Writer Julia Angwin had a useful piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “It’s a New Me (As Seen on Google.)” [link via Silicon Alley Insider]. She wasn’t satisfied by the top search results that showed up on a search of her name, especially since the top result had been a WSJ article that wasn’t representative of her best work (including an error that had required a correction.) So she set out to change that.
What followed was an exercise in search engine optimization, personal branding, and reputation management, and the field of battle was Google search results (although the SEO techniques she used should work for other search engines, as well).
I’m not going to go into a long, drawn-out recap of what exactly she did, particularly because Susan Mernit already did one, including useful links: “Google link makeover: What Julia Angwin did, in plain English.”
It’s interesting to note, though, that this is, perhaps, not the standard SEO scenario, in that Ms. Angwin wasn’t competing with someone else — she was competing with herself. And she’s a pretty prolific writer, with a lot of her bylines coming from high-profile and well-linked publications.
Even so, her experience and advice should be useful to regular folks and businesses.
Ms. Angwin’s article was linked to from a bunch of high-profile sites, and there wasn’t anyone she could appeal to or bribe to quash that article, so the only alternative was to come up with better, more representative content that had better positioning on search results pages. (It’s kind of how some free speech activists say that the way to counter hate speech isn’t censorship — it’s with more speech.)
One thing she did was develop presences (using her name) on social networking and profile services like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, and interlink those profiles. These established sites do carry some good link weight, so they’re good resources. And they’re all free, requiring just an investment of your time.
Another thing she did was build out her personal Web site, on her own personal domain (juliaangwin.com), including her blog. (Even now, search engines tend to like blogs, because they’re usually highly linked and update relatively frequently.)
Again, Ms. Angwin is kind of a special case, since she writes for the WSJ and has a lot of high-profile content continually coming out. And if you’ve got a common name, you do face a lot more competition, especially when trying to find a domain. Looking at us NetSol bloggers, this isn’t a problem for Shashi, and not really one for me; on the other hand, Steve has a bit more of a challenge [though his Twitter profile is a top 5 result], as does Jill [she's competing with a soap opera character, though her.name domain comes up #2]. There’s always a way.
Anyway, managing and optimizing your personal search results is an ongoing process that you should stay on top of, so check out the article and Susan’s guide to it.
How does your name do in search results? Leave a comment below and tell us your own personal experience with personal branding on search results pages.
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