Is a Personal Website More Important Than Ever?

Has anyone ever suggested to you to create a personal website other than LinkedIn? The thought of creating a website focusing on only you can be nerve-wracking at first. Don’t people see enough of your personal and professional life through other social media platforms? My opinion on a personal website changed after taking a Personal Branding class last spring and some argue it is more important now than ever before.

First off, one must take time to reflect on their own personal brand. Everyone’s brand is different depending on their interests and passions. Once you have an idea of what direction you want to take your personal brand you can start thinking about forming a website.

There are so many directions you can take on a personal website. You can use it to showcase your professional work or you can make it very casual and use it as a way to let people know more about who you are. As a PR major, we might not have creative work to showcase online like an advertising major would, but there is still plenty of material to create a portfolio. Press releases or blog posts you’ve written can easily be shared.

The best part about starting up your own personal website is all the extremely helpful websites to get you started. Don’t know HTML codes? Not a big deal. Websites like Wix, Wordpress, Flavors, and many more all are beginner friendly. They all offer a great deal of creative options from fonts to layouts.

Creating a personal website is a great thing to do as an upperclassman starting to begin the job search. It will help you connect more and help separate you from the pack. A personal website isn’t something you can forget about because it is important to stay on top of updating the content. Although it is definitely not a necessity to all public relations majors, it will still be a bonus to your personal brand.