http://lifehacker.com/#!5534456/five-best-personal-landing-pages
Your welcome Lifehacker, there's your link right there at the top. I'f I'm going to steal someone's idea to write about, you can be darn sure I'll give 'em credit for it.
So, what is a Landing Page anyway??? Wikipedia says there are two different kinds. We are going to talk about this one here... A reference landing page presents information that is relevant to the visitor. These can display text, images, dynamic compilations of relevant links, or other elements. Reference landing pages are effective if they meet the objectives of their publishers, which may be associations, organizations or public service entities. For many reference landing pages, effectiveness can be measured by the revenue value of the advertising that is displayed on them. It PRESENTS INFORMATION THAT IS RELEVANT TO THE VISITOR. That's the important part.
You are "a free agent", 'looking for work', 'without reliable income'; whatever you want to call it. I am a Free Agent right now, (not exactly true, I'm actually kind of expensive, so where does "Free" come into play?) so lets use that term. As a Free Agent you need to 'get your name out there'. I KNOW you have heard this because your reading my blog. 'Get(ing) your name out there' can cover a lot of things, for us it means helping those wonderful recruiters (I love em) and employers find you when they have a job that fits you. Doing that means making sure Google likes you. One way to help make sure Google likes (IE 'finds') you is to put YOUR NAME everywhere on the big ol' internet that you can. Yes, my friend you are about to become a digital graffiti artist. It's the best kind of artist and the best place to be one because the Internet doesn't care. The internet just lays there, covering most of the globe and lets you write your name anywhere you want. "Go ahead!" says the Internet, "Everyone else already has and it's what I'm here for anyway!".
Sorry, I tend to ramble sometimes...
Anyway, back to Landing Pages. Are we flying planes now? I mean "Landing"... what exactly is going to LAND on my LANDING PAGE??? Hopefully an employer.
A landing page is a nice central location on the 'net where anyone can find out about you. Please, take a few minutes and read the entire Lifehacker article in the link at the top. I LOVE those guys and they did a great job listing the top 5 landing pages.
Darn it! I'm not getting to the point! OK, focus, Chet, get to the point, what is a Landing Page and what does it do?
A Landing Page is a business card, for the internet, that you never have to hand out. (people 'ask' for it, when they Google YOUR NAME). It lists your name, a little about you, and offers links to the rest of your online life (or at least as much as you want to link to anyway). When Mr. Prospective Employer does a Google search for YOUR NAME, hopefully that Landing Page of yours will end up somewhere in the first 6 links. When Mr. Employer does a Google search for "Top Level Something Executive" if that "Something" is YOUR "Something" than, hopefully that Landing Page of yours will end up somewhere in the first 6 links. When you give someone your resume, it has your Landing Page URL on it. A Landing Page is a place for people looking to learn about you or looking for people with skills like you to LAND.
Why do you need a Landing Page? There are so many outlets on the internet I can't count them. There are Profile sites and Networking sites and Facebook and LinkedIn and Blog sites (like this one!) and Twitter, and, and, and, well I just don't know what else but you get the point. The Landing Page offers a pretty, visually appealing start point for people to learn about you.
You can link ALL your other stuff, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, favorite articles, etc etc, back to your Landing Page.
You can post your Elevator Speech on your Landing Page.
You can post a picture as the ENTIRE BACKGROUND of your Landing Page. (Hmmmmm, I think most people put up pictures of themselves, doing what they are passionate about!)
Think of a Landing Page as your front door to the Who Am I section of the Internet. In one nice, easy to look at, simple page. (Wait, in proofreading this, I think I should say that again. A Landing Page is your front door to the Who Am I section of the Internet. In one nice, east to look at, simple page.)
What makes a Landing Page better than X (where 'X' could be any other site/service)? I'm not saying it IS better, but here are my opinions.
A Landing page is not X site/service, and that makes it better. It's not a site, it's ONE PAGE. It's your Elevator Speech for the 'net. It's short, simple, to the point and highlights ALL your best features. No, links to click through, no different sections on the site to find, no membership required. Just simple, and all about you.
A Landing Page is better than that FB site because you have 100% complete control over every single inch of that real estate. No posts from friends. No "oops, someone hacked my page again". No Ads. Unless you put it there, it's not there.
A Landing Page is better than that LI site because that LI site is about activity. Join this group. Follow that company. Answer this question. Nope. One page, all about you, no chasing/answering/joining/following anything.
A Landing page can push the viewing to any of those other sites.
To wrap up this mad rambling, I'm not saying you have to get a Landing Page. I don't even have one yet. I may not get one. I'm just saying a Landing Page is one more place on the big ol' 'net where Google will find YOUR NAME when someone searches it.
I hope this has helped someone in their jobsearch.
(they put me at a 200 character limit for labels so I'm putting all of them here. No need to read this, its just SEO. Employeer, internet, Job, Jobseeker, Lifehacker, Online Reputation Management, ORM, Recruiter, Social media, Wikipedia, chester, chester paul, chester paul lohman, paul, paul lohman, lohman, trainer, manager, Landing page)
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