Starting A Personal Website

Starting a personal website involves five core steps: clarifying what you want to say, choosing a website builder like WordPress or Squarespace, registering a domain name, creating essential pages (Home, About, Portfolio, Contact), and publishing your site. You don’t need coding skills— modern builders handle the technical side. But the step most guides skip is the first one: figuring out what story your website should tell about who you are.

Key Takeaways:

• Start with purpose, not platforms: Know what you want your website to say about you before picking tools or templates
• You don’t need coding knowledge: Website builders like WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix handle the technical work— focus on your content
• Five essential pages cover most needs: Homepage, About, Portfolio/Work, Blog (optional), and Contact
• A neglected website hurts more than no website: Commit to basic maintenance or wait until you can

Table of Contents

• Why Start a Personal Website? (The Case Most Guides Skip)
• Before You Build: Know What Story You Want to Tell
• How to Start a Personal Website: Step by Step
• How to Write Your About Page (The Page People Actually Read)
• Maintaining Your Website (When to Update and When NOT to Bother)
• Frequently Asked Questions

Why Start a Personal Website? (The Case Most Guides Skip)

A personal website gives you something no social media profile can: complete ownership of how you present yourself to the world. It’s the one place online where the algorithm doesn’t decide what people see about you.

That matters more than most people realize.

I’ve talked to so many people who’ve been asked at a networking event, “Do you have a website?” And they fumble. They mumble something about LinkedIn. They feel a little embarrassed— not because they should, but because somewhere inside they know they have something to say and no place to say it.

Here’s why a personal website is worth your time:

• You own it. Social platforms change their rules, limit your reach, or disappear entirely. As WordPress.com puts it, “what’s not yours can be taken away from you.” Your website stays yours.
• It builds professional credibility. According to Work It Daily, 56% of people consider a personal website the most effective self-promotion tool available. That’s higher than any social media platform.
• It forces clarity. Building a website makes you answer hard questions about who you are and what you stand for. Research from Claremont Graduate University found that the process itself increases professional self-awareness.
• It travels with you. Jobs change. Platforms shut down. Career pivots happen. Your website persists through all of it.

And there’s a deeper layer here. Research published in Cyberpsychology found that a primary motivation for creating personal websites is self-portrayal and identity management. In other words, a personal website isn’t just a career move— it’s an act of self-expression.

Your website matters more than your LinkedIn profile. Because you own it.

Now, I’ll be honest. A personal website isn’t for everyone, and a bad one can actually hurt. But if you have something to say and want a place that’s truly yours, the question isn’t whether you should build one. It’s why you haven’t yet.

So where do you actually begin? Not where most guides tell you.

Before You Build: Know What Story You Want to Tell

The most important step in starting a personal website happens before you open any website builder: deciding what you want your site to say about you.

Most people skip this entirely. They pick a template, open a blank page, and freeze. Sound familiar?

Here’s what people get wrong: they think the hard part is the tech. It’s not. The hard part is the clarity. And skipping this step is the number one reason personal websites get abandoned.

Your personal website should answer one question for every visitor: who is this person, and what do they care about?

Before you touch a single tool, sit with these three questions:

1. What do you want to be known for? Not your job title— your contribution.
2. Who do you want to reach? A hiring manager? Potential clients? A community of like-minded people?
3. What should someone DO after visiting? Contact you? Read your writing? Hire you?

This connects to something psychologists call narrative identity— the idea that your identity is an internalized, evolving story of the self. Your website is one place where you get to tell that story on your own terms.

If you’re feeling lost or unsure about your direction, that’s okay. You don’t need perfect clarity. Direction matters more than a finished map. Even a rough sense of what you care about is enough to start. And the process of building— of choosing what to include and what to leave out— will sharpen your clarity along the way.

If you want to go deeper on this, I’d encourage you to explore finding your purpose in life. That work will make everything about your website easier.

Once you know your story, the technical steps are straightforward.

How to Start a Personal Website: Step by Step

Building a personal website takes five steps: choose a platform, register a domain, pick a template, add your pages, and publish. Most people can have a basic site live in a single afternoon.

You do not need coding knowledge to build a professional personal website. Modern builders like WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix provide drag-and-drop editors and pre-designed templates. That’s not a compromise— it’s how the majority of the internet works.

Step 1 — Choose Your Platform

This is where people get stuck for weeks. Don’t.

A personal website requires a domain name and hosting, which website builders like WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix provide as bundled services. Here’s how they compare:

My honest take: WordPress is the best long-term choice for most people, even though Wix is easier to start with. If design matters most to you, Squarespace is beautiful out of the box. But don’t spend three weeks deciding. Pick one and move.

Step 2 — Register Your Domain

Your domain is your address online. Use your name if you can— FirstnameLastname.com is professional and easy to remember.

A .com domain on a registrar like Namecheap runs about $10-20 per year. That’s it. Keep it simple. Keep it professional. Move on.

