Website 101: Your content
Now that you have your domain, and you’ve picked your platform, things really get interesting.
What are you going to say on your website?
I have some suggestions of content that you can include on your personal website. But before we get to that, I think we need to back up a bit and consider some basic marketing questions.
Your audience
Who are you writing for?
There’s a marketing exercise where they create “personas”: profiles of potential customers. It’s like a customer dossier - what they do, what they like, where they live, what they read and watch. You don’t have to create a whole character and their extensive backstory. But it’s incredibly helpful to imagine the specific person you want to reach with your website, and always consider whether what you are putting out there would resonate with them.
If your audience is tech recruiters, that’s much different from trying to reach literary agents, or college admissions officers. Think about not just who they are, but what they want or need to learn about you, and what would resonate with them most.
Always consider your audience in every piece of content you post.
Your message
What do you want to say?
In the early days of Mighty Forces I wrote about your USP - Unique Selling Proposition. It’s incredibly important to understand what you are trying to get across to your audience. Don’t just put up anything and everything.
Consider what makes you unique in the vast sea of candidates for your ideal job. Really dig into it. Write it out in as much detail as you can manage. And once you have that worked out, make sure every piece of content you post reinforces that USP.
Your content
How will you say it?
The universe of web content is infinite. But here are some ideas:
Writing. Articles, case studies, news, commentary. The lifeblood of the web is text. Make it good. You could even leverage other platforms like Medium and Substack to widen the reach of your writing.
Graphics. Photography, design, art of all kinds. When it’s your own site, you control how your work comes across. Looking for communications jobs, I have found that being a photographer as well as a writer is an advantage.
Multimedia. Video and audio are fantastic for a personal website, if you have any. As a small example of something anyone can do, I recorded myself reading one of my Medium pieces. It’s not a big thing, but I think it pays off in conveying my personality.
Blogging. I put this separate from writing, because it’s its own beast. I may write a full Mighty Forces piece on blogging. But most importantly: don’t do it unless you are going to stick with it. A neglected blog with a couple old pieces is worse than not having it at all.
Links. In addition to linking to all your job-specific social media (not your Facebook, for example, unless it is very professionally-oriented), you could also link to resources in your field and comment on them.
Services. If you have a side hustle, you can promote it here with total control over the presentation. Talk about what you offer and how much it costs - and how you stand out.
There’s so much to say about content for your personal website. Here’s a great piece from The Muse about it: 6 Things You Should Put on Your Personal Website—and 6 Things to Avoid at All Costs
And for some inspiration, here’s a piece from Hubspot: Best Personal Websites: 35+ Examples to Blow Your Mind. And another list from Hostinger: 30 Top Personal Website Examples.
Don’t be intimidated by these super-polished examples from web professionals. Just use them as a jumping-off point to see the kinds of things you could include on your site. And don’t skip the early steps of defining your audience and your Unique Selling Proposition. That can make the difference between a random bunch of stuff and a site that makes your potential employer eager to hire you.
Hearing from you
Has this series on personal websites inspired you?
See you next week!