Version 1 - Click to View
I’ve been asked more than a few times what my strategy is for the many personal branding / landing pages that I’ve created and here’s what it ultimately boils down to: It is my job and responsibility to steward and manage my online identity and brand as best as I possibly can, despite the fact that I have little to no control over it.
Confused? A bit contradictory? Perhaps. But here’s what I mean:
- You have an online brand whether you like it or not. Sorry – there’s no way around this.
- Either you participate in the development and curation of your personal brand or the internet will do it for you. 99 out of 100 times the internet gets it wrong.
- People will literally say anything they want about you, regardless of their level of intelligence or ignorance. Give both the luminaries of thought and bottom-feeders the correct information to talk about.
- Your job is to simply provide the right framework of thinking about who you are, what you do, and what you stand for. The rest is just good old fashioned luck.
You see, a personal landing page (or personal branding page) can help provide the much-needed (and super-valuable) context for people’s thoughts (and imaginations) about who you are and your brand.
Version 2 - Click to View
3 Strategic Reasons You Need One:
I could probably spend 1,000 words (or more) explaining in-depth the reasons you want to create a personal landing page for yourself but here are some of the most powerful justifications that are hard to deny:
- It’s the closest you’ll ever come to controlling your online brand. It’s also the most that you can possibly do to help direct people in the right direction. You can literally tell the internet world who you are in the most succinct, most accurate, and most definitive way possible. Why would you give that opportunity up?
- Two properties are better than one. You’ll get a lot of great SEO around your personal branding page and you’ll be able to funnel traffic to your blog directly. More SEO equals more traffic as well and that’s a good thing. Your blog can only communicate so much instantaneously and at first pass but your landing page will hit the bulls-eye within seconds (or it should).
- It’s a straight-up differentiates you right out of the gate! In other words, by having a personal landing page it sets you apart as unique and as showcases implicitly that you care about your online persona, your online brand, and how you communicate what matters to your community. If there are 100,000 new blogs created every minute then be the 1 that also has a personal branding page.
And I could go on, but that should do for now.
Version 3 - Click to View
More Than Just Words:
Finally, don’t forget that your brand is much more than just words on a blog and a website – it’s also the emotional connection that you have with your community and visitors and the emotions that your sites, content, and persona elicit when they think about you.
These emotions, by and large, you simply can’t control at all!
But, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t attempt to direct them in the right direction!
Free Template to Download and Use:
I just put the finishing touches on version 4 of a personal branding page and I thought it would be swell to simply give this one away for the community here to use for their own needs.
As you can see, it’s very similar to the About.me and Flavors.me, both of which are great web apps.
Version 4 - Click to View - I've provided the template for this for you to use!
Since the rest of my landing pages were very visual in terms of varying elements and had all these icons all over the place I decided to take a more copy-heavy focus and build it more in the form of a narrative – it’s like I wrote out literally a conversation I had with someone recently about what I did as a “job” and being a so-called “entrepreneur.”
So the conversation ended up finding a place and a home on version 4!
How to Install, Use:
It’s actually pretty simple since it’s just a few files:
- Just upload all the contents in this folder via FTP to your hosting provider/server.
- Swap out all text in the index.html file.
- Change out the “john.jpeg” image with your own image.
- Swap out the “favicon.ico” with your own favicon.
- Style it via CSS with the “johnthe.css” file.
- Sit back, relax, and be awesome.
You are free to edit, change, and pretty much do anything you want with it! 100% open source.
- Download Here!
- Download Here!
I’d love to see what you guys do with it! Feel free to customize it then shoot me a link and I’ll include it here on this post as examples!
***UPDATE***
I’ve since consolidated all of my branding pages into one and have given them away for free! Download them here! The following below still holds true – I enjoy experimenting and messing with stuff, but I certainly don’t mind the financial savings for top-level domain purchases…!
