Benefits of a website
A good friend of mine asked me, "Why do I need my own website?.... I have flickr, blogger, facebook, etc"
Good question, here are some good reasons why you might need your own website.
1. It will last forever
Once you purchase the domain name, it’s yours. It’s yours as long as you pay the yearly fee of $5-8 a year and in your lifetime of 50-70 years, that’s around $500-600 within your whole lifetime. You can keep it and do anything with it, without having to worry about anyone else owning something similar and writing bad things under your name. What if you get successful and someone banks off your name? Its an added cost to acquire that name and the frustration associated to getting people to your new website since someone already owns it.
2. Use it to market yourself
You can use this new website to market yourself and show to the world what you have to offer. How useful would it be if you can use this tool to showcase your portfolio? What about putting yourself under the light showcasing your resume and work history? It works, and employers look at this to see how savvy and successful your skills are on the internet.
3. Personal email address
Think about this, which is more professional? phillipyang@gmail.com? Or Phillip@phillipyang.com? Or me@phillipyang.com? I would rather prefer employers or business people to contact me directly through my own domain so that I can store and control how my internet gets handled. Gmail and Yahoo might be great, but privacy and storage becomes an issue. With your own website, its only as large as your hard drive. Plus its free publicity for your own website.
4. Unlimited applications
You can put anything on your website. I’m using a blog tool called moveabletype and anyone can post and create articles on your own website. Flickr is another application you can enable on your site, personal portfolio applications, forums, galleries, anything! You can get very creative and use web 2.0 type applications to enhance the functionality of your website
5. FTP and Storage
You can use your website as storage and a way to get files anywhere with an internet connection. Store your photos, documents and other important docs via FTP without having to carry around a USB connection. Just make sure you secure your FTP so everyone can’t get your personal files.