Why Having A Personal Brand Website Gives You The Authority You Need
If you want to be taken seriously in business, you must have a personal brand website to gain authority status.
Hey, Trish Davies here, personal coach and personal branding expert. Today I am covering the important subject of having a personal brand website and why you need one.
The internet can be compared to the universe because no one knows the true size of either. When it comes to the internet though you don’t need the billions of dollars it takes to explore the final frontier. To play on the worldwide web you can get up and running with just a few dollars. Perhaps that is why hundreds of new websites are created every minute.
The Information Highway, A Strange Concept Back In The Day
It seems a lifetime ago that the internet emerged, something which was referred to as the information superhighway. The concept of logging onto a vast network to gather and consume information seemed science fiction. A concept that probably no one thought would become the beast it is today.
Back in the day websites were seen as state of the art but you needed a computer science degree to create one. Compared to today though they were very basic, clunky and had limited functionality.
With the technological advances that have taken place it is now very easy for anyone to create a website. You don’t need to be a genius to work it out as there are platforms that are very much point and click. A beautiful and professional personal brand website can be created from your spare room.
Now with the volume of websites being created having your own personal brand website is more important than ever before. You don’t want to look like your competitors because you will never get noticed. Differentiating yourself is the key to success and your website is one of your biggest weapons.
Why A Personal Brand Website Establishes Authority
Your own website is your chance to establish authority online because it will be unique to you. This is very important as within some industries you can put your name to pre-made templates. The trouble with this is that they are all carbon copies of each other with one difference. The name within the “URL”, but all the copy and content are the same.
When you put your name and face to a personal brand website then you instantly create your own presence. You establish credibility and more importantly authority which no one else can copy.
When you see politicians and public speakers they stand behind their lecterns and podiums. Or they stand on their crates and upturned boxes so their voices can be heard.
If you have your own website, then you don’t need any of those props because you have something far more powerful. What you have is your own platform that you own 100% on the most powerful communication channel in the world. The information superhighway (aka The Internet)!
Your personal brand website is your central hub which you can control your business from. So how do you leverage it?
Your Publishing Platform
In the previous post I focused on creating content to establish yourself as an authority. It is all well and good creating all this content, but it is not worth the effort if you can’t allow people to see it. Therefore, your website is your publishing platform that no one else can interfere with.
I say this because there are many other platforms that you can publish your content. This is something I will cover in future posts, but you are restricted to what you can do. The owners of these platforms have the authority to shut you down whenever they want. Therefore, you run the risk of your business being taken away from you overnight.
Usually this would only happen if you run your business unethically, but they tend to change their algorithms. If this happens you could find yourself suddenly not complying with their terms and conditions. Through no fault of your own you could find yourself out on a limb with no safety net.
So, What Can You Publish?
On your website you can publish everything about your business and use many formats to do this. You will have many static pages where you can tell people visiting your website just what you do and what you stand for.
A perfect example of this is my own website because my page welcomes people and tells them exactly what I can do for them.
Then you can see that there are many different options across the header within a navigation menu. Those tabs then lead of in many directions to various products and services that I own.
As you can see my website is my hub where everything to do with my business is contained.
If you take some time to explore my website you will find that I use it in many different ways. I use it as a lead generation tool and there are pathways to my training and mastermind programs. This is a way of monetizing the website in a subtle way and it doesn’t come across as spammy.
I provide value on every single page and the content is focused on providing value to the reader. You should always lead with value so the reader can see what is in it for them.
The main structure of this website stays the same unless I have any updates. This is what I suggest you do with your website. Highlight what you can do for the people who are taking the time to visit your website.
Tell them what you stand for and what your vision and mission in life is. If they are aligned to you then they will become loyal fans for life. Now for the real magic!
Why Have A Blog Function On Your Personal Brand Website?
Just to be clear on one thing. A blog is a website and some blogs are journals that people can add content to. They would usually have their blog roll as their home page. In other word the page people would land on when they enter the domain name.
A conventional website is deemed to be more corporate or it could be more of an ecommerce website. Usually you won’t find a blog facility on these as they don’t see the need for one.
My website is a professional website without being corporate. In other words, a personal brand website as I am the brand. So, you will notice that I have a blog tab in the main header which when clicked takes people to my blog posts.
In the previous post I focused on content creation. Well this is where you will publish most of the content that you create. The blog facility is a fluid entity to your website unlike the static pages.
Start A Love Affair With The Search Engines
When you create a post, following the structure I laid out in the previous post, this is where it will appear. This is very powerful because the main search engines love websites that are also a blog. The search engines rely on regular unique content being published. Their audience is people looking for information and good information.
If you regularly publish high quality and unique information, then the search engines will notice that. In time through consistency they will reward you by listing your articles in their search results. The result for you is that you will receive free website traffic to your website through your posts. When people arrive at your post, they will then see everything else you have to offer.
The more traffic you receive will establish your authority status because you will be appearing at the top of the search engines. Therefore, a personal brand website is so important for your business.
The personal brand website, or in other words the authority website, is something that I focus on within my training program. Build Your AU helps to develop and establish your authenticity, authority and you audience. To learn more on how this could help you click here.
A life of freedom and choice
Trish Davies International
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