Getting Personal

I’ve owned my own domain name (www.billderusha.com) for a few months now but I haven’t done anything with it.  Mostly because I didn’t know what I wanted to do.  I know from experience that Google values domain name keywords very highly. If someone searches for Bill DeRusha and there is a site with regular content at www.billderusha.com, it isn’t going to take much to push it to the top.  So this is where I’m starting.

Why? Two reasons.  The first is that it is the most controllable source of information out there.  Of course it is…it’s my website.  When someone searches for me I want to be in full control of their first impression.  This is the best medium to do that.  Hands down.

Second is that this will be the easiest thing to push to the top of search results.  I think it’ll be a good confidence booster to prove that I really can control what people find when they search for me. This should be the easiest site to control because of the fact that a.) domain name keywords rank well b.) I have full control of the text, links, meta information, title tags, etc.

I started on my new site last night and I’m hoping to launch it for 2009.  That gives me a solid month to build it the right way.  And I’ll be sure to document all of the steps along the way.  From purchasing a domain name, to setting up wordpress, to general best practices.  My goal is to create a comprehensive startup guide for building your own personal website.