Creative meets Innovative
6 Reasons Why You Need a Personal Resume Site. Now.
26 Dec 2010 | No Comments | posted by Coldfire Promotions | in Blog Post, Portfolio, Product Spotlight, Slider
You may be settled in to your career and have no intentions in going anywhere in the next decade or so. Or, you may be like a quarter of the population and have recently been laid off from your job or let go altogether. If either one of these is the case (which is in fact all of you), you need to think about building your professional presence online.
One such tool for networking online is LinkedIn. It is an excellent tool but how far will it really take you? One way to get ahead of the game is to create your own personal branding site. Not sure exactly what I mean by this? Check out the personal portfolio site we built for Coldfire Promotions owner Jason Stomps. There is no better way to build your brand online and achieve a higher professional appearance than to own your own domain.
Since everyone loves lists, here are 6 solid reasons why you need a personal resume-portfolio site:
1. You Own It. What’s better than owning your own .com? Fortunately, Jason Stomps is a rather rare name so the domain name hadn’t been gobbled up yet. However, you may not be so lucky. The good news is that there are plenty of other domain extensions to choose from. If your name is taken as a .com, you may also want to look into .net, .info, and .me as popular alternatives. Your best bet is not to wait! Get it quick before someone else does and it is lost forever.
2. Control. Are you afraid to “put yourself out there” on the internet? Time to break the habit. Chances are you have a Facebook account that you use on a daily, if not hourly basis. If this is the case then you are already “out there” and aren’t ever coming back. Open the door to limitless possibilities and take control of what is posted on the internet about you!
3. Online Presence. As I stated previously, you probably already have a presence online. Your personal information may be out there because of Facebook or other social networking sites, but what about your professional appearance? Have you ever submitted your resume to Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com? Do you have a LinkedIn profile? If so, there is absolutely no reason not to seal it with your very own domain. Get a step ahead of the curve before it is too late!
4. Analytics. Once you have your site built, you can track your visitors with analytical tools like Google Analytics. You will be able to see how many people visit you, when they visit, for how long they visit, where they are visiting from, and so much more. This is something Coldfire Promotions recommends for any and every website. In fact, we install it on every web site we build. What good is a sales tool without the marketing?
5. 24/7 Marketing. While you may not be able to scour internet job boards day and night for open positions, your online resume can! Once you have your personal resume site up and running, it practically does all the marketing for you! One suggestion that I might make is to include your new domain URL on the hard copy of your resume (and don’t forget to point it out). This way, whenever you apply for a new position, your future employer can keep going back to your amazing site time and time again.
6. Complements and Connections. Speaking of having the URL on your printed resume, it really doesn’t stop there. Not only can you host your own portfolio online (including images, video, sound bites, etc.), but you can connect 2 and 2 together through a ton of other mediums. For example, put links to your social media sites there (LinkedIn is a good one, but I wouldn’t recommend posting personal ones like Facebook). Also, get some personal business cards that you can hand out while networking that have your contact information and personal resume site URL on it. The possibilities are potentially unlimited!
One last suggestion that I think sometimes needs to be forwarded is to hire a professional! Some folks have the skills to build and maintain a web site but let’s face it, not everyone does. The last thing you want to do is to create a junky resume site. Would you hand over your printed resume with a coffee cup stain on it? Start building your brand online today and hire Coldfire Promotions. We’ll even go as far as to register your domain name for you.
Coldfire Promotions Photo Featured on ChargerBlue.com Home Page
10 Nov 2010 | No Comments | posted by Coldfire Promotions | in Blog Post, Miscellaneous
Coldfire Promotions Photo Featured on ChargerBlue.com Home Page
Check out the Charger Blue web site, a blog hosted by a Hillsdale College alum dedicated to the Hillsdale Charger Football Team – one of our photos is featured!
Thanks to Andy Losik for putting up our picture. You can follow Charger Blue via Twitter @ChargerBlue, find them on Facebook, and make sure you check out the web site http://chargerblue.com!
The 7 Most Essential WordPress Plugins For Your Web Site
28 Oct 2010 | No Comments | posted by Coldfire Promotions | in Blog Post, Miscellaneous
One of the great advantages of creating a WordPress web site versus coding your own, or even using a template, is that everything is so much more automated. While you still have the option to customize your own HTML, JavaScript, and even Flash tools within your website, the utility of WordPress provides so much more. One such tool is the availability of what they call “plugins.” According to Word Press, at the very moment of this blog post, there are 11,811 plugins that account for 125,383,955 downloads! Insane! You can see for yourself by clicking here.
