Why You Should Invest Your Time In Online Presence As A Student

1. The Importance of Personal Branding for Students
2. Why You Should Consider Having An Online Portfolio
3. Reasons Why You Should Create A Personal Website

We’ve all Googled ourselves, right? If you haven’t, there is no time like the present to quickly search your name and see what comes up – or doesn’t.

The thing is, every student, regardless of their major and future plans in life, has to work on their online presence during their time in college. It is the single most important thing you can do to set yourself apart from the competition at the beginning of your career.

Whether you’re applying for jobs or colleges, or trying to make a name for yourself as a freelancer, your reputation and your image matter. A lot. Just think about it. If you present yourself in the same ways as hundreds of other students, how will you stand out for an internship or your first professional job? Makes sense, right?

Now let’s dig a little deeper and find out all the reasons to invest your time in online presence as a student.

1. The Importance of Personal Branding For Students

When establishing a name for yourself, it’s all about ‘talking the talk and walking the walk.’ In other words, how you act should agree with what you say. And, how you hold yourself, how you speak, and how you dress are all major factors that influence the way others will perceive you, both on and offline.

But here’s what you need to know.

We tend to confuse our reputation with our personal brand.

However, the two are not the same.

Everyone has a reputation. The first impressions you make, the relationships you form with your professors and peers, and how you communicate. All of these things impact how others see you. Your reputation is made up of the opinions and beliefs people form about you based on your collective actions and behaviors.

Your personal brand, on the other hand, is much more intentional. It is how you want people to see you. Whereas reputation is about credibility, your personal brand is about visibility and the values that you outwardly represent.

Wait, so why is personal branding so important?

And what can you do for your personal brand?

Why Social Media Isn’t Enough

Although you should carefully manage your online presence, separate professional accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (depending on your niche) from personal and keep them public so they are easily searchable, the truth is, social media isn’t enough. While it is probably the best way to promote your content and to help you increase your visibility, it won’t exactly help you create your personal brand. In order to do that, you should consider having an online portfolio or a personal website.

2. Why You Should Consider Having An Online Portfolio

Very Important Tip: Your Portfolio Should Be All Killer And No Filler

It will sound totally obvious, but your portfolio should only include work that you are really proud of. The most common mistake people make is putting every single project they worked on on display. When we feel like our work isn’t good enough, we tend to build it up using quantity instead of quality. This is something you should definitely avoid. What you should do instead is highlight your best work, not all of it. Relax, you are only at the beginning of your career and your potential employer knows that. 

3. Reasons Why You Should Create A Personal Website

There are numerous benefits of setting up a personal website. In fact, creating one is considered a necessity for many categories of people, including students. Yet, many decide not to claim their personal space on the web. And more often than not, it is not as a result of lack of expertise. After all, these days there are many ways to create a website without having to know a single thing about website development.

The issue is more about seeing the value in setting up a personal website.

So here are some of the advantages.

What You Need To Know Before Creating A Website

First of all, every website has a domain name. What is a domain name? Simply put, a domain name is the online address of your website. It’s what you type in your browser to go to a website. For example, example.me, domain.me, and namesurname.me are all domain names.

Every domain name consists of a second-level domain and a domain extension.

Now, we shouldn’t confuse a domain name with web-hosting. If a domain name is what you type in to get to your website, then web-hosting is the platform for housing and maintaining your website. Every website needs a space where its files are stored, and a web-hosting service is what will provide that space.

Now, with all of this said – we’re ready to actually build our website! Let’s see how it’s done.

A website is built in a website builder. As the name suggests, a website builder is a service that allows you to build a website – often without coding skills required. There are dozens of website builders you can choose from.

(The other option is to code a website from scratch. Here, we will be focusing on the easier and shorter way – the one using website builders.)

And how should you choose a website builder? Well, we’ve selected a few key things you ought to be looking for in a website builder.

Registering Your Domain Name

In order to use a domain name, you have to register it. Domain name registration is handled by registrars. You can think of registrars as businesses that offer domain name registration. When you decide to register a domain name, you will be doing it through a registrar.

There are dozens of registrars to choose from, and they each differ in the terms and prices they offer. When choosing a registrar, it’s wise to go with one that offers these three things along with domain registration:

Web-hosting – Most registrars offer this. Don’t worry – if you host your website elsewhere, it’s easy to migrate it to another hosting service.

Website builder – A registrar will sometimes include a website builder in its offer

Personalized email – Personalized email is a professional email address with a unique email domain. For example, example@yourname.me is a personalized email, whereas example@gmail.com isn’t.

.ME Domain: The Foundation of Your Online Presence

In the offline world, your name is your identity. Well, in the digital world, your name is your domain.

But it is more than that: your domain can match your real name. And, if you want to add a personal flavor to it, then the .ME domain extension is the perfect choice (Think namesurname.me)

Ideally, you can go for the namesurname.ME combination or variations of it. .ME makes any combination of your first and last name more personal and credible. And you can also go with your nickname – especially if people recognize you by it!

The .ME domain extension is the perfect way to say “This is me!”

.ME tells the world about you. From students to experienced IT professionals and serial entrepreneurs, .ME is used to boost visibility and build personal relationships online.

Totaling over million registered domains and being the top ccTLD of the year, .ME is recognized as the synonym for personal online presence. Being short, .MEmorable, the most personal domain on the market, .ME is ideal for building your personal brand. And there is hardly a better way to do it but under your own name with .ME.

So that’s a wrap! Now, what did we learn?

Carefully working on your online presence will help you increase the reach, create a more professional image and a stronger personal brand, and (hopefully) get many more work opportunities.

We’ve covered the advantages, provided a brief overview of making an online portfolio and personal website, and even shared a few essential tips that will help you build your personal brand. Now it’s your time to shine! Make a name for yourself as a creative soul that you are (don’t be shy, we all know you have it in you). Start working on your online presence today!