A personal brand website has to let anyone looking for you work out three things within a few minutes: who you are, what you can do for them, and how to book you. For freelancers, trainers, coaches, performers and creators, five to seven pages usually do the job: about me, services and prices, work or case studies, testimonials, a booking or quote form, plus an articles section, ideally on a domain in your own name. Instagram and link-in-bio pages get you seen; your own site gets you found and trusted, and the two work best together.
Below we compare link-in-bio pages, writing platforms such as Medium and Vocus, and your own website, then go through what each page should say, how to arrange a portfolio, how to get Google and AI search to recognize you as a person, and what a year costs. The examples come from our member showcase, all sites that members built with Roamer AI on RoamerHost's managed WordPress hosting.
Plans and prices were checked against each platform's site in October 2026. Overseas platforms show prices by region, so their own pages are the final word. Member sites are described from the public pages we opened ourselves.
Instagram, link pages, writing platforms or your own site: who each suits
Plenty of personal brands start on Instagram: photos of your work, clips from gigs, moments from class. As followers grow, people start messaging to ask about prices. The usual next step is a Linktree or Portaly link page in your profile, collecting your sign-up form, portfolio and LINE contact in one place. A link page takes minutes to set up and the free tier is enough for someone just starting to take on clients.
The limit is that a link page is essentially a row of buttons. It rarely shows up in Google results, it can't hold a proper case write-up, and the address belongs to the platform. Take Portaly, which is popular in Taiwan: on the free tier, product and tip transactions carry a 12% fee, and you need the top paid tier to connect your own domain and bring the fee down to 6%. Linktree also has a usable free tier, with more advanced features on paid plans priced by region.
Medium and Vocus, a Taiwanese writing platform, are another route, suited to people whose work is mainly writing. The platform brings its own readers, good pieces get recommended, and Vocus has "salons" where creators set up their own paid tiers. The price is that the layout, the address and your relationship with readers all sit with the platform. You can't turn the front page into a services page, a booking form is hard to add, and when the platform changes its rules you adjust.
Your own website is the one place you fully control. It's best at catching people who are already interested: they've seen your work on Instagram, attended a talk, or heard about you from a friend, and now they search your name on Google to check that you're the real thing, roughly what you charge and how to book. At that moment a site with clear services, work, testimonials and a form makes the decision easier than a row of buttons ever will. In practice most people use all three: Instagram to be seen, platform articles to build a readership, and the website to close, with every link eventually pointing back to the site.
Six pages a personal site needs
About me
An about page should answer the questions in a visitor's head: who you are, how long you've been doing this, why you can be trusted and how you differ from others. Open with a line that states who you are and who you serve, for example "a brand photographer in Taipei who shoots small shops and independent studios", then add your experience, signature work, organizations you've worked with or press coverage, and a real photo of yourself. AI-generated scene images are fine elsewhere on the site, but the page that introduces you should show the actual you.
Services and prices
This page decides whether visitors get in touch. For each service, spell out what it includes, how long it takes, what you deliver and roughly what it costs. If you'd rather not publish prices, at least give a starting price or the factors that drive it. JazzJam, a jazz performance booking site in our showcase, breaks its fees down item by item on its booking page: the musicians (number, line-up, set length, requested songs), travel, sound and equipment, and other services together with tax and overtime. It notes that quotes depend on line-up, hours, location and venue, and that it is explaining what goes into a fee rather than listing fixed prices. For work that's quoted differently every time, such as gigs, photography or design, writing it this way helps clients understand why they need to ask first.
MUSIC VOYAGE, a music school, takes the opposite approach: its fees page lists the number of lessons and the price for trial, private and group classes outright, the trial lesson can go straight into a shopping cart, and the footer links to a privacy policy and the standard student contract. For fixed-price services like tutoring, music lessons or personal training, published prices plus direct booking save a great deal of back-and-forth.
Work or case studies
For freelancers, the portfolio is the most important page, and the next sections cover how to arrange it. Trainers and coaches without "work" to show can feature course outlines, past talks, how participants changed, or a clear explanation of their method.
Testimonials
Testimonials only help when they're specific. "Great teacher" can't compete with "after three lessons I finally felt able to present in English at work". Include the person's name or an agreed form of it, their role, and a photo if possible. When you ask clients for a testimonial, ask what they were worried about before working with you and what changed afterwards; that tends to produce something concrete. Testimonials must be real. Never write your own.
Booking or quote form
Your form fields should help you decide whether to take the job. JazzJam's booking process starts by asking clients for the occasion, date, city, number of guests, budget and the mood they like, and if they're not sure about the style of music, describing a feeling is fine. The FAQ on its home page also makes clear that sending an inquiry doesn't confirm a booking. Freelancers can ask about purpose, budget range and timeline; trainers can ask about group size, venue and participants' background. Say what happens after someone submits: when you'll reply, how you quote, and how deposits work.
