Online identities are increasingly difficult to manage and control. Professional students are encouraged to start early to develop and manage their online presence.

It is important for professional students to create and manage their online identies for two reasons. First, you want to develop and control your online identity so that it properly reflects you and your professional standards. If you do not do so, Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines will create a profile that may or may not be accurate. Second, you will have one place to refer potential employers to for your writing samples, research, articles, and papers. 

Here a few tips for developing your professional profile:

• Select a professional template and font
• Use a spell-check and grammar utility
• Include a professional photograph (a/k/a headshot)

Your professional interests may mean your online presence is hosted in multiple places.  If so, be consistent across all your website choices. Once you have your virtual resume online, don't become an absentee owner - keep it up to date! 

Here are two good places to start:

LinkedIn is a free and easy-to-use business networking site. You can customize the content blocks and link to online content. You will find good advice for developing your content in this short Forbes article: 8 Mistakes You Should Never Make on LinkedIn.  

WordPress is another free and easy-to-use option. It offers any number of visually appealing templates, and even the free options can be customized.  Many of the templates also offer a static (non-blog) home page option. It takes only a matter of minutes to paste a static resume into the pages. You can then easily add the links to your presentations and publications.