As a professional in the 21st Century, you need to develop a personal brand. You can think of this as the same concept as a business brand, only for you. It's how you want yourself to be presented to the rest of the professional world – it can also help you get more work. If you do a good job of cultivating and promoting your brand, more and more people will be interested in working with you. This could lead to more freelance opportunities, or it might help you land your dream job at an amazing company.
There's an obvious question to ask: how do you build a personal brand? It's not too difficult, you just have to think about how you want others to perceive you. Focus on your talents and what makes you special. However, the bigger question is what you can do to take your personal brand to the next level. How do you get it out there to a wider audience?
Well, it's possible to do this in one very simple step: build a website.
You've got many options, usually separated into four different ideas:
The first option only works if you have web design experience, and the middle two are cheap, yet have many drawbacks. Seeing as you want your site to showcase your personal brand as best as can be, it needs to be a top-tier site. As you can see on WebX360.com, web design agencies tend to be the best bet for this.
Okay, this is going to showcase your personal brand, so what needs to be on it? Obviously, you need a home page that shows a snapshot of who you are and what you do. It should contain brief details on what work you do, while also showing what you're capable of. Some contact details and a call-to-action are also necessary.
Then, you need other pages, such as:
All of these things create a website that displays all of your greatest talents and makes it easy for people to see them. Users can learn more about you, see examples of your work, and read what others have said about you. A blog is also a really good way to add more content to your site, improving its search engine potential.
Why does a website take your personal brand to new heights? Because it gets your name out there into the world. People have a way of discovering you when searching for services you provide, or topics related to your work. It is an easy way of spreading the word and building brand credibility. When everything is up and running, you should see an increase in inquiries and emails from people interested in your services!
