to register. Fiverr and Freelancer were considered more general and less targeted at medical writing, potentially making a medical writer's skills more distinctive.
A 2014 review of freelance networks in Germany, Austria and Switzerland distinguished specialist job boards, where companies posted work and freelances registered profiles and skills, from general social and business networks. It described abundant ghostwriting and low-budget content requests, with international competition from writers in India, elsewhere in Asia and Arabic-speaking countries able to charge lower rates; regional networks could offer better opportunities and direct client contact. Most regional networks were German and concentrated on IT and web projects; few medical writers in their databases meant limited competition, but interesting medical-writing offers were only occasional and few offered permanent positions or good pay.
The 2014 comparison showed different access and payment models.
| Network | Access and fees in 2014 |
|---|---|
| Freelancermap | Free registration and project viewing; premium membership needed to apply or read client messages, with fees listed as €14.99 for monthly membership to €6.49 for a two-year arrangement. |
| Freelance | Basic membership allowed a profile, ten job submissions daily and a daily matching report; expert membership at €9.90 monthly added unlimited project access and profile-view information. |
| Projektwerk | Free profile registration; companies could contact starter or premium members, at €8 or €25 monthly respectively. |
| Textbroker | Authors ranked from two to five stars, with new authors applying at three stars; client and platform feedback could raise rank. Rates were 0.7–4 cents per word; short 200–400-word pieces, mostly for IT companies, paid €2–4, with direct requests paying more. |
| Freiberufler-oesterreich | Free registration and project searches, but offers were not visible; matching contacts cost two hours of the author's fee. |
| Servish | Free membership, visible remuneration and a charge of 5% of the author's pay after successful completion. |
Medical-writing work appeared under categories such as graphic, content and media; medicine, healthcare and health; language, text and training; or science, technology, communication and media.