- Just getting started is always the hard part.
Hey everybody,
this is Roberto Blake of robertoblake.com
helping you create something awesome today.
So today we're gonna talk more
about personal branding
and I think that a great foundation
for building your personal brand
is to start a website.
In an age where we all have
different social media outlets
and great platforms like Twitter,
Instagram, Facebook
and even YouTube,
a lot of people still underestimate
the power that a website has
for your personal brand
and for your online business.
If you are still building your personal brand,
even if you don't have a product to sell,
even if you haven't considered an e-mail list,
it's still important to have a website
so when people perform a Google search,
they can find you specifically.
You also wanna have a platform that you own
and that you control.
When YouTube or Facebook
or Twitter change the rules,
or if something should happen to your account,
you want a place to call home.
You want a place where you're still in charge
and where your people can still find you.
So I'm gonna give you my six-step process
for starting your own website.
You're gonna be able to build this thing from scratch,
and we're gonna talk about some other things
that having your own website
is gonna allow you to do.
The first part of starting your website
is gonna be to have what they call a domain name.
This is the .com, .net
or .org where people are gonna type
this into their web browser
and they're gonna be able to find you.
In my case,
many, many years ago,
maybe a decade ago,
I started robertoblake.com
because I'd done other websites before,
but I wanted something specific
so when people searched for me professionally
they could find me,
and it could host my portfolio,
it would help me with jobs that I was trying to get.
In fact, it's actually how I got
my job at an ad agency
was through people being able to find
a graphic designer like me
through my website since that's
what I was doing in my career at the time.
Over time I've used this now
to help me get speaking engagements
and also clients for my consulting business.
So it's actually been very beneficial for me,
and it's also given people who wanna interview me
for podcasts or for articles
a place where they can find some background information.
So, having your own website
has a lot of benefits,
especially when it's time for people
to just find out more information about you.
So, no matter what,
I would still get a website with your name.
Even if your name is common
and it's taken,
consider adding something to your website name
that particularly makes you stand out.
Like if your name was John Smith,
maybe instead of johnsmith.com,
which is definitely for sure taken,
maybe it's
johnmsmith.
Or maybe it's johnsmithphotography,
or johnsmithphotovideo.com.
By adding some context
to the domain name,
even if it makes it a little longer,
it's usually worth it,
can help you stand out,
and can make people identify you
and what you specifically have to offer.
I went with my name,
my complete name,
cause one, it's long enough,
and two, my personal brand
has grown and evolved
and I've changed my career path
from being a freelancer,
designer, art director,
to being a creative entrepreneur
that has a lot of things that
they do under their business umbrella.
So, I didn't wanna paint myself into a corner,
and that's why I went ahead
and just used my full name.
Having this domain name
is also gonna let you set up
a professional e-mail address.
I recommend that you use
either your first name
or your first initial,
your last name,
something like that.
Or, you also can consider setting up
some defaults like info@yourwebsite.com,
or mail@yourwebsite.com,
billing@yourwebsite.com,
just whatever you want
and whatever is allowed with
the web-hosting company you're with.
Which is gonna bring us to step number two.
In addition to a domain name,
you need a web-hosting company.
Usually, domains
and web-hosting go hand-in-hand.
I recommend Bluehost,
and you can go to robertoblake.com/bluehost.
They're not a sponsor of today's video,
but they are a friend of the channel
and they are an affiliate link
that supports the channel,
so if you wanna start your website,
you wanna sign up a domain
and get hosting,
I would definitely recommend them.
One of the reasons I do recommend them
is if you're not a very technical person.
This is gonna be an easy process for you
and an easy website to use.
And, when you speak to someone customer service-wise,
it's usually someone based right here in the U.S.
if you are here in the U.S.
If you're somebody abroad,
they typically are speaking English.
So, maybe that's helpful to you
and your business.
If your domain name is your address,
then your web-hosting is your actual house
or apartment,
and you're renting this.
You actually can put anything you want here,
just like you could put your own furniture,
your files, your images,
your content, this is where it lives.
This is where you're housing that,
and so I think that's a really good analogy for this
because your personal brand is
about how much of the online real estate you're gonna get.
Social media places
are a borrowed space.
This is something of your own
that you have a lot more control over.
You're using their venue,
their platform.
It'd be like renting out an event hall,
or something like that.
This is yours,
this is a place for you to call home.
Typically, with a low-level hosting account,
you can host usually two
or three websites without any real problem,
especially if you're only getting
thousands of people
or tens of thousands of people
in terms of traffic every month.
So, I wouldn't worry
about getting the highest priced web-hosting out there.
I just don't think you need it,
especially for you just getting started.
You have a couple options here.
If you're tech-savvy like me,
and you know HTML
and web-design coding,
you can completely build this yourself.
But if not,
with step three I recommend that you do one of two things.
Either use a website builder,
which they have,
and you can use that
and it's image-based.
Or, use WordPress.
WordPress is a blogging system.
It's what's called a content management system
and it's pretty easy
since they have a one-click install,
and then you can pick themes,
you can lay it out,
you can design it,
or you can hire a web-designer
and someone who can put that together for you.
I have some links in the description below
for websites where you can find people
you can hire for this.
My recommendation when it comes
to hiring a web-designer is
if you can afford it,
work directly with a web-designer
and find somebody that a friend
or an associate of yours has used
in the past for their website,
and work with that person,
because they're already in your network.
