Being an entrepreneur is tough and time consuming. When you first start out, all the responsibilities of your business fall on you. R&D, marketing, business development, partnerships, human resources, accounting – pick a thing, you’ve probably done it at some point when it comes to growing your business. All of these immediate needs make it easy to prioritize your growing company over everything else. But by getting tunnel vision and focusing only on your company’s website at the expense of your own, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

 

As an entrepreneur, you obviously know you need to provide the best product or service possible. However, creating an incredible customer experience and figuring out how to grow your business likely dominate a lot of your time and energy as well. You know you need to gain exposure to potential customers, but also cultivate relationships with existing ones. This is where having a personal website as an entrepreneur or owner of a small business comes into play.

 

If you’re a huge company like Pepsi, your brand recognition does a lot of the heavy lifting for you when it comes to growing the business and connecting with your customers. There are also a considerable amount of resources you can put behind your efforts.

 

When you’re just one person starting out, you need every advantage you can get to connect with consumers and expand your company. Trust is essential if you want to develop long-term customer relationships.

 

If you’re trying to grow your business as an entrepreneur, a great personal website can help you reach your goals in a number of ways. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

 

It creates another way for potential customers to find you

 

By investing time in creating a personal website, you develop one more way for clients to find you and your business. Your personal website can passively and proactively direct leads to your company’s website, which is always a good thing.

 

While your website should be focused on you and your story as an individual, think of it as a tool to get people interested in your business venture. Even if your company isn’t featured prominently on your personal website, make it available if they’re interested. From featuring your company’s social handles, to including links back to company pages within your own blog posts, make it easy for visitors to get from your site to your company’s.

 

It humanizes your business

 

The numbers say it all, customers have to trust a business in order to engage with them and remain loyal over time. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that humanizing a business by showing the actual faces behind the company can go a long way in encouraging that trust.

Your website should be an authentic expression of who you are. And if you succeed in that, there’s no doubt that this alone will win and keep customers for your business. It can also be a fantastic way to differentiate yourself from competitors. So be true to yourself, make your mission clear, and customers will naturally look at your business as an extension of you.

 

It makes gaining press and partnerships easier

 

Once your business starts to grow, you can expect that more eyes will be on both it and you.

As people start to look you up online, what they find can have serious impacts on you and your company.

 

Think about how you feel when you look someone up online and find that they have a great personal website and strong personal brand. “Reassured” is a pretty common reaction. A clean, well-designed and informative personal website makes potential partners much more likely to do business with you because this reinforces their perception of you. A successful partnership is all about trust, so get things started on a good note.

 

Your solid online presence will also make you a more legitimate choice to be featured in a publication, which can be a huge source of growth for any small business. It helps show that you know your stuff, and that you’re approachable and engaged in your industry. Take the first step by creating a great personal website that you can be proud of.

 

It’s time to get started!

 

While these certainly aren’t the only reasons to get started working on your personal website, they are some of the most compelling that can make your life as an entrepreneur a whole lot easier. As you can see, your personal website is an extremely high-leverage way to help existing and potential customers connect with you. As an entrepreneur actively trying to grow a brand or business, this is crucial.

 

By creating your personal website you can cultivate a sense of trust in your customers and partners just by being yourself! So get started building your personal website today to help your business grow tomorrow.

 

Sabrina Clark is a proud Marist College alum with degrees specializing in public relations, business administration and Spanish. While at Marist, she co-founded the Marist Student Entrepreneur Network to support students with entrepreneurial aspirations. Upon graduation, she accepted a marketing position with a tech startup focused on the home improvement industry where she managed integrated marketing, sales and strategic partnership initiatives. She is excited to now be a part of the BrandYourself team and help sculpt the future of the online reputation management industry.