Finding the perfect birthday gift is a very tough job. Especially when the recipient is somebody very close to you. You spend hours, days, and even weeks looking for the perfect gift. In your head, it should not be something that was hastily chosen. It has to be something that is not only nice but also useful.
With all the things you can buy in a shop, it is really hard to find a unique gift you can give. Items are too cliche? while giving flowers or chocolates shows very little effort. A great birthday gift should not just embody your feelings towards the recipient but should also show your dreams for him/her.
So how about giving somebody a website?
Does it really sound that weird? Hey, it’s already 2015 and almost everybody has some kind of presence online. Although it’s nice to have your Facebook account on LinkedIn account, having a personal website is still better. Heck! Even our family plumber (who has been in the business for 40 years) has his own website.
The thing about giving a website is that it is not borne out of vanity. A website is a very important tool for anybody may it be a simple fellow or a professional. With enough customization, a website can turn into a place where you can tell a story to a hub for people with various ideas. The possibilities are endless! Not to mention the fact that owning and managing a website is as easy as pie.
Before, in order to have a great looking website that runs properly, you had to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to get it to the point where it looks the way you want it to. Today, $59.40 will give you a great website with great hosting and a personal domain(how to here). Add a little more and you will have the chance to buy a theme or use our free theme for your site. With a template, you can customize your site easily without having to spend years and years of learning how to code. An hour of reading through the documentation will give you enough knowledge to tweak the template to suit your needs.
With all of these things said, there still lies a reason why giving a website as a gift is always a good thing.
Have you ever heard of the term “online presence” or “online reputation”? Basically, they work the same way as your regular reputation but the difference is that your online reputation can easily be researched with a simple search in people’s favorite search engine. Do me a favor and try to search yourself. Tell me what you see. Sometimes you can see your social media accounts or other accounts or mentions from the past years. You may also see some bad stuff about you online. The problem here is that without a way to control your online presence, a bunch of stuff can come up during a search. Worst case scenario is that a person sees your last weekend pictures complete with you being drunk or doing weird things.
Having a personal website will do your online reputation a favor by being a central location for everything about you. People from all walks of life can use a personal website and it doesn’t have to be about business. You can use it as a portfolio site or even as a no-so-private diary. A friend of mine even used it to post some of his personally made recipes and is now getting some following. This was a guy who barely started to learn cooking but now has over 100 followers asking how he keeps his steak moist every single time.
Overall, giving a website as a gift is not just because it’s a fun thing to do. It’s actually something a person can use. Not only that, it will also help him/her out in cases where they might need some help with their online reputation. If you care enough for the recipient, give him/her the gift of security and creativity by giving them a website of their own. Just don’t forget to give them a crash course on the Internet if needed. This way, they can completely understand what they have and what they can do with it.