Everyone’s online right? Well, I think everyone should have a personal website and blog.
Whether you’re in online marketing, law or agriculture you’re going to have an online presence somehow.
Let’s do a test.
Try typing your name into Google and see what comes up.
I bet you will have some of your social media accounts on the first page, followed by some genealogy websites along with some random stuff. That’s if you don’t have your own website of course.
Having a personal website and blog will help you in many ways. Your career will benefit from it and so will your personal brand & development. For instance, my website has helped me land some consulting contracts, my current full-time job, speaking engagements and so much more. And the best part is that everyone can do it!
In order to encourage you, here’s 8 reasons why you should blog. Here we go…
Ps: when you’re convinced that you need a personal website, you can read my step-by-step guide on how to create your website.
Your digital home address: your personal website and blog
People used to communicate in person, now they do it online. People used to shop offline, now they do it online… you got the idea. Now if you have a home address, why don’t you have one online?
Have you secured your FirstnameLastname.com domain name? I advise you to buy it (about $10) and even if you don’t plan on using it at the moment, redirect it to your LinkedIn. You will also be able to receive emails at hello@FirstnameLastname.com. Pretty cool personal branding growth hack, huh?
If this article and my personal experience inspire you in any way, you’ll decide to take the step and build your own personal e and blog. In this case, your website will most probably be at the top of google searches for your name and you will get to choose what people see first about you.
Establish your brand & credibility
I’ve previously talked about personal branding on an extensive blog post. In my mind, it is key to have a personal site in order to build your brand.
In fact, your personal website will be the central asset in your brand establishment. You will now have a website to send people to and to link your social media accounts to (think Twitter or LinkedIn).
As I said, you will be able to have a branded and trustworthy email@yourdomainname.com. Better than your Gmail account I can assure you.
Also, your website will be an opportunity to create a design for your own brand which you will replicate on your business cards, twitter account color, social media cover pictures and so on.
Opportunity booster
A website with a blog can do wonders for your career!
Having your own website says a lot more about your determination and skills than a resume would. It actually speaks for itself. You get to showcase some of your accomplishments like I do with my impossible list.
If you blog and, even better, if you’re consistent at blogging, you demonstrate to your visitors and audience that you can produce quality work on a regular basis. In the end, it is all about providing value. It has been said that givers with a purpose tend to succeed more than others. I strongly believe that it pays off in the long run and that it is what we’ve been doing with MTL+ECOMMERCE.
Also, your personal website will be visited by some people outside your network and put you in front of new people.
Build your audience
If you really provide value, post after post, and do a good job at blog post promotion, your audience will build itself slowly.
It is definitely not easy and will require some hard work on your end, especially at the beginning.
Your first audience should be your network, which will be more than happy to encourage you as I have experienced myself recently.
- You can leverage your own social media accounts or build new ones (my new Facebook page).
- You should focus on building an email list of your own. MailChimp is free and really easy to use for doing so. In today’s social media environment, where you can’t make sure everyone sees your posts, email provides a way of making sure you can reach your audience.
To take my point ever further, just have a look at today’s well know authors and influencers. The James Altucher or Tim Ferriss of this world wouldn’t be where they are now with their huge audiences, hadn’t it been for their personal blogs.
Get things out of your head
I will be honest, having a personal blog has also been a great way to get ideas, best practices and concepts out of my head. Even better, writing those down as blog posts has helped me:
- Structure my thoughts and reflect on them
- Get to share them will like-minded people
- Gather feedback on the blog post topics and even get new views or ideas about them
- Get some peace of mind
Become better at writing
It’s no secret that mastery comes from repetition. I do not pretend nor intend to become a master writer but writing a 1000+ words blog post every week sure helps.
Also, as English is not my mother tongue, I view this blog as a playground to practice my English writing skills. I make mistakes that Grammarly corrects and some others that my friend who proofreads my posts catches and that’s alright.
I also get why so many writers began as bloggers: blogging helps you find your voice. Take the example of James Altucher who ended up selling more than 500K copies of his self-published book.
In fact, blogging is like publishing a small book every now and then as it takes work & risk and is not guaranteed to succeed. In that sense, blogging also helps to find your writing voice.
Discipline + challenge
I have talked about it before, maintaining a website and especially blogging consistently takes some serious effort.
It is a challenge and a bet you make with yourself.
Even more than that, if you announce you’ll be blogging every week like I did… well, you can’t really stop. Sharing your goal at large and having an accountability partner who will follow-up with you on your goal will ensure your complete it.
Building your website will be a challenge in itself for most people, especially if you didn’t know anything about coding and Content Management Systems (WordPress) like I did. But it is doable and that is what’s important here.
New skills
A challenge yes, but one that will be a great reason to learn new skills and possibly apply concepts you might have learned at school.
With this website, I have for instance learned and perfected the following skills:
- Website creation on WordPress
- Technical domain names & hosting rules
- Web design
- HTML/CSS/Php/MySQL programming languages
- Email Marketing
- SEO
- And much more…
Summary
By now I think you’ve understood that you need your own personal website & blog for the following reasons:
- You’ll get to decide how people see you online
- You will build a strong personal brand for yourself
- It will bring you more opportunities
- You’ll get to build your own audience
- Your brain will thank you for it
- You will become a better writer and who knows, maybe write a book someday 🙂
- It will teach you discipline and challenge your routine
- You will learn new useful skills doing so
Now, go and make magic happen!
Any other reasons why everyone should have a personal blog or website? Let me know in the comments 😉
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