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Today’s happening small business entrepreneur has several businesses, maintains multiple web sites, blogs at a couple places, has written a book, and has profiles on half a dozen social network sites. I havn’t even mentioned that they have also thrown themselves into a couple cool new beta start-ups, projects and fun not-for-profit adventures.
Keeping up with what you are up to can be a bit of a task and letting people know about all it can be even harder. I get emails from some of these folks and the signature block with all the links in the email is ten times the size of the actual email.
Here’s a solution I would recommend. If you have not already done so go out and reserve your personal name as a domain (you should do this no matter what and grab the names of your spouse and kids while you are at it.) Use this domain to build a personal hub of all the stuff you are into. Outline your projects, display RSS feeds from all your blogs and host links to all your social network or any other kind of network profiles.
This way you can lead people to sort of a portal of what you are up to with one simple link. I’ve have an example at JohnJantsch.com. This is a WordPress blog using a website template.
John,
Your hub idea is the BEST to date, that I have heard concerning managing everything. As you know, I too, have multiple sites, blogs, etc.
Thanx!
Joel Libava
Great post and exactly what I am trying to do.
But…I found long ago that my name is not good enough - too many out there with the same name (some with really bad credit and I wind up with their problems - another story) so I came up with a pseudoname and have been using it for quite a while.
My hub is new and fairly lame at this stage - but I’m working on it.
cougarmark
Good idea. Grab Web Property while it is till cheap and available. You are your name and having that as a domain is really important if you are to establish a serious online presence.
It works pretty well. My hub is slowly getting there.
Seems like a good notion. My reservation…a tentative one maybe…is that while I am happy to put myself and my work onthe line as a coach, I am chary of exposing my family in any way. It is, sadly, a crazy world out there and the net seems to attract some of its dregs. Tonight the first hit on my site for the day was another viagra seller spam. But the next could be worse. I lost a hard drive last August through a virus that found me through a well known web mail service which pasted spam filters. Ouch. It might be worse if I bandy my family names out in the same murk!
Best,
Neil
Neil, I don’t think I meant you should mix in the fam unless that’s part of your deal. However, this is a great tool for personal use and by using something like WordPress you can keep it private and only allow family access.
Outstanding idea–I just picked mine up.
Thanks for the tip…
You’re right on John; this is my summer project for GarySHart.com. I maintain multiple emails for the purposes you mentioned and keeping my arms around this has been difficult.
One idea i had while reading this blog was using iFrames as portals to the actual site(s) would minimize redundant postings. This lowers the SEO value for yourname.com, but who cares.
Would love to see and hear design structure ideas.
Excellent, wonderful, superlative topic. Thanks!
Great advice!
I’m building all my projects under my name, and am working on the website. In marketing myself I’m making my name my brand which will assist in keeping everything in once place!
Good idea! I have look into it.Can hubpages.com be used for this?
The website can be your:
1. personal name
2. product or service name
3. company name
It all comes down to branding - what do you want to brand? This is the most important decision you can take. I started with my own name, and lost a lot of time later building up a company brand name.
This is a great idea, but does bring up a branding question: As a consultant, I cater to several disparate markets and each requires highly-targeted marketing. Thus, my branding is completely different for each (different website, etc.). My challenge is that I don’t necessarily want someone to know that I operate all of these sites, but it also seems inappropriate to use a pseudonym on any of the my sites. It’s a dilemma that I’m still trying to resolve for myself.
Hi John,
Great advice for folks out there. Are you familiar with what is going on between Shel Israel and Loren Feldman? Shel forgot to register his name and Loren capitalized on it. The site shelisrael.com is now used to make fun of Shel, great case study for folks to register their domain name
I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. I have a “personal” blog setup at /blog/ off the root of my domain “name” and was thinking of somehow aggregating everything I do on the root page.
@Shawn - Create the page and list everything you don’t mind people knowing about and have a separate password protected page that lists the “other” things you do. That way only you and whoever you give the password too really gets to see what makes you tick. Just a thought.
Are there any other examples of “hubs” worth looking at? http://Www.johnjantsch.com is a great example, but I’d like to see alternatives.
Thanks John, this would certainly allow you to keep your business card and e-signature “simple” and at the same time build a stronger personal brand.
John,
Thank you you again for your suggestion of having a hub.
I did it a month ago, and have recently re-done it. I think it is jazzier, now.
Joel Libava
Here-http://www.JoelLibava.com