First up, what is a personal website?

It is a website where you can share your thoughts and experience. It can be personal or professional in nature demonstrating your knowledge and experience.

How can it help you succeed in Life and Business? We will examine this further down.

If you do not know what a personal website is, then look no further. This website JamesWoo.net is my personal website and it carries my name. Your personal domain name will be something like www.yourname.com.

Now that you know, the more important question is, “How can a personal website help me me succeed in life and in business?”

Here are 7 reasons why a personal domain name can help.

1. Recognition and recall

Which is easier to remember, an email address from [email protected] compared to [email protected]? You may say both is about the same. That is true. However, do you realize that every email you send, you are actually helping people remember you.

Why?

First, very few people have their own personal website, unless they recognize the power of having their own website. When you have a website with your own domain name, you will stand out because few people are doing it.

Have you ever look through a list of 50 email addresses and 2 of them is a personal domain name email? You probably have.

Would you be at least slightly curious who these people are? You may think they are important enough to have their own domain name email address and check them out. In other words, they have marketed themselves to you.

Perhaps you are not a curious as I am, but I’m willing to bet that there are others who are curious too.

2. Automatic marketing

Every email you ever send out with your own domain name account, ends with [email protected]. Do you realize that you are slowly creating a brand. The best things is, this happens automatically, every time you send out an email.

You are marketing without really marketing.

3. Online resume

Personal website It is an online resume. Traditional resumes are slowly going the way of the dinosaur. Instead of sending a resume only when you are actively searching for your next job, a live online resume shows the world what you have done and what you are doing now.

If smart students are already creating their personal website to show their research, projects and to get noticed even before they graduate, as a business person, don’t you think you should too?

Others can look you up even when you are not actively seeking a job. Isn’t it great to have people knocking on your door with a job offers?

You can update your resume any time.

Anytime you were invited to speak, teach or do anything related to your field, you can include photos, audio and video clips. All these become your resume.

4. Online business card

Imagine you met someone at a conference or a party. You talk a bit about what you do and they like what you do. Unfortunately, you don’t have your business card with you. All you need to do is to jot down yourname.com on a napkin or just text your domain name to their mobile phone.

They can find all the information they need to contact you including email address, phone number, skype ID, twitter account etc. at one place. They can easily refer your information to their friends and business associates as well.

If they lose your business card somehow, they can easily find you by searching for your name online. No more lost opportunities from misplaced business cards.

If you blog or write regularly to put down your thoughts, you can use your personal website to do the following.

5. Start a business

Many people start a business, then create a website so promote and market their business. There’s nothing wrong if you have an existing business. You can also use your personal domain name website to blog and then start a business.

This mean much lower risk to you. As you put things online, you can build a audience at low cost, identify their needs and create a service or product to serve your audience.

6. Author a book

Some what similar to point number 5, your personal domain name website may help you author a book. Off course your writing must be up to par. If your writing is good but don’t have a audience, i.e. people who are already interested in your writing, even if you have good ideas, it may not get you published.

“There were so many authors with great manuscripts and really good ideas, but they didn’t have a platform, and as a publisher, I got tired of turning them away,” said Michael Hyatt, former chairman of Thomas Nelson publishing, author.

7. People are searching for you online.

Yes. People are searching for you all the time. Whether you are an entrepreneur or a employee? What you write on your site reflects you as a person. It give people a sense of who you are and what you stand for.

It’s not really cool anymore but its still useful

Update 2019. Forget about being cool. Is it useful?

When people ask what you do, if you don’t want to talk business at a private situation, you can tell them, “Find me on Google!” Or perhaps that one or two minutes you had did not give you adequate time to tell them.

With your own website, they can look through and be interested in what you have to offer.

All these helps you by increasing the size your network, helps you stand out from the crowd, and may well help you spin off a new business.

P.S - there is a slight difference between a personal website and a personal domain name. A personal website can be any site you choose to publish regularly while a personal domain name mean your name is in the url.