When is the last time you applied for a new job or updated your resume? Are you currently in the process of looking for a new job, or maybe even considering your options with starting a business or becoming a freelancer?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, right now is likely a perfect time for you to start a website or blog to help show off your expertise and the value that you offer.

The world is quickly changing and so are the ways that businesses and brands hire professionals around the world. It’s no longer about paper resumes being dropped off or sent in the mail, and less in-person interviews are taking place than ever before.

All of these key elements and factors are perfect examples of why you should be creating a website to better represent yourself online.

To help get started in the process, here are three simple steps and considerations to take when trying to excel your Personal Brand and career with a website or blog.

Showcase Your Personal Profile, Expertise and Resume

One of the best ways to showcase your expertise and putting a face to a name, is to make sure you have a site that’s all about you, has a nice profile picture of yourself and also highlights your previous education, work and past clients.

This is especially true for anyone that might be doing web related work or is currently in the freelancing space. For example, if you are a site design or coder, you would want to follow the guidelines laid out in this web developer resume example sheet.

Another benefit to having a site as your main hub for all of your information, is that you can easily update it and change it as your career and expertise progresses in different areas.

Secure Your Domain Name and Social Profiles

When starting a new website or blog, you are going to need to choose a domain name for your site. Since we are focusing on your Personal brand, you should try and secure your personal name as your domain name.

Depending on how popular or unique your name is, the .com version of your name might already be taken. If this is the case, you might have to go with a .net or .org TLD, or something up with something a bit more creative.

Along with securing your domain name for your personal name, you should try and do the same thing with all of the major social networking platforms as well. Again, depending on the popularity of your name, this might be easier or harder to accomplish.

Lastly, when setting up your domain name, site and Social Profiles, try to have a common theme across all of them. This would include using the same username, profile picture and information. This will make the branding across all of the platforms and sites consistent with your personal brand and what you want to be recognized for.

Own the First Page of the Search Results for Your Name

When someone searches for your name in the search results, what are they going to find? More often than not, this is out of the control of the person you might be searching for, but if you have a website and multiple social profiles in place, you can start taking control over what is ranking in Google or Bing for your name.

After setting up your personal domain name and a few social profiles, you should start linking back to them whenever possible. This can be done through social media sharing, blog posting or creative writing that you might already be contributing to different sites. This is also referred to as SEO (search engine optimization), and if you are completely new to this process, you can learn more about it here.

Every time you link back to one of these social profiles or your main site, it will help your page rank higher in Google for your name. This is important, as clients and jobs will likely search for your name when looking to hire you. Once they see all of your own content and profiles ranking for your name, it will likely be a much easier process for them to hire you sooner than later.

Improve Your Personal Brand and Expertise with a Website

As mentioned in the beginning of the article, the world is quickly changing more people are now using the internet to find information, hire and conduct business. For individuals that want to accelerate their careers or get started with businesses of their own, they also need to make such changes in the way they approach networking opportunities and represent themselves.

Now that you’ve discovered some new and exciting ways on how you can use a website or blog to improve the way you look online, what are you waiting for?

To get started, be sure to register your personal name as a domain if you haven’t already. Then, make sure you set yourself up with a quality web hosting solution that also pre-installed WordPress. After that, you can then get started on the site creation process and making sure your site looks good.

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