Building an online presence is more important than ever. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for a career change (when recruiters are sure to Google you) or if you just need a place to share your personal story—how you appear on the web shapes what people think of you.
Luckily, we’ve rounded up some of the best resources for you to take control of what others see when they do a little stalking—ahem, searching. Whether you’re looking to build a full-blown site or just a simple landing page, these services will help you brand your online self—the way you want to—in no time.
For a Simple Landing Page
1. About.me
This is the fastest way to build a web presence that makes it easy for people to find and learn all about you. It’s a single landing page where you can add a gorgeous photo, some bio text, and links to your social profiles and personal websites—think of it as your personal home page!
2. Flavors.me
Similar to About.me, Flavors.me gives you a landing page to pull together all your social media accounts and personal information. What makes it different? You can have multiple pages on your site, and even embed videos or audio, which makes it great if you want to show off some of your portfolio or include a creative video resume.
3. Strikingly
Strikingly may be just a landing page, but it looks more like a gorgeous (and mobile and tablet-friendly!) website. In less than 30 minutes, you can have a page with full-screen photos, different sections to show off your many facets, and, of course, links to all the ways to get in touch with you. Perfect for the person who wants to show off a lot of different projects.
4. Enthuse.me
One step up from About.me and Flavors.me, Enthuse.me is less of a landing page and more of a full-blown profile. You can use it to promote your knowledge, expertise, press mentions, and connections to get others excited about you. Kind of like a LinkedIn profile, but much more customizable (and, um, beautiful).
5. Pixelhub
Gather everything on the web about you all in one place using Pixelhub: photo galleries, social media content, maps, contact info, and more. Especially perfect for the social (media) butterfly, Pixelhub lets people follow you directly from the site and even includes live feeds of your social updates!
For a Full-Blown Site
6. Squarespace
This comprehensive platform helps you create an incredibly sophisticated and modern looking site without having to code a thing. The simple drag-and-drop editor makes it easy for entrepreneurs, freelancers, artists, small business owners, and photographers alike to build gorgeous homepages, visually stunning photo galleries, and professional blogs. Squarespace powers millions of websites, and the first 14 days are free.
Best of all, Squarespace is hiring! Check out job openings here.
7. Jimdo
Make a multimedia site for yourself or your business with Jimdo’s free website builder. With lots of e-commerce tools, it’s great for small business owners looking for a quick and easy rebrand. Jimdo is also optimized for search engines, so your results show up higher, making it that much easier to get noticed. And, unlike Squarespace, it offers a “free forever” account with ads.
8. SnackWebsites
SnackWebsites is user and mobile friendly, letting you build an ad-free site that works with other apps like SnackTools to integrate blogs, photos, presentations, and more. You’ll be able to show off your work with photos and multimedia, so it’s a great option for photographers, visual designers, artists, and freelancers looking for a suite of options.
9. Wix
Wix has everything you need to build a complete online web presence from scratch, with hundreds of designer templates to choose from and a user-friendly drag-and-drop web editor. Unlike many website builders, there are no creative limits to how much you can customize the templates you use, from fonts and images to page transition effects—but you still don’t have to write a lick of code. It’s perfect if you want your website to be just so.
10. Weebly
Create a modern-looking, fully functional site from a ton of free themes that look great on your phone and tablet. Especially optimized for photos and videos with high quality slideshows, Weebly can even support a full e-commerce site if you’re looking to make a little money on the side.
For Something Different
11. Vizualize.me
Vizualize.me takes your resume-sharing experience to a whole new level by creating instant, eye-catching infographics based on your previous work. It’s the perfect way to display everything you’ve done at a glance and pulls your information from LinkedIn to make it all the easier for you.
12. Re.vu
Re.vu is another fantastic option to make your resume more dynamic, interactive, and inspiring at a glance. It works with LinkedIn to visually present all your achievements and lets you share your professional story in an easy-to-understand way.
13. Somewhere
This visual platform lets you share what you do and where you work. Each personal page allows you to show off “moments” of work and sources of inspiration, almost like a Pinterest for yourself. It's invite-only right now, but it's easy to submit a request!
14. Carbonmade
If your work is visual or you're a photographer, artist, designer, or writer, Carbonmade is a cool way to make an online portfolio. It organizes your work to make it easy for others to see, and you can showcase a selection of your best pieces on a single page.
Did we miss any? What tools do you use to build your personal websites?