What’s Better for Your Personal Brand – a Blog or a Website?

by Walter Feigenson • February 4, 2010 • View Comments

I’m often asked this question, and my answer is pretty consistent: for an individual, a blog is almost always better, and for a company it is frequently better as well.

I have both, but that’s really an artifact (website, blog). While I can fool around with HTML and other web technologies, I’m not a web developer. My HTML learning pretty well halted in 1995, so what I know is largely useless. Nevertheless, I built a personal website that is Flash-based, using technology from an Israeli startup that makes this pretty easy.

Later, when I felt more confident about going public on the Internet, I started my own blog. I wrote pretty consistently for about a year, but I haven’t written much there recently. (I’ve gotten involved with a startup company, which is very time-consuming, so I’ve been restricting my writing to this site.) It’s OK to give yourself permission to write or abstain – unless your blog is your job. And once you’ve got enough posts – and assuming they’re good – you really don’t have to write frequently.

Oh, and don’t forget to have fun with your blog – just don’t write about religion or politics.

So, I have both a website and a blog. But I still recommend a blog for you, and here’s why:

You can write, edit, and post articles without any real technical knowledge. In fact, I write my posts in Word, which allows me to publish them on my blog site in draft or final form (this requires Word 2007).
Your blog can be infinitely adjustable – by you, without requiring technical assistance. WordPress, which is the platform I recommend, is designed to be a publishing system (also known as a content management system). Its main purpose is to enable you to post articles and create discussions as a content manager rather than as a technocrat.
Your blog will actually get higher Google ratings than most websites – and if you’re out there promoting yourself, this should be all you need to hear! My blog typically gets indexed by Google within 15 minutes of posting an article. I know because I immediately get a Google Alert about the article. I’m also easily found by topic (look up “personal branding statement” on Google and you’ll usually see my article within the first few results (and interestingly, you’ll see the version here on blog.Brand-Yourself.com rather than the version on my own, more humble, blog). Google may actually favor blogs because their content is more frequently updated than static websites.
You can make your blog just as appealing as a website. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of templates available for WordPress, and most are free.
You get useful statistics on readership. Not only do I know how many people read my blog, but I know how they get to it – including the search terms that are most often used. That, in turn, enables me to write more directed posts to get greater readership.
Blogs encourage conversations, and that’s hard to do on a website.

Keeping these ideas in mind, there are still great benefits to be had from a website that cannot be garnered from a standalone blog. The biggest plus is the ability to provide a lot of information about yourself which doesn’t fit in a brief blog bio or LinkedIn profile.

Things like an extended biography, an annotated resume, detailed academic and extra-curricular information (for students and recent grads), and pretty much whatever else you want the world to know about you can all find a place on a website. Brand-Yourself.com offers a great platform for website creation which is usable by pretty much anyone, regardless of technical ability. Check it out!

Also remember, if your blog or website is on your own domain, and your domain is your name, it will help in your Google ranking. This is an advantage of hosting your own website or blog on your own domain.

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5 SEO Don’ts For Your Personal Website

by RJ Sherman • November 24, 2009 • View Comments

For the most part when you start to create your website your SEO strategy should be very straight forward. You want to make sure you are doing basic things such as using your full name as you want people to search for it. You should also be making sure that you are creating a strong link network between your site and everywhere else that you exist on the web.

But there are a few things that you should be weary of that could get you into some serious Google trouble.

This list contains the 5 Don’ts of building a website:

Key word stuffing- When a search engine crawls your website it looks to see what words are used often because that is how it understands the page’s topic. You can over use words on the page. Google looks at how many words are on the page and then looks at the density of certain words. If you put your name in a paragraph 5 times, search engines will get suspicious and not rank you as highly.
Another note on keyword stuffing- It used to be an SEO tactic to put keywords at the bottom of a page in the same color as the background. This way users did not have to see the words but the content would still be there when a search engine crawled the site. Google wised up to this years ago and specifically looks to make sure that the content is a different color than the background and that users can see it.
Duplicate content- If a search engine reads the same content twice it will assume that the content is not original and that the site is not correctly managed. You should spend some serious time when you are writing your site’s content. You want to ensure that it conveys the correct message.
Too many links- Every link that you have going from your site to another site takes away from your rank. You have to make sure that you are liking to good websites and that you limit the number of links that you have to the minimum. But on the same not you want to make sure that you have a good link structure between your site and the rest of your profiles.
All images, no content- Images mean little to search engines. You should aim to have 250-500 words per page so that search engines can read the content. Make sure that when you do have image, you have content around them.

