Not long ago, the internet was a luxury, reserved for the select few. Today, anyone can establish an online presence with under US$10. And nowadays, with tools like WordPress and Wix, you don’t even have to know how to code. But do you really need your own website?
Here are four reasons to have a personal website:
1. You get to control your personal brand
77% of employers say they google candidate’s names as part of the hiring process. For most of us, they won’t find anything meaningful – probably a few tweets, or articles you’ve written. By having a personal website, you get to control your narrative, and what others see when they search you. You get to show recruiters the REAL you, and I think that’s a very powerful thing to be able to do.
2. It’s a useful way to show your creativity
The thing with a CV/resume is that, while you can add some design to it, you are somewhat limited in the amount of creativity you can show. They have to be straight to the point. Websites give you the opportunity to show your creative side, and this could give you a competitive advantage. If you are in the art or design industry, your personal website would be the place to show off your portfolio.
3. Not to mention the money you could earn
This is probably the main reason people set up personal websites. Blogs are increasingly becoming a source of income. An example is Neil Patel (neilpatel.com), who earns more than US$300000 a month from one of his blogs. You may not earn that much, but imagine if you earned $2000 a month, just from writing a few blog posts a week! Other ways to monetize your website are affiliate marketing, sponsorships, and ads, the intricacies of which are beyond the scope of this post.
4. Contact
You’ve probably experienced this – you suddenly think of an old friend you last spoke to years ago, so you google them, but you can’t seem to find their contact details. If only they had a personal website with all their contact details!
5. Stand out
Self-explanatory: most people don’t have a personal website.
So what should you put on your website? You could start a blog about yourself or anything you have expertise in. If you are in the creativity field, it could be where you keep your portfolio of work you have done. If you want, your personal website could also double as an extension of your CV. You could describe your work experience in more detail, with images and infographics. For some inspiration, see some personal websites below:
Sean Halpin – https://seanhalpin.design
Joshua McCartney – https://joshuamccartney.com
Roxine Kee – https://roxinekee.com
So, how do you go about making your website?
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Top comments (17)
More than USD 300000 a month from one of his blogs, that's insane ...
300K right? not 3K, not 30K, no a whopping 300K, are you sure?
How did you learn about that amount, and more importantly how does he do it - did he blog about it?
1.2 Mil a year - it's a lot but not insane. Probably fluctuates quite a bit with his reference to 300k being a high outlier.
Wow, earning 1.2 million dollar a year with a blog, I call that a LOT, and I wonder how one does that (blog subscriptions are mostly free).
You're not alone in wondering that. Probably millions of people wonder about it. All you have to do is hire Neil and he will explain it haha.
Neil Patel sells his courses and high end consulting.
Edit: He also promotes his SaaS product called UberSuggest through his blogs.
Right, so maybe it's not literally his blog that makes the big money, but rather the courses and the consulting (with the blog being a way to promote them).
To the point, you covered all the reasons. I checked your site seems you are using react and gatsby as a static site generator. I would love to know how you built it as these are pretty fast than normal sites eg. using WordPress etc.
Hey Shashwat! Yeah, I used Gatsby. I'm a beginner in webdev so I generally followed tutorials on GatsbyJS's website and other blogs. It's very fast, and you don't have to pay for hosting, so it's pretty much free after you buy the domain.
Totally agree. I wrote on the same subject some days ago: dev.to/devlorenzo/how-to-finally-l...
Just checked out your website. I like your articles, and the page works really well on my phone, haven't checked it out on desktop yet.
I also build my own portfolio page in Gatsby myself. Would love to get started writing some articles, but for now I only have a couple of unfinished ones 😂 I guess I am more into coding really. Feel free to check out my portfolio page at larsejaas.com/en/ if you are interested 😊
I've had a portfolio in some shape of form for almost 20 years, it's been a good way to experiment, market myself and at the very least it's a never-ending personal project. If you find it hard to build and launch side projects, a portfolio is a good place to start!
Despite being a web developer, I had neglected my own website for eleven years and concentrated on my customers' projects instead. This year, I relaunched my portfolio and everyone who has anything to show or say, take your time and have your say!
Also keep posting on dev.to no matter if you are experienced or new to the web! There are already too many communities that make it hard to join, but I think the internet is about community, communication and connecting people, giving everybody a chance.
I wrote an article about my learnings and experience when relaunching my website here on dev.to: Creating a fast and beautiful portfolio website using HTML, CSS, Eleventy and Netlify.
Agreed having a personal website gives you better brand recognition. More so than having just a GitHub because it's likely that clients do not understand programming.
Totally agreed with the first one!
Was about to write the same thing :)
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