Building your personal branding is easier than you think! Sure, it takes time and requires intention, but the results are astounding. In this digital market, the importance of having a personal brand increases day by day. As a brand and web designer, I design rebrands year-round. I know what it takes to create personal branding that converts. I’m here to help and I’m going to show you how to do the same. In this post, I will show you how to build personal branding in 5 easy steps. Let’s get started.

Step 1: Choose Your Brand Name.

This may seem obvious, but your personal branding name is one of the foundational building blocks that make your brand. Personal branding is all about taking the personality of a person, making it marketable, and getting others to buy into this personality. One of the most important aspects of creating a personal brand is the name. You want to create a brand that will represent you. Bonus points if you pick a name that is easy to remember and/or catchy.

For service-based personal brands, I always suggest going with your name. 9/10 it isn’t taken, and easy to trademark. Plus, your name never goes out of style. 

Step 2: Create a Logo to Build Your Personal Brand

Now that you have your name, you will need the branding elements to go with it. A personal brand is the living breathing extension of your business. It’s the face of your brand. Do not limit yourself to ‘just’ a logo. The best personal brands have these elements: a primary logo, a secondary logo, and a submark. Take a look at the branding we did for Candace Junee. In the image below, you can see there are multiple iterations of her branding. This will keep the look and feel of the brand no matter where she is in the digital space. I suggest working with a brand designer to craft your personal branding. However if you’re eager to tackle this by yourself, I have some tips for you below.

Hold your horses, though. Before you go ahead with creating a personal brand, you first need to know your ideal client. This includes their tastes, interests, and wants. This can also be defined as their demographics and psychographics. If you’ve been in business for years, you should know this. However, if you have no clue who your ideal clients are, then I suggest going out and doing some market research.

Market Research Is the Key to How to Build Personal Branding

Invite about 5 people to a quick 15-minute coffee chat. It would be even better if you gift them a $10 Starbucks or Amazon gift card. Once they are on the call, the conversation can go a little like this:

• Thank You for getting on the call. I’m interested in working with more women like you, and I would like to get more information about what you might need.
• Question/Answer
  • What are you currently struggling with within your business?
  • How would (your services) help alleviate that pain point?
  • What language are you looking for when looking to hire someone? Any specific words?
• Thank them for their help, and compile your data.

Once you have all that data you are going to personify your ideal client. Take a look below.

The success of your personal brand rides on how well your personal brand will perform. A well-thought-out personal brand makes decisions solely on its ideal client.

From here, it’s easier to develop colors, patterns, and an overall mood that will attract that ideal client to your brand naturally.

Take to Pinterest, and create a collage of pictures and textures that fall in line with the ideal client you’ve mapped out. Be sure to pin logo and branding inspiration as well. Take to illustrator if you’re equipped or hire a designer to get the job done. Whatever you do, don’t create your logo on Canva. You will not be able to trademark it in the future. Save yourself the trouble and get it right the first time.

Step 3: Create a Website for Your Personal Brand.

Your branding is done and out of the way, now it’s time to create my favorite part: your website. Your website is the digital manifestation of your personal branding. This is a tool that will help you get ranked on Google, and found by ideal clients.

Choose The Best Website Hosting to Build Your Personal Brand

There are dozens of hosts to choose from, but the platform I suggest is Showit. Showit is an easy drag-and-drop platform that helps you create stunning websites that convert. Think of it as the Photoshop or Canva version of a web builder. I talk more about why I choose Showit for all of my personal brand clients here. It uses WordPress for all of its blogging so you’re set when it comes to SEO.

Create a Site Map

Another important step in creating a website for your personal brand is to plan out your site map.

What Is a Site Map?

A site map is a high-level view of your website. It will help you understand the pages you’ll be creating. A site map will also demonstrate the flow from exterior pages to interior pages. Take a minute, sit down and create your site map. At the top, you should list all of the pages that are able to be clicked from the home page, then below list any interior pages.

Exterior Page Examples: Home Page, About Page, Services (or Work With Me), Contact

Interior Page Examples: Sales Pages, Landing Pages, Opt-In Pages, etc.

For personal brands that have one main service, or if it’s their first time launching, I suggest sticking to one page: a sales page. There are many reasons I suggest this, and I list them all here. But, most importantly, I suggest starting off with a sales page since a lot of things change in the beginning stages. You don’t want to invest in an entire website while you’re still testing your initial offer.

Decide Template Based or Custom

If you’re building your own personal branding, I suggest you should go with the template route. If you’re not a web designer, you might get overwhelmed and frustrated. As a result, it may take you MONTHS to finally complete and publish your website. That’s not ideal. There’s money on the line.

Do you have one service or multiple? Early stage entrepreneurs and those who only provide one service should strongly consider the template route. You’ll benefit more from a strong sales page as opposed to a 5-page website. It’s quicker, and can grow with you as you implement changes within your personal brand. Invest in a beautiful sales page, that’s primed for conversion.

Do you have multiple services? Consider a more custom approach. You’ll need more than one page on your website, and with more pages, you’ll need expert input from a brand + web designer.

Step 4: Build a Social Media Presence for Your Brand

Have you every wonder how some people are able to sell their products and services much easier than others. Often times it has to do with how well they present themselves on social media.

Do you show your face online. No? Well how are you going to built a personal brand if no one gets to know you personally. Make it your mission to share a piece of your world each day on social media. I get it. We are all fighting against the latest algorithm. However, do you know what wins everytime? Consistency.

Make an effort to update your social media so that your bio clearly states what you do and who you serve. Plug in any keywords you want to rank for. In my client example below, my client clearly placed her name and the keyword she wanted to rank for in her ‘name section’ in Instagram.

In her bio, she used the formula I suggest to all personal brands: I [what you do] + for [who you serve] wanting [their biggest desire/solution to their pain point]. If you have space, add your location.

There’s so much money to be made online. Don’t miss out on potential clients, by failing to show up on social media.

Publicize Your Brand

On of the worst things you can do when building your personal brand is assume your audience is always thinking of you. In fact, that’s where I see most clients struggle as we near the end of the rebrand process. In the beginning, everyone’s questions is how to build personal branding, but the next question is “how do I maintain my personal brand”?

Social media is a huge part. Also get on other people’s platforms. Reach out and make connections in your field. Follow complimenting service providers who benefit in partnering with you. Slowly build a relationship with your industry peers. That way, when an opportunity to speak on a panel or at a conference comes up, you get mentioned.

Pitch Yourself

Sometimes you have to get in front of people’s faces. Join Help A Reporter (HARO). Find stories that relate to your industry. Journalists seek out credible sources for their stories daily. With consistency, you’ll gain a few publications under your belt and gain stronger brand authority.

Blog! There’s still much power in blogging. SEO is king. If you commit to writing a few blog posts a month, you’ll gain organic traffic to your website.

Find other platforms to contribute to. Serve as a guest on a relevant business podcast. Guest write on an industry platform. There’s quite a bit of work involved, but it will help solidify your personal brand in the long run.

Get Expert Help

There you have it. How to build personal branding in 5 easy steps. Building your personal brand is a time-consuming and challenging process. But you don’t have to do it alone. Partner with a skilled brand designer to help you build the personal brand of your dreams.