***END UPDATE***
Ah. Finally, someone inevitably asks why I have more than just one. Here are my reasons:
- Because I can.
- Because I get bored and have to do something with myself other than write thousands of words a day.
- I like to experiment. A lot.
- The more the merrier.
- It gives people “options” when mentioning me via blogs, twitter, and the like. Some are more memorable than others in terms of naming conventions and top-level country domains.
- I apparently like to spend money on those expensive top-level country domains.
- Because I can.
There you go!
Having grabbed a few domains for myself, I’ve always wanted to create a clear and concise page about myself using my name domain.
You’ve just inspired me to do so, and I wonder what I will come up with.
let me know how it goes!
John, great post which I will certainly incorporate into my blog. On an unrelated note, how did you get the Evernote Elephant in the top of your browser? Can you “drop” items into it?
i coded that into the template manually.
here’s my code in the my template:
http://cl.ly/1U1h3U1F2M0E073m2V35
2
<a class="fade" href="#" onclick="Evernote.doClip({providerName:'TentBlogger',suggestNotebook:'TentBlogging',code:'John9304'}); return false;"><img src="http://static.evernote.com/site-mem-32.png" class="small" alt="Clip to Evernote" /></a>
Thanks. A little over my head but I’ll have someone help me with it.
cool.
I love this! Thank you so much for creating all these amazing things for us!
Have you done a “day in the life” post yet? You accomplish so much every day!
-You create designs.
-You build websites
-Your update your blogs rigorously
-And so much more!
I guess I am just curious what a day in your life looks like! haha, do you take a break in the afternoon? Do you do most of your writing in the morning? Do you travel?
What does it look like for John Saddington to be Tentblogger?
I know I can’t wait for him to do a day in the life post either! I recommended it to him and he said he would work on it
more pressure…..! i’ll do it soon……!
haha. i’ll do this post soon!
Let me see if I can get this straight… is it because you can? : )
I need to get some good personal brand photos done myself (perhaps a hand in the pocket shot as well… or both hands behind the back).
dude. get some. be secksy.
I like the alternative sites to turn to as well. John mentioned both About.me and Flavors.me. These sites are extremely simple to build and they look great. This is a good place to begin if you don’t know a lot of CSS.
definitely agree. i like doing it yourself though because you end up having better SEO.
Love the new look. Downloaded and I am going to try to work something up. Also, looking into buying a couple of other personal branding domain names. Will post the link when complete!
sweet!
This is awesome. Thanks for sharing!
sure thing dustin!
Weird, I just finished working on mine yesterday! Thanks for the great theme! http://jamesbrooks.me.uk
love it dude. love it.
Your page made me subscribe to your blog’s RSS… how did you manage that?
because james is a boss!
Thanks Jon! Love the personal landing pages… do you have version 3 still available?
hmm. i haven’t given that one out…
Thanks for all the great stuff you’re producing for bloggers! It’s made blogging life so much easier.
sure thing sam!
I noticed you were able to get your first and last name .com.
If a person’s name is already taken, what is the next best thing?
Like your john.do, by the way. Clever use of a country top domain.
sure. you could do another top-level.
had been thinking about doing this for a while, so I took a few extra minutes over lunch and got something up.
will be switching out the background photo with a new headshot i had taken last month, but for now I’m digging it.
http://bryanalla.in/
thanks John!
I love it, Bryan!
dude. love it!
I have just (almost) finished redesigning my site with a view to doing exactly what you talked about in this article.
I chose not to create a separate landing page site but instead tried to do something similar with the front page of my website (http://Peterpollock.com)
I’m not 100% happy with what I’ve created so I may end up going your route in the future…
oooh. i like it.
Solid stuff. Love it.
great post Jon! Thanks for the info, and the free template! I went ahead and secured dustn.me today and will have a landing page up soon!
oh. i like it!
Misspelled word in your blog post here –”Finally, don’t forget that uour brand”– **I knew you would want to know… PLUS it proves I read it all
awesome!
