Every writer I talk to knows they should have a personal website. Almost none of them do. The reasons are always the same: it sounds technical, it sounds expensive, it sounds like a project that'll take weeks. None of those things are true anymore.

I've been writing online for twenty years. I've built personal sites on WordPress, Ghost, hand-coded HTML, and page builders. The version that works best for most writers is also the simplest. Here's exactly how to do it.

Why you need a personal website for writers in the first place

Your Medium profile isn't yours. Your Substack page is branded by Substack. Your Twitter bio is a sentence on someone else's platform. A personal website for writers is the one place on the internet that you fully control — the design, the content, the links, the message. When someone Googles your name, this is what should come up.

But there's a more practical reason. A personal website is a routing layer. It sends people where you want them to go. Newsletter signup. Latest article. Your book. Your consulting page. Your social profiles. Without a central hub, you're asking readers to piece together your online presence from scattered platform profiles. Most of them won't bother.

After ten years at Google, I can tell you: the writers who build sustainable careers online are the ones who own their digital real estate. Platforms come and go. Algorithms shift. Your website stays.

What your site actually needs

Writers overcomplicate this. They think a personal website needs a blog, an about page, a portfolio, a contact form, testimonials, a media kit, and a photo gallery. It doesn't. Not at the start. Not for most writers, ever.

Here's what a personal website for writers actually needs:

  • Your name. Big. Clear. No clever taglines that obscure who you are.
  • One sentence about what you write. "I write about technology, productivity, and the writing life." That's it.
  • A primary call to action. This is the one thing you want visitors to do. Usually: subscribe to your newsletter. Make the button obvious.
  • Links to your profiles. Substack, Medium, Twitter/X, LinkedIn — wherever you publish.

That's a one-page site. No blog section. No archives. No portfolio tabs. One page that loads fast, says who you are, and gives people a clear next step. You can add complexity later if you need it. Most writers never do, because most writers' needs are simpler than they think.

The fastest way to build it

I've tried dozens of website builders. For writers who want a clean, fast, personal site without touching code, Carrd* is the best option I've found. It costs $19 per year for a Pro account. That's less than two months of most newsletter tools.

Carrd builds single-page responsive sites. You pick a template, replace the text with yours, add your links, connect your custom domain, and publish. The whole process takes fifteen to twenty minutes. The sites are fast, mobile-optimized, and look professional without any design skills. I've recommended it to at least thirty writers. None of them needed help after the first ten minutes.

The alternative routes, ranked by complexity:

  • Carrd — one-page site, $19/year, fifteen minutes to build. Best for most writers.
  • Substack — your publication page doubles as a basic personal site. Free. Limited customization, but functional if you're already publishing there.
  • Ghost — full publishing platform with beautiful templates. From $9/month. Best if you want a blog and newsletter integrated into your personal site.
  • WordPress — infinite flexibility, significant setup time. Only worth it if you have specific needs the simpler tools can't meet.
  • Hand-coded HTML — maximum control, requires web development knowledge. This is what I use for this blog, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you genuinely enjoy building things.

For a detailed breakdown of Ghost, WordPress, Substack, and Medium as publishing platforms, see my blogging platform comparison.

Picking and connecting a domain name

Your domain is your address on the internet. It matters, but not as much as people think. Here are the rules that actually matter:

Use your name if you can. firstnamelastname.com is the most future-proof domain for a writer. It works regardless of what you write about, what platforms you're on, or how your focus shifts over time. If your exact name is taken, try variations: first initial + last name, your name + "writes," your name + "words."

Don't overthink it. I've seen writers spend weeks agonizing over domain names. The domain is not the brand. Your writing is the brand. Pick something clean, buy it, move on.

Where to buy: Namecheap or Cloudflare Registrar are both straightforward and reasonably priced. A .com domain costs roughly $10 per year. Avoid GoDaddy's upsells.

Connecting a custom domain to Carrd, Ghost, or Substack takes about five minutes and involves changing two DNS records. Every platform has a step-by-step guide. It's not technical — it's clerical.

The about section nobody skips

Writers spend too long on about pages and not long enough on the about section of their homepage. The about page is a full biography. The about section is three to four sentences that establish credibility and personality. That's what goes on your personal website for writers.

