For the last few weeks, we’ve been ‘hacking’ around your personal branding by preparing content about you and setting up your social media presence to reflect who you are and what you do. However, websites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace (remember that one?) come and go – but it seems that websites, like diamonds, are forever! At least on the internet.

Without a central, standard web presence that your users can reach without having to sign into another social network your personal branding is all for not. Which is why we’re going to create your minimum viable website, a play on the term “minimum viable product” that Ash Maurya defines as:

A Minimum Viable Product is the smallest thing you can build that delivers customer value (and as a bonus captures some of that value back).

So a MVW is, on the other hand, the smallest website you can build that delivers customer value! It’s going to be a mix of a bit of content and some social media!

• Part 1: How to write an “About Me”
• Part 2: The Power User’s Guide to Twitter Rebranding: Tweet-Voice & Repeat Tweets
• Part 3: The Power User’s Guide to LinkedIn Personal Branding Habits!
• Part 4: The Essential Guide to Facebook Personal Branding
• Part 5: Setting up Your Minimal Viable Website (this article!)

Why a Minimum Viable Website?

While it’s obvious that you need some kind, any kind of website in order to promote what you do, it’s less obvious how to go about it. Most people assume that a personal website about them needs to be perfect, because they see it as their own reflection. While Facebook might offer just a few ways to customize your profile or page, custom websites offer a wealth of possibilities… That you probably won’t use. You don’t have the time. The resources. The patience…

But It’s My Website!

Repeat after me. You don’t have the time. The resources. The patience. And most importantly, you can never “finish” your website since, unlike a book, you will never finish updating it because that’s the point of having the website. If it’s a reflection of you, it will definitely change over the years which is why you need to put it out in the world as soon as possible. Even books have editions – and a deadline to go to print!

Which is why for the first edition of your website, you’re going to JUST mix up the ingredients we’ve already prepared over the summer. A bit of content to get you started and a lot of social media integration to have your website updated automatically after you update either your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account. Don’t mention it.

Part 1: The Infrastructure

Go to any of or domain partners and register your favourite .ME domain name. Now find a great hosting partner such as our very own Menet and get them to set you up with a sweet hosting package with enough space, bandwidth and email accounts to last you for at least the first year of two or operating your personal website.

Now we wait for a couple of hours, or maybe even a day to have you setup everything. Don’t worry, we’ll wait for you. Go on, set it up!

Finished? Great. Let’s move on…

Part 2: The Way It Works

Since we don’t want to put a strain on your budget, we’ll use one of our favourite (and free) content management system for your website. You can find it at WordPress.org and upload it to your hosting. Your hosting provider might already offer the option to install WordPress automatically. Either way, installing this very nice piece of software shouldn’t take more than 20-30 minutes.

Part 3: The Content (You have)

In a brief pause between setting up your WordPress, let’s look at what content you already have at your disposal. If you’ve been following the Summer of .ME, you should have some “About” content already ready.

Having that content in mind, try to visualise (you can use a mind map) of how you would organise all the content you already have. Don’t plan to add new content and don’t brainstorm all the projects you’ve done and need to make descriptions of. For the minimum viable version of your website, we’re going with what you can already have. Don’t worry, especially since WordPress lets you easily add content ever after the initial setup. Actually, that is its job!

Ideally, you’ll have 1 to 3 pages of content already ready. That’s more than enough for our website. In fact, don’t add a blog, because for what we’re doing, there’s no need for it just yet. Even if you have just one page of content, it’s more than enough. Your personal website is going to be the most beautiful one-pager in the history! To do that, let’s move on to making it look attractive!

Part 4: The Way it Looks

With a couple of pages of content, we need to think about the design. If you have a web designer at your beck and call, ask them to design your website. For the MVW that we’re striving for, you don’t need a designer but you do need a WordPress theme like we’ve described in numerous other articles.

To get started, go to a theme foundry such as WooThemes or marketplace such as ThemeForest and find the category that has personal WordPress themes. Try to find something that while looking attractive to you, makes sense for the content you have on a website. If you don’t have a lot of content, get one of the CV/one-pager themes and you’ll be all set. Again: Don’t worry, since even one page of content is more than most people have on their websites!

Part 5: Launching Your Website (and Finishing the Summer of .ME)

Hosting and domain? Check! WordPress installed? Check. Theme setup? Check. The content you wrote added to your new, shiny website? Double-check! Although you have a lot of content, a lot of it probably isn’t dynamic. A great alternative is adding links to all the social media accounts you’ve set up in our journey. If you followed our Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook guides, your social media profiles are both up to date and optimized enough to provide a wealth of content for people that want to follow you regularly. While most of us would have difficulty in keeping a blog up-to-date, updating social media is a bit easier and can be done by even the busiest people.

While you have a lot more work to do to grow your personal brand in the world, you have a website up and running, as well as a number of ways to stay in touch with your future clients or partners. Now I just hope that even as the Summer of .Me has ended, you don’t stop improving your minimum viable personal brand to an utterly awesome personal brand! After all, you’re off to a good start!

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