Great Post! I would also like to see a post in the future on how you stay focused and a post on how you work on staying a producer rather than just a consumer. Thanks!
love it! sure thing jimmy!
What if our main site (portfolio/about/services/contact) is similar to a branding page. Do you still feel the need for a page like this?
i’d still have one… but might not be necessary.
you’re askign the wrong guy…. i have 4 or 5!
Here’s mine:
http://briannotess.com
I really need a better image, but for some reason lost the raw file for the picture I used.
I think my page will represent whatever it is I’m trying to tell people I do at a particular moment in time. IE lately I’ve been trying to get WordPress development work. I’m not crazy about it, but it works for now.
like it!
Hey John! Would like to know what your thoughts are on what email to give out to people. One that is attached to the domain of my personal landing page (i.e. brad@bradbates.me) or the one that is attached to my blog (i.e. brad@bradbateslive.com)?
Also, I’m sure you have done a “lesson” or a blog on the topic of getting more traffic to your blog. Where would I find it?
Thank you for everything; you are an incredible resource!
God bless,
Brad
brad, i’ll be writing more about traffic generation on a new series coming after the current one.
also, i give my email address of the domain i like the most. see the video-cast where i share this:
http://tentblogger.com/talking-about-personal-landing-pages-during-the-live-broadcast/
Okay, I like this idea.
However, when you say landing page, do you mean that if you were to go to http://duane-scott.net/ , you would get a landing page?
Or do I need a different domain for a landing page, like what Bryan did above.
Which is the proper way?
P.S. I’m newer to your blog, but it’s just awesome! And I love the way you reply to your readers.
sure thing duane!
you could do it a number of different ways. if your blog is your name (which i highly discourage) then you may have to be creative.
I’m suck.
I’ve been using my name as a domain for too long already. It’d be hard to change!
*sunk
never too late to change. trust me on that.
i don’t think so at all. there’s always time for change….!
You discourage people from using their name as their blog?
Oh man… now I feel discouraged
yes. i don’t think names for blog urls is a smart move. i talk about this a few times already.
http://tentblogger.com/domain-name-for-blog/
see point 16 there.
I use about.me but don’t love the lack of customization available.
i love being free to do whatever i want, even it if is simple. seo is better if you do it yourself too.
I have been going back and forth with this personal branding landing page. You sold me. Good stuff John!
sweet! let’s see it!
Sweet! Can’t wait to get a page done. Thanks for putting this template out there for us John.
let me know when it’s done clay!
wow – that landing page photo of you and the tag line is totally brilliant.
haha.
my wife actually came up with it.
Just curious, why not simply use About.me or Flavor.me? As you alluded to above, they are pretty sharp and flexible.
Are there advantages to using another template?
SEO. you’ll have better SEO with your own managed domain because can specify the meta data, and put them into bing/yahoo/google yourself.
creative flexibility is the next powerful justification.
Okay…it only took me an hour or so to get the CSS right. http://www.austinklee.com
And another 4 to realize that I couldn’t install this as a part of Standard Theme and use it as a page template.
Oh well…I’ll find another place to put all those old posts.
sweet! i love it! need a bigger pic!
John, Love the landing page. I finally replaced my nice but sadly outdated flash landing page with your template. I need to update it with a sick photo. Yours just makes all of ours look like the back page cover lawyer ad on a yellow pages. Soon. Here is mine http://johnflurry.com.
haha!
need a big picture!
Yep, just commissioned a friend to take one. Yours is awesome.
sweeeeeeeeeet!
Naz Hamid just released a great resource for this on GitHub. A truly open source personal page template
It already has 34 forks!
if you downloaded my version you’d see that i referenced naz in the readme file.
Here’s mine-> http://www.terrinramsey.com
I’m using it to send to my online friends to help raise money for a missions trip to Zambia
that is sweet!
