Why Am I Making a Website?
After binge-watching TED talks about marketing and personal branding, I decided that it would be both professionally beneficial and hilarious if I made a website. Out of the dozens and dozens of videos and articles I browsed through, I came up with two huge reasons to create a website - to run a blog and to use it as an electronic resume.
Blogging
When I used to think about blogging, my mind immediately went to some hipster chick with terf bangs and tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses with her MacBook Pro in a small-ish coffee shop sipping an overpriced Americano. Now when I think about blogging, I see me with my MacBook Pro in a small-ish coffee shop sipping an overpriced Americano. However pretentious it sounds, a blog is one of the most multi-faceted tools for the modern entrepreneur (or in my case, "renaissance woman").
First of all, it will allow you to hone your writing skills. If you offer any kind of writing services - content writing, grant writing, correspondence - this is a useful tool. Since graduating last June, the only thing I've really written are emails and agendas, with the occasional blog post promoting a listing on my office's website. While keeping a journal or doing writing exercises on your own can be good practice, you don't get any feedback, there's no accountability, and without anyone reading it, there's no pressure for you to improve.
Not only does blogging hold you accountable for posting regularly, but also for posting something new. There's nothing that causes a blog to fizzle out quite like repeated content. Throwing something new out into the world pushes you to continue to learn so you can share your knowledge. This pressure to keep it fresh will also keep your research skills on point and force you to be in-the-know. Figuring out what people need to know is a little deeper than just Googling around - it's keeping up with social media trends, current events, technological advancements, social movements, everything. In a way, blogging regularly makes you care enough to know what is going on in the world and to constantly try to find ways to make everything accessible to your readers and easy to understand.
Finally, blogging can be used to build an audience (which may eventually become your client base) and create a PR platform tailored completely to your personal brand. As someone who just started working in real estate and dabbles in networking and marketing, this is a huge freaking deal. You can't sell a product without a consumer and you won't sell a product if you can't get one interested. Getting people interested in what you think is over half the battle, and posting on a blog is the perfect practice. Not only are you selling your content, you're selling your brand.
Electronic Resume
A personal website is essentially just an ad - you advertise your services and your portfolio. But what makes a website so crucial in modern business? Accessibility and promotability. Websites can be accessed by literally anyone. There's no having to send a thousand resumes Rachel Green-style by stuffing envelopes and whistling the Colonel Bogey March. You plop your qualifications and skills on an electronic page, make it look pretty, and you're done - not to mention you can throw the URL on your business card, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, a billboard, the side of a bus, anywhere.
In addition to being easily accessible, websites allow anyone to see what you're about. So instead of sending your resume and a cover letter off only to employers or clients you think may be interested in hiring you, a much larger number of people you may not even know exist could be hooked. Exposure, baby.
Sharing is Caring
If you have any thoughts or feedback or extra knowledge, share it in the comments. The whole point of this blog is to help each other figure it all out!
