Building a Personal – Part 2
This may be the most difficult part for some of you but have no fear. We’re going to walk you through this part, step-by-step. Whether you want to sell more real estate, cars or just about anything else, this next step in building a personal brand is essential. If you didn’t get here from Part 1, we welcome you to start at the beginning.
Time to make a website or blog on WordPress
There’s a number of great website builders out there and you can use whatever platform you choose. You may already have a website. Kudos to you if you do. You may not want to tackle this step and if you don’t you can find tons of people out there who will help for very little money. Just remember this is a DIY program and we just want to help as many people Do-It-Themselves for little to no money. Even if you already have a website, read on. We’re going to talk about why this is such an important step.
When building a personal brand, you need a central location. This nucleus for your brand will be your personal website or blog. This is important because you will own this digital property or URL (Uniform Resource Locator.)
Once you get your website established we’ll begin the crucial step of linking it to all the social media channels. This will improve your sites relevancy with google for organic search and raise your brands overall digital presence. You probably have some social media experience and may already have some favorite platforms you’re familiar with. Focus on the ones you know first. You get the idea, time to get back to building your personal brand website.
You have lots of choices when it comes to building a personal brand website. WordPress is by far the largest platform and for that reason we’re going to walk you through the steps necessary to setup your website or blog on WordPress. You can also use Wix, Blogger or any other free blog building site you like. Ready to start making more money? Lets get started!
You’ll need to setup a WordPress account. Use the email address you created in step 1, create a username and enter a password for your account. On the next page you will chose your websites web address or URL.
WordPress offers a completely free URL and this is a good place to start. You can move your blog to a better platform like WordpPress.org and buy a unique domain name once you start getting good at WordPress. If you want to purchase your domain name now, you can but we’re trying to show you the free options first. On the next page WP is going to ask you which plan you want. Look for the link at the top that says “Start with a free site.” You don’t need a plan yet. We just want you to learn how to sell more cars by building a personal brand online. Pro Tip: Domain names are cheap buy yours now if you really want to get serious about building a personal brand.
After clicking the link, WP will start building your website and you’ll see a screen like this.
Click the link that says “Get Started” and follow the prompts to set up your website. Bet you didn’t think building a website was going to be this easy. The set up is pretty easy. Making a website that people will actually visit is the hard part and by far the most important but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Name your site and write a tagline and Save settings. I named mine “Sell More Cars by Building a Personal Brand” and wrote “DIY Digital Sales For The Automotive Professional” as my tagline. I’m going to focus on how to sell more cars as this free blogs niche.
Choose a Theme in WordPress that makes sense
After clicking the link “Chose a Theme” you’ll see a number of free website themes. These are premade templates. Pick one that you like. WordPress is always adding new ones to their site. I chose a theme called Morden and clicked “Activate Theme” Once this is done you’ll see your new website. Well the framework at least. Now it’s time to start adding some content like photos, blog posts, social media links etc.
Important note about content when building a personal brand online
Time for a short break in the action to talk about content before we move on. Good content is king and quality always beats quantity. Take your time when coming up with content and remember, great digital content is evergreen. You create it once and it will keep working for you for years to come. Best of all, it will keep making you money while your doing something else like sitting on a beach. So take your time, do it right and start building a personal brand today. Check out SmartBlogger.com for great blogging tips and tricks.
Let’s take a look at my free WordPress website so far.
At this point we have a website with a title, tagline, four pages and some samples blog posts. As you can see in the top right hand corner of the page, the site has not been launched yet and that’s the way we want it for now. Don’t launch your site until it’s ready for the public. Hit the “My site” button on the top left to return to the editor menu or My Home page in WordPress. In this section you’ll notice that WP is walking you through the steps of setting up your site.
