How to use your website to solidify your personal brand and position yourself as a thought leader: 5 easy-to-include features
An increasing number of web design clients I’m working with not only have exciting, scaling businesses - they are also developing incredible personal brands and establishing their reputations as thought leaders in their industry.
They are:
💫 Speaking on podcasts
💫 Presenting at events
💫 Delivering expert sessions in Masterminds and within Memberships
💫 Creating regular long-form content including blogs and articles.
These founders are not only delivering amazing outcomes for their clients: but they are serving their wider audience, sharing their expertise and insights.
This is in alignment with the bigger picture in the online world where knowledge and experience are being increasingly recognised. At the end of 2022, Google included ‘Experience’ in its quality rater guidelines to ensure its search engines are pulling up the most helpful, relevant content for users.
When I design websites for these businesses, it’s important to ensure that their online presence conveys this extensive knowledge of their field.
There are a few go-to features I include to quickly communicate businesses with strong personal brands and showcase thought leadership content.
How to solidify your personal brand and showcase thought leadership content on a website
Create a blog
A blog will take your website away from being a surface-level brochure-style website ⇨ to becoming a more immersive, engaging experience.
Blogs are becoming non-negotiable - whether it be to share thought leadership content, client success stories or deep dive into elements of your services and offers.
Regularly updating your blog with high-quality, authentic content not only positions you as an authority in your field but also improves your website's SEO and attracts organic traffic via search engine results.
On the majority of website platforms, blogs are built-in functionality (certainly for Squarespace and Wordpress) so it is incredibly simple to start publishing content in this format.
Becca from Upton Neuro Physio is passionate about being at the forefront in her field of expertise - and uses her blog to keep her customers and wider audience up-to-date with the most recent evidence base and activities in the neuro physio area.
2. Specific, dedicated web pages for your personal brand and thought leadership content
Your website is no place to hide your light under a bushel 💛.
If you’ve created a hub of downloadable guides or resources - dedicate a page to it.
Similarly, if you’ve written a book, you run a podcast or publish regular content to YouTube - give each of these areas their own page too.
An exciting website to discover is one where there is an abundance of content to view and explore.
These websites truly stand out.
As long as your website remains easy-to-navigate with an intuitive, clear-to-follow structure - by sharing your insights and personal brand activities you will build trust and relationships with future clients.
3. Speaker Page
This page deserves its own heading. It’s becoming one of my most-requested additional pages.
Adding a speaker page to your website instantly communicates to your visitors that you bring expertise in your line of work - and that there is an audience who are already listening.
Use this page to highlight any speaking engagements, TED talks or public appearances at events.
Include both past events and upcoming talks.
If you have spoken on podcasts and your web platform provides functionality, embed these into your speaker page too.
Deb Gabor has a fab speaker page on her website.
And proof of its effectiveness? I received this email from a client last week in relation to the Speaker Page created on her website:
4. Mega Menu
Mega menus are one of my favourite website interactive features - and don’t think they’re utilised often enough.
There are two huge benefits to utilising them to showcase thought leadership in particular.
It’s another incredibly fast way to demonstrate the breadth of expertise you offer. Just look at the mega menu we created for Paula at The Employee Experience Project (image below). Simply by clicking on this navigation item, visitors can immediately see the wide-ranging expertise Paula is generously offering on her website. It’s instantly clear that she brings a lot of credibility in this area.
Mega menus offer a more personalised, targeted user experience for site visitors. Using the example from The Employee Experience Project above, very quickly by viewing the mega menu users can choose exactly what they are looking for with the help of visual clues such as icons and images. So whether it’s connection with their peers in a community, resources and guides to start diving more deeply into the subject matter - or if they’re interested in getting started on the right path - the blog article is instantly going to catch their eye as a problem. It would take a lot longer for visitors to find this information through scrolling through website pages.
Screenshot of mega menu from The Employee Experience website.
If you’d like more inspiration - www.marieforleo.com - has beautiful mega menus on her website.
5. Testimonials:
Most people will include client testimonials for the services they have delivered on their websites.
It’s also a great idea to include testimonials from event organisers or audience members from events you have presented at to showcase your expertise as a speaker.
Authentic testimonials add social proof and credibility to your brand, reassuring potential clients and any future event organisers of your ability to engage the room.
So…by incorporating these website elements into your online platform, you can effectively showcase your expertise and thought leadership - and attract more clients, speaking opportunities and industry recognition.
Until next time,
Rachel
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