Articles
Articles are how strangers find you on Google. Write about the questions your clients ask: a photographer might cover what to prepare for a brand portrait session, a coach why people know what to do but still don't do it. LifeOS, a personal growth site in our showcase, calls its articles "insight notes" and files them by the types of sticking point in its method, so readers start from their own situation, find related pieces and work their way back to the method on the home page.
Trainers and coaches: let people try your method first
Trainers and coaches sell a method, and however many titles you list, visitors still don't know what will actually happen in your sessions. LifeOS doesn't open with credentials. It starts with the problem it solves, knowing what to do and never really starting, then sorts the reasons people get stuck into five types: direction, skills or information, practical constraints, internal resistance, and unknown. After that comes a small clickable diagnostic that walks visitors through the method once. The site labels this clearly as a classroom demo that currently runs on rules inside the browser and doesn't send what you type to any outside service.
Its FAQ is well written too, answering the questions new visitors genuinely have, such as how this differs from chatting with an AI and whether it will always push them to act. A trainer's or coach's site can follow the same order: say what problem you solve, explain your method, then offer something people can use right away, such as a self-check list, a sample video or a one-page course outline. Trying it once does more to help a visitor decide than ten lines of self-introduction.
Use a domain in your own name
The address of a personal brand site should ideally be your name, such as yourname.com or yourname.tw, or your name plus your profession. The benefits are practical. It's easy to remember on business cards and slides, your email can use the same domain and look more professional than a free mailbox, and above all the address belongs to you. If you use WordPress today and switch platforms later, the address moves with you, and the indexing Google has built up and the links other people have shared aren't wasted.
If your name is already taken, add your profession or city, such as yournamephoto or yournamecoach, or try another ending like .tw or .studio. Domains are bought from a registrar and typically cost a few hundred NT dollars a year, depending on the registrar and the ending. On RoamerHost you can launch on a free subdomain before you've bought one, then enter your domain in the control panel and follow the DNS instructions; the SSL certificate is issued automatically and the old address redirects. The steps are in connecting a custom domain and SSL to WordPress.
How to arrange a portfolio
The most common portfolio mistake is putting everything up in date order. Visitors won't go through each piece. They only want to know whether you've done something like what they need, and whether it was good. So a portfolio comes down to three rules: curate, group by what clients are looking for, and caption every piece.
Curating means picking the eight to twelve pieces that best represent you and sit closest to the work you want, and putting them first. Types of work you don't want any more can come off the site even if they're good, because whatever you show is what you'll attract. Grouping should follow the way clients look for you, which isn't always by type of work. JazzJam's find-a-performance page asks clients to choose an occasion first (proposals and anniversaries, parties and get-togethers, or commercial spaces) and then introduces line-ups such as voice with acoustic guitar, piano with saxophone, or a jazz trio, so people who know nothing about music can still find the right sound from their own occasion. Designers can group by industry, photographers by use, and trainers by audience.
Captions mean a few lines of background for each piece: who the client was (if you can say), what problem they had, what you did and how it turned out. One good image with three lines of explanation does more to make someone think "this person can help me" than ten images with none. Video and audio work can be embedded from YouTube or Vimeo instead of uploading large files to your site; when JazzJam invites musicians to join, it likewise asks for links to public performance videos or recordings. Compress images before uploading so the site doesn't crawl on phones.
Getting Google and AI search to recognize you
When someone searches your name on Google or in an AI tool such as ChatGPT, you want your own site to come up, with accurate information. There's no shortcut, but a few things help a lot.
First, write your name the same way everywhere. On your site, Instagram, LinkedIn and event organizers' speaker bios, use the same spelling of your Chinese and English names and keep your job title consistent, which makes it easier for search engines to recognize all of it as the same person. Second, link everything together: your site links to each of your social profiles, and each profile links back to your site. Third, make the about page specific: full name, profession, where you work, signature projects and experience that can be verified. That's exactly the material AI tools quote when they answer "who is this person".
Fourth, add structured data. Google supports ProfilePage structured data, which marks a page as being about a particular person or organization and can carry a name, a bio, a profile photo and links to other profiles. Most WordPress SEO plugins can set up person or organization structured data, or you can ask Roamer AI to set it up for you. Google also says there's no special optimization needed to appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode; a page that can be indexed and presents its important content as text has a chance, so the content itself is what counts. Fifth, get other people to mention you. Interviews, talks and partners' websites that name you and link to your address carry more weight with search engines than anything you write about yourself. And verify your site in Google Search Console so you can see which searches bring people to you.
