How to write content for yourself!

Personal site - how to go about it?

[contentmaster]

Have been thinking of creating my own web page....talking about my USP's ......Something like a personal site....describing my skills in web designing etc....but im finding myself in a situation wherein I don't know how to begin writing .....

Should their be a set pattern or can I just talk about myself explaining how I can help.....

Also, please let me know any good individual personal sites which I can study and then perhaps model! I'm in a bit of a rush, so any prompt replies would be highly appreciated!:))

Thanks in advance!

[Jenstar]

A lot will depend on the kind of tone you would like to set on the site itself. As you travel through different sites, you will notice that each site will have its own voice, unique to itself.

If you are describing web design skills in order to gain clients, I would go with a professional tone. You should break it down into sections, not just a large rambling page about you, your skills, and why people should hire you ;) But if it is personal just so you can show off your work to family and friends (and not using it to gain clients) you could adopt a more informal tone.

You will also have to figure out if you want to talk about yourself in the first person or the third person. Third person is usually more professional, but many people have a hard time writing about themselves this way.

Sorry, we can't post links to other sites, as it is against the TOS.

Just start writing how you think it should be - you can always go back and edit later. Editing is good :)

[deejay]

USPs? Unique service/selling points? Not sure what you mean there.

I think the first thing you need to do is define what you actually want the site to be.

You call it a personal site, which makes me think "hi, my name is Joe and I like walking my dog and wearing womens underwear"..... but then you say "describing my skills" and "explaining how I can help", which implies you are wanting to sell services?

So which is it? If it is a business site, then the fact that you may be a sole trader doesn't really change the site's structure any from what a typical web design business might use.

If it is really a personal website though, there are absolutely no constraints as to what you should put in there.

If you actually want to have both, then I suggest you build two websites. People interested in how you spend your weekends are not terribly likely to buy website designs from you, and your taste in underwear/pastimes/food/movies might have a negative impact on potential website customers.

[Hawkgirl]

If you're wanting to use your site to sell yourself or use it as an online resume, then how you organize it and what you write are going to be extremely important.

I have a friend who has incredible web skills and his personal resume site is really junky. I have no idea how he thinks he's going to convince clients he's a good designer when the site that has his name on it is junk!

To set up a resume site, I think the first step would be to organize your skills and background information into an actual resume. Take a good look at it - make sure there's nothing missing.

Next - expand on the areas you think are important. What do you want to highlight? Make it interactive. Link to examples of previous work. Have a mini-slideshow of screenshots of things that are no longer live.

If your design is solid and the information you present is clean, your site will speak volumes to potential clients.

[contentmaster]

Thanks so much for all the tips........Yes this site would be my online resume in a way...wherein I would want to project by skills and perhaps use it to get freelance projects etc...........so i think I should use a more professional tone...I will start structuring it soon..and might come to all of you if i get stuck somewhere!Please bare with me!

[engine]

Try to put your mind thinking that you are someone else and you've never see the site before - what would they see? And not just what you want them to see.

A good start would be to write some bullet points on the most important aspects of the content, and do the same for the site structure, too.