How your personal website can change your life.

Everything I've learned.

A thread.

Since my early teens, I’ve loved creating websites.

From Geocities back then to WordPress + JavaScript now;

I've grown up with my personal website.

From the first time I heard our 56K modem screech, I was hooked on the internet.

I needed to learn how to build websites, so I enrolled in an afterschool course,

And picked up enough HTML to create version 1 of tomhirst[dot]com.

For the first time, I knew what I wanted to do.

This was the first time my personal website changed my life.

I continued to practice web development at University (self-initiated) through my personal website.

The WordPress theme I built for the course's free reign module helped me graduate.

When I started freelancing, I got my first client by telling everyone I knew that I could build them a website.

I appreciate the start they gave me,

But I ended up trapped:

- Stacked high with work
- Stuck needing the work
- Underpaid, in hindsight

I didn’t have options, because nothing else was coming in.

I had zero leverage.

My personal website at this stage was a token gesture.

A playground for myself more than a marketing asset.

In an attempt to create more opportunity for myself

—And get paid more!—

I decided to change that.

Pushing past the fear of using marketing language.

Pushing past the fear of being a “sell-out”.

And using everything I’d learned from the business books I’d been reading,

I started to use my personal website properly;

As a tool to generate leads.

I refined my position from being:

The freelance web developer for anything and everyone,

To the WordPress specialist who only did custom work.

I picked keywords I could optimise for,

And my landing pages started bringing in organic traffic.

Then I got a couple of leads!

This was the second time my personal website changed my life.

Knowing I could generate leads gave me confidence.

The confidence to raise my price in line with the value I was providing.

If I'd have raised my price before,

The worst thing my client could have said was, "no".

This outcome hadn’t changed, but now I didn’t care so much;

Because I had leverage.

It's easier to raise your price when you have options.

And my personal website was bringing them in regularly.

This was the catalyst for reaching my £100K+ yearly freelancing goal.

Having multiple concurrent clients (and opportunities in the works),

Opened my eyes to what freelancing is really all about.

If you have one client that you work 9-5 for, you’re not a freelancer.

You have a job with no benefits.

I was glad to be free of this fake freedom.

My personal website became the centrepiece of my marketing strategy.

I started to get more leads than I could handle.

I started to get enquiries for bigger jobs, from bigger firms.

And I could start hiring my friends to help me out.

One day, an enquiry stood out.

It was from a senior developer at a company I admired.

They'd seen my work online and wanted to take a call to discuss projects.

This was the third time my personal website changed my life.

We talked about the content on my personal website more than the technical make-up of it.

My home page was hyper-specific which got me found and my about page resonated with them.

We quickly agreed on a modest initial project.

The pay was better than I'd ever received and I'd be working with a company I was excited about.

I felt like I'd made it.

There was a great fit.

We settled on an ongoing agreement with expenses paid trips.

Foreign work travel was new to me and I was apprehensive.

But I knew I had to grab my chance to grow.

Without my personal website, I'd have never had the opportunity.

Without my personal website, I'd have never had the guts.

The client and I spent 2-years working together.

I was happy working remotely 95% of the time,

But I loved my trips out to the office.

These trips came with important social value.

Having worked alone for so long, I'd missed out.

I didn't know what the watercooler looked like.

This was the fourth time my personal website changed my life.

I made friends with people doing exactly what I was doing.

People on the same mission.

People of different nationalities from diverse walks of life.

People who I still talk to daily, even after both parties stopped working for the business.

People still at the company too.

I broadened my horizons.

I discovered the upside of venturing outside my home office for work.

I made lasting connections and like-minded friends thanks to my personal website.

In 2019, I began sharing what I know on Twitter.

I discovered online education and the creator economy.

This was the fifth time my personal website changed my life.

After people started coming to me for advice on freelancing, marketing and personal branding,

I launched a small coaching programme on my personal website, mentoring 24 people to date.

It's fulfilling because I've helped people I wouldn't have been able to reach otherwise.

I get a lot from seeing people who're on a similar path to me make progress and these relationships are mutually beneficial.

Because everyone learns.

Off the back of teaching, I went on to:

- Write two eBooks
- Create a video course

Making ~$30,000 in 10-months and diversifying my income.

My personal website changed my life.

Here are 8 ways your personal website can change yours:

1. Learn new skills
2. Increase income
3. Diversify income
4. Broaden horizons
5. Develop opportunities
6. Make connections
7. Gain friends
8. Help people

5 lessons I've learned about personal websites:

1/5

One page, one action.

You don't always want to offer links out of a landing page.

If you want someone to "hire you", say it.

Make all other elements on your page the support act for action.

Guide your reader to do the thing you want them to do.

2/5

Version 1 is better than nothing.

The longer you spend without your site live, the further away you are from the leads, revenue and opportunity it can bring.

You don't need a perfect personal website to get work from it.

And you can't improve what doesn't exist.

3/5

The best platform is the one you use.

Most platforms give you the tools you need to create a great personal website. So don't let picking one be your excuse to procrastinate.

The content on your pages is more important than the platform you choose.

4/5

Help others to help yourself.

Do your readers a favour by being clear, concise and useful.

They'll appreciate you for it.

5/5

Put yourself out there.

Don't hold back from sharing your work online.

Update your personal website regularly.

Let word of mouth do its thing.

People can't tell people how good you are until you tell people how good you are.