The power of a personal web presence was the subject of a conversation I had with a colleague recently. He was trying to understand the value of having a personal web presence for a non-executive employee.
I asked him if he saw value in other industry peers, colleagues, employees, subordinates, supervisors, current or potential customers, media or trade show personnel, other industry association members, etc. to be able to learn more about who they are as a person, as a professional and/or about their expertise and skills. Note that I didn’t even mention – recruiters.
I then suggested that if he believed the above had tangible value, then being able to just say, “If you want to know a little bit more about me, just google me,” it was an extremely powerful statement, I told him also that he would really know how powerful that is if, after telling someone this, he replies: “I already googled you; that’s why I contacted you.”
In the business world we are all pressed for time and most of us have way too many people asking about our time. Having visible information online that anyone can find with a simple “Google me” search not only helps you decide whether or not to agree to meeting someone else, it can also help those meeting with you want more aligned and productive conversations with you. This says nothing about the increased exposure you will get in the business community to share your expertise through speaking engagements, publications, forums, etc. Note that I didn’t even mention – career opportunities.
The key concept that many people fail to understand is the following:
It’s one thing that content that affects you is floating around on the internet. It’s a whole different thing to have content visible on the first page of hits when someone googles you.
So how do you proactively go about not only building a personal web presence, but also building a visible web presence by getting content in your control to the first page of Google? start writing As simple as that.
what are you writing about Write about the problems you solve every day. Write about the systemic issues and/or problems you deal with on a daily basis and how you approach them based on your unique perspective and expertise. You don’t have to give the farm away. Just talk more generally about situations and solutions.
This also raises the question: Where do I publish what I write? There are all sorts of places to post content, but the mediums you are most likely to want to post to are blogs and articles. This content tends to show up (ie rank higher) in search engines faster than general personal or corporate website content that you may post. However, not all blogs and article sites are created equal. There are many, many places to publish content, but you want to publish content in places that will result in high-ranking content that will ultimately appear on the first page of Google.
So how do you identify the “right” places to post your content? Look for sites that get a lot of traffic combined with lots of changing or new content. Websites that have these two elements typically result in content that ranks higher in the search engines faster. Sites that combine a lot of traffic with blogging or article content tend to be the best. Online networking sites like Ecademy combine heavy traffic with ever-changing new blogging content. Article sites like EzineArticles combine high traffic with constantly changing content of new articles. You can also get even more visibility for the content you create by using sites like ArticleMarketer, which will submit your article content to even more article, blog, newsletter, etc. publishing sites.
Here is the key: the power of using sites like Ecademy, EzineArticles, et al. comes from being used to link to other web content that you have created and/or already exists that you want to rank higher in the search engines. Linking to other content allows you to benefit from Guilt by Association. When search engines like Google scan your content on sites like Ecademy and EzineArticles and find hyperlinks to other content, they give the linked content a preferred ranking.
With a little effort and by harnessing the power of websites like the ones I mentioned above, you can have a visible personal web presence in just a few months. You can then benefit from the power of being able to say, “If you want to know a little more about me, just google me.”
Thanks to Ron Bates | #Internet #presence #google
