Creating A Personal Website To Brand Your Online Identity

creating a personal websiteWhat becomes paramount is you taking control of your online identity, this as soon as possible, this before anyone sets their eyes on it. Your online branding begins with a personal website.

It takes five seconds or less for anyone to make a first impression on you. So it’s up to you to make it look good, bad, or indifferent. You have minimal time to show who you are, how you shine, how polished or accomplished you are. Realize the immense power that any first impression has on your target market, it can prove immeasurable.

An initial positive impression can lead to a new client, new employment, or attract that perfect relationship. When it comes to the real world, meeting someone face to face, what you’ve already perfected is your personal brand.

This includes your warm smile, the clothes that you wear, how you carry yourself, how articulate your greeting is, but how can you translate these exact attributes online in the digital world.

Today, we’re completely consumed and influenced by technology. The online world now has it’s claws dug deep into everything that we do, an environment where a our digital stamp is embedded forever.

Whatever you do, there’s always someone who appears that they’re doing things better. It’s a forever moving target where there are now dozens of social media sites, making it difficult to control your “first impression” online.

Your Website Is Your Brand
Your site should be able to project exactly who you are, to project that valuable initial impression of your brand on the Internet. Your name becomes your brand, this becoming particularly important if you freelance, or you’re an entrepreneur who needs to stamp an establishment.

What owning and dictating your identity from the very beginning does is it cuts out all the incoherent reviews or the old or false information of your past, all factors which could affect the initial first few seconds of setting that good first impression.

To generate the best results, make sure that you include your full name in the domain address. Then list your main purpose of what you do, whether it be online marketing, social media promotion, graphic designer, etc.

Plan Beforehand
Before you plan to create your site, make a blueprint. Type up an outline on how you’d like to be viewed, what you would like to communicate. Think and plan exactly what you want to showcase, which includes your skills, services, including testimonials.

Avoid making it look like a resume, such as chronologically listing your education, accomplishments, or previous jobs. Doing so isn’t intriguing enough to keep anyone interested, and most will quickly click away without pursuing contact.

Elements Of A Personal Website

Begin With A Personal Vision Statement
What is it that you’re wanting to contribute, what’s your digital elevator pitch that you’re wanting to tell, what your accomplishments are, concisely boiled down to what makes you, you.

Think of it as being a newspaper subheading, a company tagline or an extrinsic mantra that’s rolled into one. If you’re not wanting to use this as your sites tagline, then use it as an exclamation point for the critical information that you’re wanting to include.

Highlight Your Best Work
If you happen to be a Web designer for instance, that could mean presenting your design portfolio by showcasing your best projects. images, showing off and utilizing all of the various presentation points, this so you can illustrate and make a slideshow of your best work.

Plan to include a section which has links or feeds to all of the social networks that you’re wanting others to connect on. The reason being that any single individual social network won’t capture your entire essence.

So combining them into a central location on your site becomes advantageous, and a way for your audience to view your entire information.

Make It Visually Stunning
We all see, view and judge by what we vision first, that’s our first impression that we make. Thus the reason why a picture tells a thousand words. There’s obvious social proof through the various social media sites such as Instagram, Pinterest, or Snapchat.

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We as humans are visually oriented, this especially online, as images are easier to absorb and comprehend. So having excellent superior visuals to back up your site is a necessity.

So make sure that you invest your time in getting the best images possible, this to capture the best true reflection of who you are, which tells a story of what you do, what your environment and your expressions are.

How To Successfully Brand Yourself
Once your site is constructed, make sure that you run it past a few of your most trusted but hopefully critical confidants that you know. Also show it to complete strangers as well.

This to get back valuable accurate feedback, so you can make all of the changes which are needed, provided that the suggestions are appropriate.

Make those edits and you should then be ready to share your brand with the online world. Never take those criticisms personally, as who you are and how your site looks are completely different entities.

Use the various social networks to promote your site. Begin by posting a link on all your social media profiles. Make it your main website of contact. Send out emails to those you know, along with potential and previous clients, announcing your new site.

Begin by starting small, keep it as simple as possible and then grow your site as your online portfolio grows, this along with how your professional career and endeavors increase.

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