Dominating Search Results for Your Own Name

Are you looking for a job? Wanting to get involved as a volunteer or intern? Trying to impress your girlfriend’s father? If you’re trying to impress anyone for any reason, chances are that someone will be “googling” you. You want to make sure the search results for your name are appropriate to your goal and relevant to you.

First of all, you should go ahead and google yourself to get a standing of your web presence and image. Are you completely absent from the first page or two? If you are present, are the results depicting you favorably? If the results are less than optimal, follow these steps to increase the (positive) results for your name.

Sign up with the big-wig social media sites.
Popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have a lot of ranking power when it comes to search results. They are big sites, carry a lot of recognition (a.k.a. authority) with search engines, and are frequently visited. Creating a profile with these sites can help you rank for your name because of the high page rank of the sites themselves. Of course, this advice only matters if you use your full and real name when creating your profiles. “Cutiepie23” is not an effective Twitter user name if you are trying to increase your name visibility.

Create a site with your name in the URL.
This is the easiest and most sure fire way to rank for your name. Buy the domain name “YourName,” and put up your own site for it. If your name is already taken, be creative and think of a domain (not too cute) that still includes your name. If “joesmith.com” is taken, try “joesmithonline.com” or something related to your profession, such as “joesmithwrites.com.” You’re probably wondering what in the world your website would be about. Easy. Make it a portfolio. Make it an “about me” site and a résumé. Make it a blog with posts you wouldn’t mind the perspective searchers reading.

Create a Google profile.
Again, easy. Visit http://www.google.com/profiles and follow the instructions to set up your profile. Google now displays google profile results at the bottom of search engine results pages for name searches. When I googled my name, sure enough, my google profile showed at the bottom of the page, as shown below.

Get around.
Finally, get out there and try to spread—not smear—your name. You know you already read lots of blogs and have an opinion of those posts afterward. Share it with a comment on the post and a link back to you own site or blog. (Your name will automatically be hyperlinked if your provide your URL.) You could even try to guest post for a blog or two, and use the popularity of more well-known blogs to your advantage.

Other ideas? Questions? You know what to do.