benjaminasmith.com is my own personal domain, purchased in January 2008. Prompted in part by a foggy awareness that my university email account would not last forever, the purchase was originally made to provide a domain for use with Google Apps For Your Domain. My original goal was to provide a stable domain that I could use for my professional email address, personal email addresses, calendaring and document storage.
Things went swimmingly for a time. I continued to use an older, now defunct domain as my primary website. It shared a name with many of my personal social media accounts, and was great to use with friends, but was very much a separate entity. However, over time I became bored with the site, my blog posts became stale, and in 2009 I let the domain registration lapse.
Meanwhile, benjaminasmith.com remained a strong domain, getting daily use as home to my professional email address. As time went on, it became clear that I was inadvertently building a professional brand around the domain. I was getting increasing traffic to the holding page from interested correspondents and felt that I should be doing more to utilise it.
In 2009 I decided to formally recognise the importance of the domain by making it home to my website as well as my email address. It started with a holding page which was not so far from the design you see today. Over time it evolved. First, I incorporated a portfolio of projects on which I'd worked. Next, it gained a Tools & Services area to host useful web services I had thrown together. And most recently, in December 2010, it gained a blog.
Part of this final transition from static home page to interactive soapbox also involved a modest redesign. I felt it was key to ensure that any site I would be actively growing (both in content and traffic) should look as presentable and professional as possible. I took some minimal but significant steps to improve the design, from creating vertical rhythm to using a fixed scale, clearer heading spacing and more attractive fonts.
This website will always be a work in progress until the day I allow the domain to lapse. As long as it forms a central theme in my personal brand, it must necessarily evolve and adapt to reflect my current thoughts, interests and talents.
As for whether or not the site has been a success? Only time will tell.