Here's the formula that works:

Sentence one: What you do. "I write about X and Y."
Sentence two: Why you're credible. "I've spent ten years at Google and twenty years writing online."
Sentence three: What readers get. "Every week, I send one essay about writing, tools, and building a creative career."
Sentence four (optional): Something human. A detail that makes you a person, not a resume.

That's it. Four sentences. People will read all four. They won't read four paragraphs.

The newsletter signup that actually converts

If your personal site has one job, it's capturing email addresses. The newsletter signup should be impossible to miss. Not annoying — just present. Here's what works:

Above the fold. The signup form or button should be visible without scrolling. If visitors have to hunt for it, most won't.

Clear value proposition. "Subscribe to my newsletter" is weak. "Get one essay every week about writing better and publishing smarter" is specific. Tell people what they'll receive, how often, and why it's worth their inbox space.

No friction. Name and email is fine. Email only is better. The fewer fields, the higher the conversion rate. Every additional field costs you roughly twenty percent of signups.

Social proof if you have it. "Join 2,400 writers" is more compelling than "Subscribe." If you don't have the numbers yet, skip it — fake social proof is worse than none.

Design principles for people who aren't designers

You don't need to be a designer. You need to avoid four mistakes:

Too many fonts. Use one font. Two at most. If you're using Carrd or a template, the default fonts are already chosen well. Don't change them unless you know what you're doing.

Too many colors. Two colors work. Three is the maximum. A dark color for text, a white or near-white background, and one accent color for buttons and links. That's a professional color palette.

Too much content. Your personal website for writers is not a portfolio dump. It's a business card that does one thing. Every element should serve the goal of getting someone to subscribe or click through to your writing. If an element doesn't serve that goal, remove it.

Slow loading. Skip the hero image. Skip the background video. Skip the animated transitions. A fast, clean page that loads in under a second beats a beautiful page that takes four seconds every time. Readers are impatient. Google notices speed too.

What to add later (and when)

Start with the one-page site. Add complexity only when you have a reason — not when you feel like you "should."

After fifty newsletter subscribers: Add a "Featured writing" section with links to your three best pieces. This gives new visitors a reason to read before they subscribe.

After your first year of consistent publishing: Consider adding a simple blog directly on your site. Ghost makes this easy. But only if you're actually publishing regularly — an empty blog section hurts more than no blog section.

After you have something to sell: Add a section for your book, course, service, or product. Not before. An empty "Shop" page tells visitors you're aspirational, not established.

Never: Add a generic contact form. You'll get spam. Put your email address on the page if you want people to reach you. The friction of typing an email address filters out the people who don't actually have something to say.

Common mistakes I see writers make

After twenty years of watching writers build personal sites, these are the patterns that waste time and don't help:

Spending months on design before writing anything. The site doesn't matter if you haven't published enough for anyone to care about finding you. Write first. Build the site when you have something worth pointing people to.

Building on WordPress when Carrd would do. WordPress is powerful. It's also a maintenance commitment. If all you need is a landing page with links and a signup form, WordPress is like renting a warehouse to store a suitcase.

Not linking from their platform profiles. Your personal website for writers only works if people can find it. Put the URL in your Medium bio, your Substack about page, your Twitter profile, your LinkedIn headline, and your email signature. Every profile should point back to your site.

Perfectionism. Ship it at eighty percent. A live site that's slightly imperfect beats a perfect site that lives in your drafts folder for six months. You can iterate after it's live. That's the whole point of the internet.

The twenty-minute version

If you want to do this today — right now — here's the playbook:

  1. Go to Carrd* and create an account.
  2. Pick a clean, single-column template. The "Profile" category has good options for writers.
  3. Replace the placeholder text with your name, your one-line description, and your newsletter call to action.
  4. Add links to your Substack, Medium, or wherever you publish.
  5. Buy a domain from Namecheap if you don't have one. Connect it following Carrd's DNS guide.
  6. Publish.

Twenty minutes. Maybe thirty if the DNS propagation is slow. You now have a professional personal website that's faster, cleaner, and more effective than ninety percent of writer websites on the internet.

If you're just getting started with blogging and want the full roadmap, my guide to starting a blog in 2026 covers everything from picking your niche to publishing your first posts.

A writer is nothing without a reader. If you found this helpful, consider becoming my dear email friend. Nothing would make me happier.