There are many black hat SEO tactics that people sometimes use on the web. When you are just starting off I would suggest that you create your site, create some good content and then start to tweak it. Remember that the SEO process will take a couple months before you start noticing results.

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Top 5 Reasons Why You Need A Personal Website

by Yofred Moik • August 21, 2009 • View Comments

The internet contains uncounted amounts of information accessible at your very fingertips. So why not make sure that it includes some information about your personal life as well? Surely the internet must have enough space to fit you in there! Although there is a cost for web hosting, the benefits of having a personal website largely outweighs the hosting rates, especially in the increasingly importance to maintain a positive presence in today’s digital culture. Although your intentions to create may be for personal gain, it can naturally aid and promote your business ventures as well.

5 reasons why you need a personal website

Globalize your personal identity.

Capitalize on your web presence; always link your name with your work. Create a virtual portrait and get your name thrown around on the always-busy platform of the world-wide-web. Register for a domain with yourname.com. If potential employers take the time and effort to seek more information about you, make sure they can find you. Streamline this task by having your domain name resemble your own name closely as possible.

Establish your work as a personal pride.

Show pride in yourself and your work. Creating and maintaining a personal website shows that you have pride in the things that you do. Showcase your work! Potential employers can look at your work and immediately get the impression of high value, being worthy to be hosted on the website.

Separate yourself from the crowds of social-networking sites.

It is much more important to create a personal website rather than relying on your profile at a social networking website. Separate yourself from the crowd and make your voice heard. Idea-voicing is more effective on individualized platforms, customized to your own personal and business needs. Impress potential employers – show that you are a serious working professional willing to go that extra mile.

Strengthen your business card.

Adding another channel for a potential employer to contact you will increase the occurrence of this happening. Each outlet of contact information has its own advantages and it would be a mistake to assume providing the URL of a personal website would not do the same. Adding a website to your list of contact information enables potential employers to comfortably conduct passive research on yourself, instead of opting not to do so in reluctance of having to give a much more intrusive mode of communication ex. phone calls.

Be involved in the fastest growing community in the world.

Be a forward-thinker and establish yourself as an early adopter of this global trend. Twice as many people are expected to have their own personal web space in the near future. The growing importance of online reputation and presence over traditional paper resumes cannot be emphasized enough. It’s not far-fetched to claim that a personal website will soon become a modern necessity for any young graduates and professionals.

Yofred an industrial and interaction design major that likes to keep up to date with contemporary technology and media trends. He enjoy staying connected with the always-changing “wired” culture and is obsessively willing to participate in and interpret the new ideas that emerge from the internet.

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14 Places to Build Your Brand (in the Field of Advertising)

by Pete Kistler • September 26, 2008 • View Comments

To build a brand worthy of remark in advertising, you should be actively participating in your niche online. One of the easiest and best ways to start is by posting comments on blogs and forums relevant to your area of expertise, and share original, on-brand media you’ve created wherever members of your niche hang out. You will soon find people thinking of you as a passionate and valued member of the community.

The following ten blogs are excellent resources to post comments on and interact with on a regular basis:

Remember to always include the following brand-builders whenever you post on a blog or forum:

1. The full name you want people to find you with in search engines. If your name is John Doe, it will be nearly impossible to make it to the first page of Google results for “John Doe.” So make sure you figure out the exact term you want to be found under when people search for you online. (Read our post, 5 Tips to Rank Highly on Google and Increase Your Visibility Online, to learn how to most effectively choose the term you brand yourself with online).

2. A link to your personal website or blog. Google counts a link from one site to another as a “vote” for that site. Sites with the most votes end up highest in search results. So, the more sites that link to the places you exist online, the higher your name will show up in results when someone Googles your name. Every time you post on a blog or forum, you should be leaving a link back to your “home base” site (which ideally contains your full portfolio) to boost its rank in Google results.

3. An eight-words-or-less description of your brand. Who are you, what do you do best and for what audience? Consistently leaving this short description with every comment builds brand awareness and associates you with your unique promise of value.

4. Optional: Your email address. If someone wants to get in touch with you, make it easy for them. Include your email address when you post comments to keep yourself open to as many opportunities as possible.

Know of any sites we missed? Submit a comment below if you know of any other advertising blogs, forums or resources we missed. There’s no way we could include them all, so join the discussion and tell us about your favorite advertising sites!