Between this post and one of your readers, who has become a customer of mine, I’ve been inspired to alter my blog hosting product.
With my blog hosting package, customers are currently only allowed one site. They can park domain names but they can’t have sites built under other domain names.
This is a purely economic thing. At the prices we do, we simply can’t afford to have multiple websites under each account.
However, a landing page would use very little in the way of processor time and bandwidth so I’m going to expand the product to allow a second domain as a landing page – all for the same $35 per year.
It will take a little while to change the website to reflect that but if anyone wants to add a landing page to their package now, I’ll do it for them immediately.
woooooooooooooow! can i send people to you?
No.. I don’t want any more customers
YES, of course!
What a great idea!
Thanks, Brian
Thank John. I modified your template download and fit it in to a WordPress theme for my landing page. Check it out if you have time and thanks for the useful themes!
wow. i love the colors!
Wow – yours is nice! Is that an RSS feed of your posts under “Lately, I’ve been writing”?
his is pretty sweet, right?
Just inspired me to redo my landing page. Take a look, let me know what ya think.
loved it man!
OK… I gave in and purchased peterpollock.me
Now I’ve just got to design the page…
let me know when it’s done…..!
OK.. attempt #1 is done!
I need to do all the site submissions etc but right now, it’s the smallest page I’ve ever created!
Any suggestions what I could change?
not sure you need your gravatar as the bullets…!
Laying out a “another” site redesign and I was just wondering with this template, in situations where the text extends beyond one screenful is it normal for the scrolling to feel a little jerky?
Ex. http://danielcberman.com/resume.html
Is there anything I can change, or is it simply the nature of the beast since I am using javascript to stretch the background image to the screen dimensions?
all related to the speed of the visitor’s computer and browser…
but, you should try to pare it down into zero-scroll.
Don’t want to spam this post, but we’re providing a webapp for those who don’t want to code/host a personal landing page themselves at http://dooid.com (Just sent you an invite to the new version’s private beta, John).
thanks…! i’ll have to check it out.
Love the blog! I’m hooked…want to read more and more and more. I landed here on this blog and was about to create a landing page but am thinking I need to do some backreading on your blog tips.
You see, I’m a commited person. I long to love my blogging and I don’t so much these days. I feel schitzophrenic. I’ve had a personal blog going for a few years but recently started a more focused journey oriented blog on a seperate server. Should they stay 2 or merge into one super organized blog?
hmmm…
ah, thanks stephanie!
it’s up to you about whether or not to merge the two… if you’ve “dropped” one of them then you could move the content over into the new system.
oh, and make sure you get a gravatar! http://tentblogger.com/gravatar/
I added a landing page:
http://www.jeremydmyers.com
Thanks for the template.
Is there a way to add a hotspot to that sign I’m holding which points people to my RSS feed?
haha! i love that sign!
I’m a little late to the party. But I just rolled out mine.
http://kyletroop.com
sweet! nice job!
Seriously considering using this template. Thanks for sharing it, John!
did you use it?
This may be a stupid question…. but I downloaded your free Landing Page Template (which is awesome by the way) and tried to load it into my FTP, but I am not having any success. Do I need to install wordpress? Or do i just upload these files into my domain directory? I am using Bluehost and I have only installed sites that use wordpress.
Thanks.
no. not wordpress.
WOW!! Now I can see why Blogging With Amy always mentions you!!
Fantastic!
Blessings
Shari
An old post, but I just came across while looking for inspiration for my landing page. While I really like how the large portrait looks, I didn’t want that for me…so I went in a slightly different direction.
awesome! let me see?
Thank you very much for your work and style!
I loved your landing page Version 1 so much I haven’t even modified it much. http://seb.gaiaysofia.com/
Keep up all the good work and Best wishes!
awesome! great work!
Do these templates work for Blogger? If not, What landing page templates do you recommend for Blogger?
these don’t need blogger – these are just stand-alone html templates.