The explosion of the Internet means that everyone's fifteen minutes of fame just got longer. Creating a personal website is a way to communicate with family and friends, to get your views across, to help people with their own research, to celebrate aspects of life that you particularly enjoy, even if it's to share secrets of where to get the best growers supplies or to show off your dream Port Credit home. There are more than a few people today who have careers based on the fact that they started a personal website. Now, that might not be in the cards for all of us, but at the very least you can create a personal website that you and a few other people will enjoy. Here are some tips to help make that happen.
Pay attention to the maintenance end! Most of us create personal websites and become totally wrapped up in the content, not bothering with past articles or blogs or pictures or links. However, getting your website noticed means both co-operating with search engines and keeping your readers/viewers in mind. Visitors to your site will hate it when they go to click on a link and they get an error message; if that happens a couple of times then you can kiss a visitor goodbye. Go through your site twice a month or so and make sure that all the links are working just fine. This includes a check when you're uploading new content. You'd hate to write a whole article on how you're thinking of getting your Canadian real estate license and then find out a month later that it didn't post properly.
Keep things fresh. Another rule of search engine optimization that comes straight from the point of view of the end user is the rule of updating. Just as with movies, the key to the success of a website is in the number of repeat visitors a site gets. You might have engaging content that will keep people entertained after a couple of reads, but sooner or later they are going to want to see more. Keep your content fresh and updated, and both the search engines and your visitors will be happy with you. For example, if you're showing people the process of building your new Meadowvale home, people will get annoyed if you stop posting after the roof goes in. They will want to see new pictures from start to finish.
Don't get too cluttered. It's true that your personal website is a method of self expression, but you need to keep in mind (especially if you have dreams of large numbers of visitors) that on the World Wide Web, convenience is key. People do not want to feel as though a site is too busy to look at; flashing animation, overlapped pictures complete with Cantonese English tranlation
and badly matched content and links can sometimes do that (ever tried to read a light blue font on a green background? It may sound great for your site, but if people can't read it, they won't come back). If you have a lot of content to put up, making several pages on a site is probably the best way to do it. Try to keep information down to a few pieces or pictures per a page, and include links to other sections.
Talk about your site! There is no sense in having a website if you are not going to tell people about it. Most of us are on social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace, and you should have the link to your website on your page. If you are visiting with friends or family, let them know about your site and what you are doing with it. It might feel like advertising because it IS advertising, but without it who would know about your site?
A personal website can be fun, but they are also hard work. The tips above will help to get your site noticed and help it on its way to success.
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