So what good are plugins anyhow?
According to WordPress, “Plugins can extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine.” Although that’s a pretty plain and simple statement, it’s quite realistic. As you’ll see below, plugins can delete spammy, automated comments, create meta tags for you, provide you with web traffic analytics, and much, much more. Below is my list of 8 Essential WordPress Plugins every webmaster should utilize in their site (in no particular order):
1) Google XML Sitemaps – This is one of the many necessary tools for providing your site with solid Search Engine Optimization (SEO). According to Google, “Sitemaps are a way to tell Google about pages on your site we might not otherwise discover.” But why would you need this? Basically, a XML Sitemap is a simple list of all of the pages on your site. By creating this document, and submitting it to search engines like Google, ensures you what your content will be discovered by the search engines. Not just some of it, but all of it. The reason I suggest utilizing this plugin is because it automates and updates the Sitemap for you. And until you have tried to keep a Sitemap updated yourself, you won’t know how much of a time saver this really is. I tried keeping up with the Sitemaps on my previous sites and all I got was a headache!
2) Redirection – While this plugin may not be absolutely necessary for eveyone, it definitely is if you’re moving, changing, or updating your web site like we so frequently do. Remember the page http://coldfirepromotions.com/webdesign from our old site? It used to link you to all the information on our web design services. Well, with the new structure of our site the page was changed to http://coldfirepromotions.com/services/web-marketing/web-site-design. However, by using this plugin we can automatically redirect our customers to the new page, even if they click a link to the old page or type in the address themselves. Go ahead, give it a click!
3) Google Analytics for WordPress – If you don’t already have Google Analytics running on your site (or some other kind of awesome web traffic tool), “you’re doing it wrong,” as they say. While a web site is a great selling tool, it’s an even better marketing tool. And what is the value of marketing if you’re not doing any research or analytics along with it? I’ll tell you… ZIP! ZILCH! NOTTA! You may want to read more about web site design and it’s value. Anyways, this plugin basically just automatically inserts your Google Analytics code into your HTML for you. It’s handy if you don’t understand web coding, don’t understand Google’s crazy instructions, or are just lazy.
4) Contact Form 7 – This is one of the most common WordPress plugins, and also one of the most important. While almost everyone has a “contact page” on their website, not enough utilize a contact form. Contact Form 7 makes this possible by providing you with an easy step-by-step guide to create your own form. I would also suggest checking out Fast Secure Contact Form. It’s just as good as Contact Form 7 and actually has more options. However, for whatever reason, it isn’t quite as popular.
5) All In One SEO Pack – While you may not know how to code your own website, you probably don’t have the proper marketing expertise, and you more than likely don’t have the resources to hire a SEO Specialist, there are other options! This WordPress plugin is quite essential for everyone. Although it won’t be as high of quality as someone who can come in and get to know your business, it’s not bad for an out-of-the-box SEO pack! It will write your titles for you, create descriptions and keywords, and perform all of the necessary meta tagging. While it may not rank you first in Google, it will definitely help make your web site or blog more discoverable.
6) Askimet – I wasn’t too sure about this one myself until I started getting all sorts of weird, spammy comments. One our post about the 2011 K/E Promotion Calendar received a comment about buying “prom supplies.” I mean, seriously? Promotional =/= prom. Ig you’re going to use a bot to spam blogs at least us a “smart” one! In any case, this plugin checks the comments, URL’s and their authors against a database and does a pretty good job at keeping out the spammers! You probably don’t need it if your blog or web site doesn’t get a ton of traffic, but it will likely come in handy one day.
7) WordPress Related Posts – You have an archive, you have a menu for your most recent posts, but do you have a spot for related posts? This is one of those “hidden” tools that can really increase your Search Engine Optimization by creating “link building.” This will posts links to similar stories on ever blog post you create. Not only does this help your visibility to the search engines, but it will most likely cause your users to become more engaged, stick around on your site longer, and read more of your articles.
There you have it. Coldfire Promotions’ list of the 7 Most Essential WordPress Plugins for your Blog or Web Site. Can you think of some more? Something we forgot to mention here? Comment below! And don’t forget to share this story on Facbeook, Twitter and e-mail via the buttons below. Thanks!
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