What a personal website costs per year
When comparing costs, look at three things: what you pay each year, whether the address is yours, and who keeps the site updated. Platform prices below come from each vendor's site, and freelance rates from the public quote statistics of the Taiwanese freelance marketplace PRO360, checked in October 2026.
| Option | Roughly per year | Address | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instagram + link page Linktree, Portaly | Free tiers available; connecting your own domain on Portaly needs its top paid tier | Platform address | New freelancers whose clients all come from social media |
| Writing platform Medium, Vocus | Free to write | Platform address | Writers building a readership first |
| Template platform WordPress.com | Personal from US$4/month billed annually; annual plans include a domain for the first year | Your own domain | People happy to do their own layout |
| Hire a freelancer | Template-based sites commonly NT$10,000 to 50,000; hosting and domain extra | Depends on the contract | People who need a distinctive design and have the budget |
| WordPress Basic RoamerHost | Avg. NT$299/mo (billed yearly); domain bought separately | Your own domain | People who know WordPress and like to do it themselves |
| WP × Roamer AI Pro RoamerHost | Avg. NT$999/mo (billed yearly); domain bought separately | Your own domain | People who'd rather not do layout and update work or classes often |
What the table leaves out is time. Link pages and writing platforms need almost no upkeep, while your own site needs someone to add work, change class times and handle plugin updates. If you only change things two or three times a year, editing in the dashboard yourself is fine. If your work and classes change often, handing it to AI saves a lot of effort.
Building a personal site with Roamer AI
If you want to build a website with AI, gather your introduction, services and prices, photos of or links to your work and a few testimonials, attach them to the chat, and explain in a few sentences who you are, who you serve and the feel you want. Roamer AI lists the pages it plans to make, and only after you confirm does it go into the site to build pages, write copy and set up menus and a booking form. After each step it shows you desktop and mobile screenshots, and if you don't like something, you say "undo" and it rolls back. To see the real process first, the full Roamer AI demo publishes every prompt used to build a site from a blank install.
Once you're live, adding a new project to the portfolio, changing class times or publishing an article is just a matter of telling it. How to hand over that kind of everyday upkeep is covered in using Roamer AI as your site editor. If you're still comparing tools, how to make a website without coding: tools compared goes through them one by one, and the whole process of building a site is in the 2026 website building guide.
How to choose
If you're a freelancer, trainer, coach or performer who wants a site on a domain in your own name, with services and prices, work, testimonials and a booking form, and your work and classes change often, choose WP × Roamer AI Pro, our AI website builder service: avg. NT$999/mo (billed yearly), and new work or new classes are a matter of telling Roamer AI. If you're just starting out and nearly all your clients come from Instagram, a free Linktree or Portaly page is enough for now; build a website once your work has piled up. If you mainly write and want to build a readership first, publishing on Vocus or Medium gets you seen faster, and you can add a simple personal home page on your own domain. If you know WordPress and are happy to do the layout yourself, WordPress Basic at avg. NT$299/mo (billed yearly) is enough.
The two plans are compared under WordPress hosting plans and pricing, and the member showcase has 30 sites if you want to see what other members have built.
Frequently asked questions
Q: I already have Instagram. Do I still need a personal website?
It depends on how clients find you. If they all message you on Instagram and you have as much work as you can handle, you can hold off. Once people start searching your name on Google, business clients ask for a full portfolio, or you want to reach strangers who don't follow you, it's worth having your own site. Most people use both: Instagram to be seen, the website to earn trust and seal the decision.
Q: Should a personal website show prices?
Show them if you can, or at least a starting price or what affects the price. List fixed-price services such as courses, tutoring and packages outright, and let people book directly. For work quoted case by case, explain what goes into the fee the way JazzJam does. Say nothing about price and you'll get plenty of inquiries that don't fit your budget.
Q: I don't have much work yet. Can I build a site now?
Yes. Three to five strong pieces plus a clear description of your services is enough to launch, and you can add new projects one at a time. Trainers and coaches can start with an explanation of their method, a course outline and a small tool people can use right away. The sooner the site goes live, the sooner Google starts indexing your name.
Q: Can I use AI-generated images on a personal website?
For scene images, backgrounds and article illustrations, yes, and Roamer AI can generate them for you. Photos of yourself, the work in your portfolio and testimonials should be real. Google's guidance on content quality treats AI-generated headshots and invented names or credentials as deceiving readers, and trust is exactly what a personal brand site needs most.
Q: How much does a personal website cost per year?
Link pages and writing platforms have free tiers. For your own site on RoamerHost, WordPress Basic is avg. NT$299/mo (billed yearly) and WP × Roamer AI Pro is avg. NT$999/mo (billed yearly), with the domain bought separately. Hiring a freelancer for a template-based site commonly costs ten to fifty thousand NT dollars according to PRO360's quote statistics, with later changes charged separately.
Sources
- Google Search Central: ProfilePage structured data, AI features and your website, Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content
- Portaly: plans and pricing; Linktree: plans and pricing; Vocus: salon terms of service (Chinese)
- WordPress.com: pricing; PRO360: website building cost statistics (Chinese)
- RoamerHost: member showcase (JazzJam, LifeOS, MUSIC VOYAGE), full Roamer AI demo
WordPress
