The #1 Feature of all Top Personal Brands

It's that you own your online personal brand. 

How do you do that?  A very well put together personal website on a domain name that you own.

Social networks are part of it, yes, but you don't own the domain twitter.com or facebook.com.

Your only goal from social is to drive traffic to your personal or company's website...

Your online presence is not 100% about your personal website, but if you’re doing a good job, your personal website will be the focal point.

According to Forbes, a strong personal website is a big piece of the puzzle.  But before we dig into that, should you even be bothering with your personal brand?  Here's three reasons it may be helpful to your career goals:

• It positions you as an authority.
• It provides a foundation for your personal and professional interests.
• Personal brands build context.

If you think any of those could help you, here's 3 smart ideas to consider while building or improving your personal website.

1.  Have somewhere people can sign up via email for updates.  Create a checklist, guide, or give away a short e-book in so that you're immediately giving visitors something of value, and not just a newsletter subscription. Nobody wants one of those.  Just typing 'company newsletter' makes me vomit a little.

And actually, you should have multiple offers.  If I land on your site, I might be more inclined to look at a checklist than download an e-book I know I'm never going to make time to read. Be conscious of this, and check your analytics to see what performs best.

PS Free checklists and one page guides are trending right now as we go into 2017.  

2.  Connect it to your best looking and active social profiles.  Use at least 3 of the popular social media networks. I'd recommend Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but this can vary based on your industry and niche.  Having links to social networks can boost 

How can you tell how credible a website is?  What if you want to learn more about the person behind it?  What if you have shared connections with them.  All of these are questions a powerful personal brand will seemlessly answer. 

3.  Be Geniune.  According to Mike Kilcoyne, a Most Viewed Writer on Quora.com.  He says be geniune and authentic.  The hard part is connecting that to your services and products. Mike has grown over 3

This will likely change as you go through your career and it’s very important to keep a personal website in addition to your startup's website.  As you grow into your career, you will become known for what you really excelled at, but only if it's easy for people to find online.

Learn more about how we help our clients launch personal websites and draft their blog posts for them.