Step 3 — Pick a Template and Customize

Choose a clean, mobile-friendly template. According to Shopify, 62% of web traffic now comes from mobile devices, so your site needs to look good on a phone.

Limit your navigation to 5-7 items. Customize colors and fonts to match your personality— but don’t overthink it. A simple, clean site that’s live beats a gorgeous site that’s stuck in draft mode forever.

Step 4 — Create Your Essential Pages

At minimum, you need:

• Homepage — Who you are in 10 seconds
• About page — Your story (more on this below)
• Portfolio/Work — What you’ve done or what you offer
• Contact — How to reach you

A blog is optional but powerful. It gives people a reason to come back and helps your site show up in search results over time.

Step 5 — Publish and Share

Done is better than perfect. Publish your site.

Share it with your network. Add the link to your email signature, your LinkedIn profile, your social media bios. Basic SEO— writing clear page titles, adding meta descriptions, using alt text on images— will help people find you over time.

Your site is live. Now let’s talk about the page that matters most.

How to Write Your About Page (The Page People Actually Read)

Your About page is the most visited page on most personal websites— and the hardest one to write. It should tell visitors who you are, what you care about, and why it matters to them.

Your About page isn’t your resume. It’s your story— told in a way that helps the reader understand why you matter to them.

Here’s what that looks like in practice. Compare these two openers:

Generic: “I am a marketing professional with 10 years of experience in digital strategy and brand management.”

Human: “I help small businesses tell stories that actually get people to care. I’ve spent the last decade figuring out what makes people stop scrolling— and it’s never a mission statement.”

Feel the difference? The second one sounds like a person.

Here’s a quick checklist for your About page:

• Write in first person— this is YOUR site
• Lead with what you do and who you help, not your childhood
• Include a real photo of you (not stock photography)
• Show personality— this isn’t a LinkedIn summary
• Show yourself “in action”— share what you’re working on or excited about

Writing about yourself is genuinely hard. Imposter syndrome is real. “Who am I to have a website?” is a question almost everyone asks.

But here’s the thing: your About page should feel like a conversation, not a cover letter. If you want help getting clear on your message, try the exercise of writing your personal manifesto. It’ll give you language you can use everywhere on your site.

Once your site is live, the question becomes: what keeps it alive?

Maintaining Your Website (When to Update and When NOT to Bother)

A personal website only works if you keep it current. But “current” doesn’t mean posting weekly— it means the information on it is still true.

A neglected personal website with outdated information can hurt your credibility more than having no website at all. The DEV Community makes this point well: a bad or abandoned website sends the wrong message.

Here’s what realistic maintenance looks like:

• Quarterly: Review your site. Is your job title right? Are your links working? Is your photo current?
• Annually: Refresh your About page and portfolio with recent work.
• Ongoing (optional): Blog if you want to, but don’t feel guilty if you don’t. A blog is powerful for building an audience and improving your site’s visibility— but a minimal, current website beats an elaborate, abandoned one every single time.

Signs your website needs attention right now:

• Your site still says you work somewhere you left two years ago
• You have dead links or broken images
• Your photo is from a different decade
• You cringe when someone asks for your URL

It’s okay to not have a blog. It’s okay to have a simple three-page site. What’s not okay is letting your site rot. If you won’t maintain it, take it down until you will.

Before we wrap up, here are the questions I hear most often.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are the most common questions about starting a personal website.

How much does it cost to start a personal website?

Free tiers exist on WordPress.com and Wix. Paid plans typically run $4-30/month plus $10-20/year for a custom domain. Most people spend under $200/year total. You can start for literally nothing and upgrade later.

Do I need to know how to code?

No. WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix all provide visual editors and templates that require zero coding. WordPress alone powers over 43% of websites on the internet— and most of those were built without writing a single line of code.

What’s the difference between a personal website and a portfolio?

A portfolio is one type of personal website focused on showcasing work samples. A personal website can include a portfolio but also features an About page, blog, contact information, and more. Think of it this way: a portfolio shows what you’ve done. A personal website shows who you are.

Should I use my real name as my domain?

If available, yes. FirstnameLastname.com is the most professional and easiest for people to find. If it’s taken, try adding a middle initial or a relevant word.

How do I get people to visit my personal website?

Link to it everywhere: your LinkedIn profile, email signature, social media bios, business cards. If you blog, basic SEO will drive organic traffic over time. But honestly? The people who matter most— the ones you meet, work with, or pitch to— will find it because you told them about it.

Starting a personal website doesn’t require technical expertise. It requires clarity about who you are and what you want to share with the world.

The real barrier was never the technology. It was knowing what you want to say.

And you don’t need to have it all figured out. You need a direction, not a destination. Start small. Start imperfect. Start before you feel ready.

Your website doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be yours.

If you want to dig deeper into the question of what you’re meant to share— what you’re here to do and say— I’d love for you to explore where your calling comes from. That’s the kind of work that makes everything else, including your website, feel like it matters.

You have something to say. Build the place to say it.

I believe in you.

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