In a hyperconnected and online world, especially after the Covid-19 crisis, and thinking that you probably want to enhance your personal brand, having your own “personal website” seems to be essential.
There are many advantages offered by having a personal website, I detail some:
- Have your own space in the online world, controlled by you. It is possibly the only online space where you establish the rules. You decide the image that will have, what content will appear and what will not, if it is visible or private, if you update it or not, …
- Position yourself in the search engines. What in marketing is called “visibility”. Having your own website makes it easy for the audience or people seeking information to find you, your company, your products, and services. Facilitating this meeting with your target audience and directing it to the place you control is great.
- Having your own “digital image”, which could be a “digital positioning”, your showcase on the net. Nowadays, when we know of a brand, company, product, service, … the first thing we do is “google it”, if it does not appear among the first mentions or we are suspicious, do you imagine that someone wrote your name or personal domain in the search engine and your personal web page hosted on it appear among the first mentions? …
- Differentiate yourself. Today there are still a minority of professionals who have their own website, so if you bet on having a web presence, you are already differentiating yourself from many professionals.
- It is a fantastic channel to communicate, retain or even sell. Your clients and potential clients will have one more way to communicate with you, and you to reach them with whatever objective. In addition, it is a compatible channel and perfectly connectable with the other digital communication channels that you already use.
- Share with others what you want to be known about you, who you are, what you do, how you can help them, your training, professional experience, achievements, testimonials from other customers, the products you sell or the services you provide, ways to contact with you, your advice and experiences … and, ultimately, useful and quality content that builds credibility and trust, and improves your reputation and personal prestige.
- Reach out to so many people. The fact that your website is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and that it is also accessible from any place and device with an internet connection, allows (almost) anyone in the world to know about you anywhere moment easily and quickly.
- Have more knowledge of your target audience. Today, you have free and simple web analytics tools at your disposal that will allow you to obtain valuable information from your audience. You will know what content interests them, at what times and days you receive visits, from what types of devices, in which countries or areas, how they have found you, with what keywords they have associated you … and many other things.
- To convert. Your personal website can become the tool to capture an audience, convert it into potential clients, later into clients, or even loyal clients or fans, in short, an engine for sale and conversion.
You should also know that, having a good personal website forces you to:
- Have your own domain. You must hire your domain, the name you are going to give to your website. When talking about your personal brand, I recommend a domain that is closest to your real name (in my case I opted for www.xaviroca.com). In case your domain is busy, I suggest some combination using your middle name (if you have it), your middle name (if you have it) … or add a word that relates to your profession (ex: photo, coach, advisor, architect, lawyer …). Try that the domain is not very long, that it is easy to remember and write, and the same in the different languages that interest you. If you do not have a domain yet, I advise you to buy it as soon as possible.
- Invest some time and money. You must invest some money with a web programmer, graphic designer … If you are proficient with new technologies, you may dare to create your own website with free platforms such as WordPress or Blogger. It is not very complicated, but for most professionals it is usually better to have external help (which will make you invest some money). And you must also invest time. Not only when you are creating it, but later to keep it updated, generate content … If you are not willing to invest time and some money, forget about having your personal website.
- Promote the website. There’s no use in having a great website if you don’t promote it. You must include your address in your other communication elements (business card, email signature, social networks …) to make it known and attract traffic to it.
- Publish quality content periodically. You will need to generate content of interest to your target audience on a regular basis. I always advise mixing a web page (with more static content) with a blog (with more dynamic content) to get the website moving. It will be difficult to get a good search engine ranking if you do not generate quality periodic content. It will also be more difficult for you to gain credibility and reputation if you do not bring value and usefulness to others in the form of content.
In any case, I can assure you that these efforts in time and money are worth it. In a more than ever online environment, having your own personal website can help you a lot. And one last tip about your personal website: “Don’t wait to be perfect to start; start and then try to be perfect”.
