Every day millions of websites are birthed online showcasing the life accomplishments, timelines, portfolios of an impressive body of work and experience. The online job market is super competitive. And regardless of if you’re looking for a position or trying to grab clients, you have to stand out. With so many people with personal websites, you want to stand out and not be a needle in a haystack. We’ve put together a list of tips to help you showcase your best personal website using a .me domain.
A dot me domain is a great way to set yourself apart from the competition. You’ll showcase your professional experience and personality without the slightest hint of bragging—well maybe just a little. Let’s get started.
Use your name as your domain name
The best home for your personal website is on a branded .me with your name. Don’t worry if you’re one of the unlucky ones with a common name you can always adjust your domain name to showcase either your first or last name with an initial.
Alternatively, if your name has been snatched by someone else at a .com TLD extension you can and should use an available .me extension instead. There are great advantages of using a .me TLD. For one, it is short and memorable, it’s catchy and it focuses on you. Flaunt to everyone visiting your website that it is all about you with a .me domain.
3 Tips for building your .ME website
Using a .me domain would be the perfect way to showcase your digital resume, set up a stunning portfolio and build a following online. Below we breakdown the three tips for furnishing your .ME website so you can get the full benefits of your branded website at .me.
1. Choose an intuitive design for your website
You want to choose a design that showcases your resume of experience, it should have smooth navigation and include a portfolio of your best work. Your navigation should be clear and users should have no issues getting to various pages on your website. However, you want to be meticulous about your design and ensure you don’t create a website that is too complicated.
Consider this your chance to make a lasting impression on potential clients or employers. Your design’s focus should be on displaying your skills, past work and talents. Be sure to use colors, patterns, textures, fonts, and imagery (photos, gifs, etc.). Keep things simple, elegant and clean.
Pro-tip: Complete a rough sketch of your website on paper before you sit down to build scratch. Having a plan helps you to flesh out your ideas faster.
2. Carefully choose your website builder tool
Now that you’ve planned out what your website will look like it is time to build it. When choosing your website builder be sure your choice includes an option to make edits quickly. If you’re not able to afford a professional web designer to build your personal .me website, no worries, we got you. We have a beautiful, easy to use website builder that can furnish your website for you.
What’s more, is you’ll be able to add website building as a skill if you do it yourself. Our website builder has over 200 customizable templates from you to choose from. You want to aim for a clean design. Remember this is your online resume, cover letter and portfolio so you don’t want it to be too busy. Keep it simple for heightened UX and easy navigability.
3. Use basic SEO for your website
One major advantage of using a domain like yourname.me is that when employers type it into a search engine like Google, the web page should be served up to them on the first page of results. The key is to have your website rank high in search engine results for potential employers to find easily—but what keywords should be used to boost your SEO? Well, that depends on what type of services you’re offering. If you’re a freelance writer, for example, you may want to use keywords like “freelance writer for hire in California” as your search term.
Use the necessary keywords associated with your job profile to make sure your name is served up in SERPS. Beyond that, potential employers will Google your name online before they consider hiring you. In fact, according to Monster.com 77% of employers carry out an online search before hiring or shortlisting a candidate. With your .me website, you can ensure you control what they see when they search for you. Back to using keywords to boost SEO, when building your pages be sure to use metadata and stuff them with keywords associated with your field.
A quick bonus option
While we strongly suggest you take the time to craft the perfect website complete with yourname.me, we understand that building a website can be quite daunting. So, we’ll offer you another pro-tip that can help get you started while you build the best portfolio/resume website for your prospective employers and, or clients. You can purchase yourname.me extension and then have that forwarded to your LinkedIn profile, voila!
It is a much simpler way, and, if you need the time to work on your website you can have your domain directed to your LinkedIn which is already designed as a digital resume and portfolio. A .me domain provides a bridge to your professional channel on LinkedIn.
To sum up
We still recommend that you build your professional website even while having a redirect to LinkedIn. Remember your portfolio website will only have seconds to grab the attention of prospective employers or clients and make an impression. So, make it stand out from the sea of other applicants with similar backgrounds.