WP says this step “Updating your Home Page” will take approximately 20 minutes. To get your website online it can be done in less than 20 minutes but once you get comfortable in WP you’ll probably go back later and make it more professional looking. Click the “Edit Your Home Page” button and let’s get this step out of the way and get back to building your personal brand to sell more cars 🙂
I clicked on the background image and selected “Replace.” You can upload a new image from your computer but I selected a free image from Pexel. The image I selected was an aerial view of a car dealership and best of all it was free! I changed the verbiage on the home page to say “Welcome to DIY Digital Sales” and changed the second line to read “Helping Automotive Sales Professionals Sell More Cars by Building a Personal Brand.” Last item on the home page that I changed was the link that reads “Learn More.” Change the navigation from the default link to your blog page. Here’s a screen shot of my progress so far. I’m familiar with WP so this only took a few minutes.
Once you have your home page looking the way you like, click on the update link on the top right to save your progress. Now back to your My Home Dashboard and WP will tell you the next step is to verify your email address. If you haven’t do so already, go verify the email that WP sent you. The next step on your dashboard may be to setup a menu. You can skip this step for now, the default menu is perfectly fine for the time being. Before we move on to the next step I want to provide you with a great resource. Smart Blogger is a great place to take a deeper drive in to How To Start a Blog. My tutorial is just a primer, Smart Blogger is a complete guide.
Now your starting to get the hang of WordPress I hope, and well on your way to building a personal brand to sell more cars or anything else for that matter. Take a look at the free WordPress site I built for this tutorial at diydigitalsales.wordpress.com.
Next you’ll need to write some blog posts. If you picked a theme that is more of a website with a static home page and you feel a blog is not necessary, you can skip this step but my advice is to stick with the plan. Blog posts are easy and allow you to add fresh content to your site from anywhere, including your phone or tablet. Click on the link in your dashboard for “posts” and get to writing. I usually delete the existing posts and start from scratch but if this is your first time doing this, edit the existing posts to see how they work. Write at least three new posts and remember to click “update” when done.
Building a personal brand is hard work but it will pay off if you stick with it. Just keep at it and remember that it will take time for your website to get ranked on Google, Bing and all the other search engines out there. I’ll show you a tip to speed up the process but the most important thing is to write good content. Then tell people where they can find it using social media and other digital channels to spread the word. Here’s a peek at my free blog posts.
Last but certainly no least you’ll need to update the pages that came with your theme. Most free WP themes have Home, Blog, Contact and About pages. Make sure you update each of them with your photos, links and information. Pay very special attention to the content in your about page. This is a great place to tell people why they should buy from you. Add testimonials from previous happy customers, links to any specials you have and anything you think a potential client should know about you.
I’m working on a video tutorial of this step to put on my YouTube channel and will add the link here when it’s ready for your viewing pleasure.
Now that you have your site looking the way you want it, press the launch button! WP will now try to sell you some additional services again. If you want to keep this free, just click “no thanks, I’ll continue with a free site.” They change this part sometimes, so just avoid the pay this amount options. If you want to build a powerful blog, one with robust plug-ins and tools, you’ll want to go the wordpress.org route. So don’t pay WordPress.com anything if that’s your intention at this point.
I built this blog on Building a Personal Brand with BlueHost and WordPress.org. If you find your free site is working and you want to take it to the next level you can always migrate your free site. You will not need to start over. It’s a little more advanced but it can be done. As I’ve said before, building a personal brand is not easy but when it starts to drive new business your way for free, you’ll be glad you did it.
About the Author:
I’ve been in the automotive retail industry for 25+ years. During this time I’ve held every position from Salesperson to General Manager. I even spent three years in fixed ops and yes, my time there was on purpose. During my time working in a car dealership, I learned a few things about myself. First, I love helping people (teaching) and second, I love digital marketing (especially SEO.) Writing a blog on building a personal brand allows me to do both.
Building a Personal Brand Part 3 is up next. We’ll start looking at ways to promote yourself online now that we have a website or nucleus.
Thanks for reading part 2 of building a personal brand for automotive sales professionals. I truly hope you found it helpful. If you missed part 1, make sure you start at the beginning.
