Why Website Designers Need a Personal Brand in 2025
If you want to future-proof your website design business, building a personal brand is a non-negotiable.
I said what I said, and in this post I’ll explain why!
But first of all, take a look at Instagram right now. Go onto most website designers’ social accounts and you’ll see the same stuff over and over; pretty website mockups and the occasional ‘tips’ post about ‘why you need a website’.
Aside from the fact they have different design styles (and I’ll come back to why this isn’t a good enough differentiator in a minute!), there’s nothing that really makes these businesses memorable or stand out from one another.
And that’s where personal branding comes in.
Table of Contents
Watch this as a video below or keep scrolling to read:
What is a Personal Brand?
A personal brand is a brand that’s built around YOU, your values, expertise and vibe.
It isn’t about being the loudest person in the room, oversharing & turning your life into a reality show, or becoming an ‘influencer’.
It’s about creating a feeling with your online presence that makes people remember you and say ‘I don’t know what it is, but I just like her’ or ‘I just get a good vibe from him’ or ‘I just love everything they put out into the world’!
A Portfolio-Based Business vs a Personal Brand Business
You may have seen people online saying that ‘no-one cares about personal brand content and clients just want to see examples of your portfolio and skills’.
And while it’s true that it’s important to share examples of your work, if you ONLY share portfolio content online, you’re building a portfolio-based business rather than a personal brand.
With a portfolio-based business, the only way you stand out against a sea of other designers is with your design style, and people associate you with just your work. Which is fine, but it means you’ll constantly be compared with other web designers.
There are tonnes of talented website designers out there, so then once you’ve been compared on style, it turns into a price comparison. So you’ll find it hard to raise your prices beyond a certain point.
Meanwhile with a personal brand business, you’re standing out and being associated with not just your work, but also your whole approach.
When you have a strong personal brand, it makes it much harder to compare you to others, and therefore price comparison becomes less of an issue. People want to work with you for YOU.
This also has the added benefit that if you ever decide to pivot, or add other income streams to your business, you have a ready-built audience of people who want what YOU have to offer (because the focus isn’t just on your design work). But I’ll come back to this!
‘Relationship Building’ vs Personal Brand Building
Another thing you may have heard people saying online is that ‘building an online presence and sharing personal brand content is a waste of time and you can get clients quicker by relationship building’.
But aside from in-person networking events (which, ew - I’m too much of an introvert for that!), what does ‘relationship building’ actually mean? ‘Reaching out to people and building connections’?
… Sounds an awful lot like cold pitching disguised as networking to me 👀.
Because if you aren’t establishing yourself as a personal brand in your online presence, as a way for potential clients to learn more about you and build trust with you, any ‘relationship building’ you do is going to feel an awful lot like cold pitching to people.
If you want to do outreach and focus on relationship building, it is SO MUCH easier to do that when you have an online presence and personal brand that people already recognise and trust!
Why Building a Personal Brand is a MUST in 2025
the best way to build trust & authority
Humans connect with humans, and so bringing more of your humanness into your online presence is a great way to come across as authentic and trust-worthy. AND makes any relationship building you do so much easier, because your audience ALREADY know you (see above).
Attract more of the perfect-fit clients
Personal branding is about becoming magnetic; attracting the RIGHT clients, and repelling the wrong ones too! When you have developed a strong personal brand (and got really clear about how to communicate your values and who you’re for in your content), it automatically becomes a filter for those wrong-fit clients and magnetises more of those dreamy people you want.
Inside my program - In Demand Designer® - we create your magnetic Personal Brand messaging and show you how to apply this to a content marketing strategy, so you can convert more dream clients!
“I now feel like I’m really attracting the RIGHT people.”
“The work I’ve done inside In Demand Designer®, magnetic messages etc, completely changed the way I approach communicating my services.
Now my content is coming to me with such ease!”
— Tamsin (In Demand Designer® student)
Stand out against a sea of ai and faceless brands
There’s so much AI generated content out there that we simply HAVE to bring in more personality and humanness into our businesses in order to stand out. And think about all the faceless brands and agencies that are out there - imagine how much we can set ourselves apart from them!
make yourself ‘un-comparable’ to other designers
As I spoke about above, when you have a strong personal brand, potential clients are less likely to be comparing you to other designers just based on work/style and pricing. You become a ‘one of one’, because people are buying into your values, vibe, and approach instead.
Future-proof your business for the long-term
This may not be something you’re thinking about right now, but at some point in your business journey you may decide to pivot OR at the very least, consider adding new income streams to your business (eg. different services, online courses etc). If you’ve spent the time building a personal brand, an strong presence and an engaged audience online, this becomes so much easier! Because you have an audience of people who love YOUR approach and will be likely to buy whatever you create.
You’re not just thinking about ‘how can I get web design clients NOW’, you’re thinking long term about how your business might look in the future. This has been the most important thing for me as I’ve branched into online education and courses!
What’s Holding You Back from Becoming a Personal Brand?
Okay so maybe I’ve persuaded you that this *might* just be a good idea, but you still have some reservations…
“I’m camera shy”
Yes, showing your face is a great way to open up your personal brand, but you definitely don’t have to make video content or ‘talk to camera’ if you don’t want to! There are plenty of successful personal brands out there that focus on written content, and still images with text over the top, so you can find a content medium that works for you (eg. blogging, Threads, Instagram carousels).
(But also, don’t let the awkwardness put you off trying, because practice makes perfect, and we all have to ‘climb cringe mountain’ and start somewhere!).
“I don’t know what to say in My content”
When you’re clear on who you’re speaking to in your content, and you’ve refined your personal brand messaging, creating ‘personal brand’ style content becomes SO much easier. If you feel your content is a bit ‘stale’ right now, I have a free masterclass covering 3 things that can revive it here!
“I’m unsure about sharing my ‘life’”
You absolutely don’t have to overshare online, and I personally set clear boundaries for myself on what I do and don’t share on my business platforms. I try and stick to sharing things that I know my ideal clients would relate to or find interesting (like my beach walks or what my work day looks like), but I certainly don’t share everything.
You also don’t have to have an ‘interesting life’ in order to share more of it! In fact, the more you share your ‘every day’, mundane things of what you’re working on or what your day looks like, the more relatable you are - which is great for trust building!
“creating content takes too much time”
If you don’t have a simple system for planning your content, and workflows/templates for creating content, it’s going to feel like a full-time job for sure! Inside my program In Demand Designer® I give you the exact templates and processes I use to create strategic content in less time.
Ready to build a personal brand for your website design business?
Join the program for website designers to build an audience & personal brand online and convert more dream clients!
Inside In Demand Designer® we create your Personal Brand Blueprint and ‘Backstage’ & ‘Frontstage’ content funnels to help you attract, nurture and convert more of your dream clients.
