How To Build a Minimum Viable Personal Website In 2021 and Take It to Next Level To Use It as a Growth Engine

Do you need a personal website?

Yes.

It helps you control what people see when they search about you.

But you can do more and make it a gateway of opportunities for you.

You can get leads, new business, revenue, recognition, invites to speak at conferences, and other opportunities with a personal website.

If you are a freelancer or in a job, you can use it to showcase your portfolio, even when your portfolio is hosted on Google Drive or Dropbox, it looks great if you send someone a link on your website that redirects to Dropbox or Google drive.

But if you send someone a link posted on your website, make sure the domain does not show an empty page.

You should have what I call the minimum viable personal website.

Here is how to build one?

First things first. Put together the content before you start worrying about the design or usability.

The basics are fine for getting started. About you, a headshot to go with it, and what you offer.

Now, get a domain. Good if the domain is the same as your name because it will help with the search.

Use a simple tool like Wix, Card, or Super to build a simple website and put the content you gathered on your website. Also, add a way to contact you.

Once this is done, keep on improving it.

How To Grow Your Personal Website and Convert It Into a Growth Engine

To do it, understand what a personal website is.

It is an amplifier for what you know and do. And a good website helps your audience navigate through the highlights of your work and expertise.

There are three things in play here.

Skills, communication, and distribution.

Skills are the core of it all. No website will help you if you don’t have saleable skills. So your first and foremost responsibility is to possess skills that market values and grow them by investing time and money. When growing skills go deep before going wide. Become a master of one small niche and stand out for your expertise.

The other two thighs are needed for the amplification of this core.

They are communication and distribution.

So, your website should communicate your skills to the world. You do it through content – words, pictures, audio, and video. To communicate your worth, master content creation and copywriting. Be consistent with it. Add new content to your website often. Also use your content to communicate what you know, through the basic pages that you made for the starter website, like the about page, and the offer page.

To distribute your content, repurpose it, and publish it across different social media platforms, use it to grow your list, email to the list whenever you create new content, collaborate with other content creators in your niche, go on podcasts, and host webinars. Don’t stop there. Run ads to reach an even larger audience.

Good content combined with good distribution is leadership at scale. Because you create it once and it continues to build your authority 24×7.

If you are looking to build your site, start with a minimum viable website.

If you are looking for inspiration for your own minimum viable website, check out my sister’s website.

Once you launch it, update it every 6 months or so.

At that point look to create a website like these fine people.

Also, check out my friend Sandhya Ramachandran’s website.

These sites vary from minimal to detailed, and also showcase different color palettes, and should give you food for thought.