Creating an Online Presence

 Having a Good Online Presence is important as it helps you stand out from others in the industry and lets potential clients / employers view your previous work. In this post we will cover what is ment by online presence, why it is important especially in the world of Website design and how to create a good online presence.

What is an Online Presence and why is it important to have one?

An Online Presence is defined into two different categories owned online presence and earned online presence. Owned online presence refers to all content that you have created or manage under your or your company’s name. This can be through creating different social media accounts and by making posts under your own or your company's name or by creating a website dedicated to you or your company. Earned online presence refers to when you or your company are mentioned by other people either on social media or on your website as a review. 

Having a good online presence is important as it increases your chances of been noticed within the industry and lets you build connections with others in the same industry as you. This can lead to potential employers seeing your profile and can lead to more job opportunities. For more reasons why an online presence is important  Click Here 

How to create your Online Presence?

You can create your online presence in a variety of different ways, the easiest and most effective ways to do this are by creating social media accounts and creating your own website.

Creating your own website is an effective way to help create your online presence and showcase your skills at the same time. Your website should be your main way of building your online presence as it is the best way to promote yourself and your work. You can do this by having a portfolio displayed on your website to showcase your previous work and help show off your talents using different coding languages. On your portfolio you should try to ensure that you showcase a variety of different styles and languages to help show that you are flexible and versatile. Using a variety of different styles will appeal to a range of different audiences and will make your portfolio stand out from others in the industry. 

Making sure that your work is original and pleasing to the end user will help your work look more appealing to potential clients or employers as they want to see your original work not something you have copied from someone else. Remember to ensure that your portfolio and website are fully responsive so that they can be viewed on multiple different devices such as PC, laptops, tablets, and mobiles. I have linked my own personal portfolio Here for you to use as an example or inspiration when you are creating your own portfolio. Let your personality and originality shine through in your work and you will stand out, don’t try to hard to stand out as it can make your content look messy and unprofessional.

Social media accounts are an easy and effective way to help create your online presence. You can do this by creating social media accounts under your or your company’s name and updating them regularly. Don’t forget to link your website and portfolio on your social media accounts to increase the amount of people that will see your work. For Website Designers / Developers I would recommend creating a LinkedIn account and a GitHub account. I would recommend these for the following reasons. 

• LinkedIn – Creating a LinkedIn account is good helping create your online presence but it’s also great for promoting yourself and networking. LinkedIn allows you to make connections with others in the web industry and allows you to join groups for web, keeping you up to date with what is going on in the industry.

• GitHub – GitHub is a platform that is specific to coding and allows you to post your code online for other developers to see. This is great for collaboration or for getting feedback from other developers. Using GitHub lets other developers see all your previous work so it can double as a way to showcase your coding skills to potential employers.  For more information on what GitHub is and what its used for Click Here.

You should also remember to be active on social media, don’t create the accounts then forget about them. You have to keep engaging with your followers and sharing relevant information to maintain the relationship with them so that they don’t forget about you or unfollow your accounts. You don’t have to post everyday once or twice a week is enough as long as the content of the posts is relevant to your industry, and you don’t post anything confrontational or inappropriate people will stick around.