Faisalabad: In preceding days with my friend Robert Lebowitz, we made a draft to send our last client who was continually asking about why she still need a website in the age of facebook and twitter? After receiving this proposal, the very next day, she hired us. I love to share those reasons with you guys.
In an age where one can slap up a profile on Facebook, complete with photos, graphics, information about oneself or one’s work, and immediately become part of a vast network of potential friends, clients, and employers, and in an era where sites like Tumblr allow you to create an expressive and artistic portfolio in minutes, and tools such as Twitter give you the ability to reach a wide audience with a minimum of effort — why have a personal Website?
Is the website becoming an anachronism, a holdover from the days when Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter didn’t exist? What can a personal website do that these sites can’t, and why spend the money and time making and maintaining something when one can use what someone else is maintaining for you — for free?
These are all very valid questions, and deserve response. While it is true that websites were once the sole means of getting oneself out there in the days before Facebook, a personal website still serves many important purposes, which these other utilities, no matter how important they are, cannot. Understanding them will give you an idea of how best to use your website. The top five reasons follow below.
You would be hard-pressed to take someone seriously in any professional career if they did not have a business card. Today, the same holds true for a website. It is common perception that any dedicated professional has a website; conversely, someone without a website gives the impression of being not quite as established. Anyone can put up a Facebook account; it takes more thought, time, and effort to put up a website.
Having your own website puts you in the driver’s seat in terms of how you want to present yourself. You can change the look of your site, add new elements, take out those which aren’t working. You can sell prints, keep a blog, send out news reports, and exchange links. You are not limited by other sites’ capabilities, since you can implement your own on a WordPress-based website. And there is no censorship. One’s website is one’s own voice, and one is free to publish what one likes without the fear or being told material is inappropriate.
Having your own website also gives you the ability, to some extent, to increase your popularity. By following some basic practices of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), you can make your site rise up in Google searches. There’s more on this in another section, but practices such as exchanging links with other, more popular sites, and producing fresh content on your blog, will contribute toward getting your site more known. This is something that cannot be done on other pre-fabricated platforms.
It is important to note that having a website is not in lieu of having presences on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or any other site. On the contrary, a successful social media user should use all these tools for self-promotion. They are all important, and each should be utilized to their fullest capability. What a website provides is a base. A person can feel split, almost homeless existing on so many different mass platforms. A website provides one with a core identity which is uniquely his or her own, and from which one can branch out to these other platforms. Cross-linking and cross-publishing can and should occur between one’s website and the rest of the social media. Each does not preclude but rather enhances the other.
A final major reason to have a website can come down to pure business. One’s own website can be a source of revenue. You can advertise on your site as it gets more popular, earning money for each click from a visitor. Additionally, your site is evaluated regularly for its worth. As it grows more popular, sites gauge how much potential advertising revenue can be gleaned from it. If your career blossoms, your site and domain name increase in value. Can you imagine what JenniferLopez.com is worth today? Your site might never reach that monetary equivalent (though who knows?) but it will certainly increase in value if maintained regularly and properly. The same real estate slogan can be applied to having one’s own website as opposed to solely a presence on Facebook: Why rent when you can own?
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