Personal website examples

Ideas

Personal website ideas worth stealing

Seven ideas taken from sites in this gallery. The first four hold for any portfolio. The last three are specific to a personal brand.

• 1

  Show fewer pieces than you want to

  The visitor is deciding, not browsing. Six strong pieces beat twenty mixed ones because the weakest thing on the page sets the impression.

• 2

  Lead with one strong image, not a menu

  The first screen should show work, not navigation. A menu tells someone what you have. An image tells them whether to care.

• 3

  Put contact one click from everywhere

  Every page needs a route to you. Not a form buried in a footer, an actual route.

• 4

  Own the domain

  A personal website on someone else's subdomain is a rented address. The domain is the part that survives every platform you will ever leave.

• 5

  Cut the navigation to four things

  Work, about, writing, contact. Someone deciding whether to hire you scans, they do not explore, and a fifth item mostly adds a place to get lost.

• 6

  Lead with the role you want next, not the roles you have had

  Reverse chronology is a resume habit. On a personal website it buries the thing you want to be hired for under the thing you used to do.

• 7

  One page with anchor links beats five thin ones

  It reads faster, it survives being opened on a phone in the middle of a meeting, and it stops any single section from looking empty.