But if not,
and you need to hire a freelancer,
then, again you can use
some of the recommendations
in the description below.
You can go to places like Upwork,
you can go to places like 99designs,
and you can try your luck there,
and it should work out just fine.
Just make sure that you're looking at somebody
who has a decent portfolio of work
and I don't anticipate any major problems there.
You also have to at least know what you want.
Which kind of rounds us out to step number four,
the actual design of your website.
When you're designing your website
you have to take a few things into consideration.
You may need to go ahead
and have your photography in place.
You might also have some graphics
or logos that represent you,
or you may need to have
these things built out for you.
When I was building my website,
I could produce all these things myself
because of my background in graphic design,
I had plenty of photos of me already laying around,
and I shot some more,
and I made my own custom graphics for my website.
I was able to make it what I want
because I have those skills.
Like I said, if you don't,
you could always get somebody else.
But, don't underestimate the power of using
a really good template.
Templates are a dime a dozen,
and yeah everybody has them,
and your thing may look a little cookie cutter.
But when you're just getting started,
the important thing is to have
something in place that can represent you.
You can make it fancy later.
When I first started,
mine wasn't anything special,
but it did get the job done.
So, resist the urge to be fancy right out the gate.
This is gonna be with you for a long time.
So, it can grow,
it can evolve,
it can progress.
Step number five is to add your content.
Usually, if it's a website for your personal brand,
the content's gonna be very minimal.
It's gonna be an about section,
it's gonna be a contact page
with your contact info,
and it may be some kind of body of work.
This might be your portfolio,
this might be your demo reel,
this might be a list of your prior speaking engagements,
whatever represents your personal brand.
You should have this thought out in advance,
and then later you can add what is called a blog.
You can go ahead
and write articles
and you can post updates to this,
and that's what I like about WordPress.
You can do this with other systems
or you can do this manually,
but I really recommend WordPress
because it just makes things simpler,
and you don't have to learn a lot of technical,
complicated stuff to manage it.
It is very straight-forward.
You don't need to have every article
planned out in advance,
but I would think that if you're doing a blog,
if you're building a personal brand,
there is some content that you should have in place
that can represent you well
and show your skills
and show what you're about
and what your interests are.
So, I would think about these things in advance.
If you don't have them
when you launch the website,
that's perfectly fine.
But try to get these things in place
as quickly as you can.
Make sure you have a plan
for the content that you wanna put out there
that's gonna be shared with the world.
Finally, step number six.
This one is slightly more complicated,
but it doesn't have to be.
You'll want to use Google Analytics
and set that up on your website.
Having a website is great.
Being able to get visitors
and traffic
and people commenting on your blog,
or joining your e-mail list,
or hiring you for your services,
or giving you that job that you want,
is amazing.
But you know what's really important?
Analytics and tracking data.
Knowing how people found you.
Knowing where they were looking for you.
Knowing what pages they spent the most time on.
Knowing if there's a website
that's driving referral traffic to you.
These things are all important
and that's what Google Analytics
is gonna tell you,
and it's really simple.
You can copy
and paste Google Analytics
into your website.
You can set it up in WordPress,
usually with a plug-in
or a click of a button.
Or you can very affordably
for like tens of dollars
get somebody to just set this up for you,
and then you can just take the time
to try to learn the analytics.
There are YouTube videos that cover it,
and it will be helpful for you
to just kind of understand
what's going on with your website
and where your traffic is coming from,
and what people want from you.
Especially if you're creating content
and blog articles,
you'll wanna know
what your most popular topics are.
You'll want to know whether
or not this is driving people to a sale
or not if you happen to be selling something.
Maybe you wanna know who's buying your book
or who's downloading your free guide.
Maybe you'll wanna know who's buying your book,
or downloading your free guide.
I think all of this stuff is important,
so having those analytics in place
is a critical step six.
And again, this is the basic process for starting
and launching a website.
Obviously there's so much more I could get into,
but I wanted to at least help you understand
what this could look like for you
and what your basic steps are.
So, that's my six-step process
for starting your own website.
You can obviously take this so much further.
There are things you can do
with your marketing,
especially if you're a small business owner.
There are things that you can set up
to help you build an e-mail list.
I just didn't wanna cover all of that at once,
and overwhelm you.
I will be covering a lot of those topics
in more of these getting started videos,
and more of my topics that teach you
about personal branding
and how you can develop
and grow your online presence.
If you still have questions
about building your first website,
then definitely let me know in the comments section
and I'll try and make videos
that can help you out
if there's something that I didn't cover here.
Remember, I have recommended links
for all of the things we discussed
in the description below
including recommendations for web-hosting companies.
They're very affordable
and reliable that I use for many of my websites,
and I think they'll help you out too.
I'm also gonna include a link
for my free ebook,
The Seven Points of Personal Branding miniguide.
This might help you get a sense of
what your personal brand is
and how you can develop it.
It's pretty much the
thesis for how I developed and grew
and approached my personal brand.
How I defined it,
how I became more self-aware of
what it is that I had to offer all of you.
This will probably help many of you
if you're getting started trying
to build your online presence.
So, that's my free gift to you
when you join the Create Awesome community newsletter.
Links are in the description below
and also in the annotation.
Like this video if you like it,
don't forget to subscribe.
Check out the other awesome stuff on the channel.
As always you guys,
thanks so very much for watching
and don't forget,
create something awesome today.
Take care.
(upbeat music)