Why You Should Have a Website
One of the main pieces of advice I have for people looking to accelerate their career is to start a personal website. I especially recommend starting a personal website to young and ambitious people who are just getting started.
Many pieces of advice around starting a personal website are incorrect. You don’t have to be a founder, a writer, or a brand to reap the rewards from having a personal website. You also don’t need to code your website yourself, or build some elaborate site with dozens of detailed pages. You just need to have a website that showcases your skills.
I have had a personal website for years, and over time it has evolved significantly. My first personal website was a list of links about me with a short bio. Now my personal website is a series of dozens of personal essays which showcase my way of thinking about the world. But when I got started, I didn’t care about making something so detailed -- I just wanted to have a presence on the internet.
Benefits of Having a Website
There are a couple of reasons why you should have a personal website, especially if you are young and ambitious. Personal websites allow you to showcase your skills, create your own corner on the internet which you can fully control, and improve your career prospects. Let’s break these benefits down.
Websites Are Portfolios
Perhaps the most obvious benefit of having a personal website is that it can act as a portfolio where you can showcase your skills, side projects, and professional experience. You can use your portfolio to show -- not just tell -- the world about what you have accomplished. The personal website brings all of your accomplishments into one place, so if someone wants to learn more about you, it’s easy for them to do so.
When someone visits your personal website, they should be presented with a few past projects you have worked on, or a short bio of what you are working on right now. If you work in a creative profession such as writing or coding, you can use your personal website as a blog where you share your thoughts about the world and your learnings. Your portfolio will show your past experiences; your blog will show what you learned from those projects. I use my personal website to share my thoughts on careers and productivity, because my main job is as a writer about pursuing a career in technology.
Your Corner of the Internet
Your website is your corner of the internet. You get to control how it looks, what it includes, and how it is structured. If you have written a few essays you want to share with the world, you can share them on your personal website; if you are a photographer who is looking to create a portfolio to show their clients, you can add your photos to your website.
You have full autonomy over your personal website.
The real benefit of this autonomy is that it brings with it the ability to experiment with new ideas. If you want to write about a new topic, you can do so on your blog. And because it is publicly available, you’ll be able to get feedback from other people. You can experiment with your thoughts, and then make changes if an experiment has been successful.
For example, I originally started to write long-form essays on this website about my thoughts on the world. But I then wanted to talk more about productivity, so I made a few changes to my structure. I stopped setting word counts, added a few illustrations, and changed my writing prompts. Over time, I realized people liked this new approach, so I kept going with it. And over time more people became interested in my content because I was doing more of what they wanted.
Although you can do similar experiments on other platforms, they still have control over your work. Medium, for example, controls the domain you use and the structure of your websites. Sure, you have full autonomy over what you write about, but there are still several limiting factors which constrain your ability to fully express yourself on the site. On a personal website, there are no rules -- you can do what you want.
The way I like to think about it is that the internet is the world, and your personal website is your small home.
Your Brand
Your personal website can also become a key part of your brand. On this blog, I write about careers and productivity. People already know I think about these things a lot, but my blog gives me the chance to showcase my thoughts to the world. And when someone reads one of my posts, they can see how I think about certain topics. I leave an impression on them.
At the start, your personal website may be a small home. But if you continue to invest more resources in making your personal website great, it can grow into a larger home over time. People will read your writing and if they like it, they’ll share it with other people. Over time, the benefits of this will compound, and soon enough you will have thousands of people reading your work. If you are writing about productivity, you’ll become known as the person who thinks a lot about productivity. For me, I started writing a lot about ISAs on my site earlier this year, and quickly people came to see me as the person who talks about ISAs.
Tips on Starting a Personal Website
When it comes to starting a personal website, you don’t need to get fancy. In fact, to start with your website can be a few sentences about you. The exact details of your website don’t matter at the start -- what matters is that you have one.
Great websites were not built in a day. They took months and years to develop. My first piece of advice is not to expect too much going into this process. If you don’t have a personal website, don’t think that you will suddenly get a lot of traction for your work. It’ll take time.
#1: Content First
When you are getting started, you may hear a lot about “SEO” and keywords. But you should ignore this. Why? What matters most is that you are putting good quality content out there, and SEO doesn’t matter if you don’t have good content to share. When you start to get some traction for your work, then you should consider optimizing for SEO and keywords.
I have never worried about SEO for this blog because I care more about the content of my work. I know that some of my work is highly ranked, and other essays are not ranked at all. All I care about is putting out great content in the world.
#2: Get a Domain
Get a domain. Period. Your domain should be your first name, followed by your last name, “.com.” If you can’t find the “.com” suffix, then look for “.app” or “.co” domains, which confer similarly professional vibes as “.com.”
For example, my name is James Gallagher, so I purchased “jamesgallagher.app.” You can get more creative with your domain if you want, but you don’t have to. All that matters is you have a domain which represents you well.
#3: Use Wordpress
One of the most common questions people have about starting a personal website is how they manage the technical particulars. The only thing you need to know is that, unless you are a developer who wants to build their own site, WordPress will suffice. Buy a domain, then set up your website on WordPress. There are plenty of good tutorials on how to make a great WordPress site, but all that matters is that you get something up and running quickly. Go back to those tutorials later if you want.
WordPress is easy to use, cheap, and customizable. That’s all you need in a personal website.
#4: Post Content
You should try to post as much content on your website as you can. If you’re looking to develop your brand in a particular niche, start writing about it or creating videos or whatever is applicable to your talent. If you write about charter cities a lot, people will think of you as “the person who knows a lot about charter cities” and the benefits of that will compound over time. More people will read your work, and they’ll share it with more people to read.
Posting content is also important because it can be read at any time, by anyone, from anywhere. If you post a blog post about something you care about, it’s available for the rest of the world.
It doesn’t matter how great your content is. If you look back at my first essays on this website, they were not great. The important thing is that you show up as often as possible and publish something that you are proud of. Worry about quantity when you are getting started, then think about quality when you have a repository of content and a good cadence going.
#5: Don’t Worry About Promotion
At the start, you should only be thinking about getting content out there on your website. Then, you can think about promotion later. When you have a few posts on your website which you can share with others, then feel free to spend more time on distribution.
When you are ready, share your work on Twitter, Hacker News, and other sites which you may be active on. Write a brief description of the post you have written (if applicable) which makes the reader want to read more of your work, and submit it to whatever site you have chosen.
At first, you may not receive a lot of traction from your promotion, and this can feel discouraging. This is why you shouldn’t start too early -- seeing your work receive little traction may stop you from investing time in your personal site. And even when you have a history of writing, you may still not get as much traction as you like. But if you keep going and write great content, naturally people will come to your site.
The bottom line is that having a personal website is almost essential for young professionals in their career. I would go further and say that personal websites are beneficial to almost every professional. Having a presence online can help you expand your network, share your ideas with the world, and even find new career opportunities. Suffice to say you should have a personal website. If you don’t, create one now.