What Do You See When You Google Your Own Name?
How To Build Your Personal Brand On The Internet
I watched an E! interview one time, where Jack Black said that sometimes whenever he wakes up and, he forgets some of the things he’s supposed to that day, other times, he has no clue how to go about his day.
He then googles himself to see what comes up about him, which is usually what people are saying about him and from that, he starts to create his tasks and then plan his entire day.
Fascinating!
What comes up whenever you google yourself? Is it just the tweets you posted that morning? Or something much less important?
Worse, do you have to scroll down to the last part of the search results page or even load 2–3 more pages before you find yourself on Google? If that is your story, then I’m sorry (rhymes intended).
In the words of Gary Vee “Create a personal brand so powerful that it transcends platforms, products and even passion”. Those are the words of a man who built a $150 million dollar media company in part because of his personal brand.
Social media is not enough, in fact, if your social media platforms are the only pages that pop-up when you google yourself, know that you’re not playing things right. It’s time to step up your game.
I’m going to tell you the best way to build a personal brand by controlling what pops up on the internet when people search for you. It’s about simply improving your digital footprints.
Take this few tips and work with them
One major benefit of having a personal brand, asides that it will help you scale your business, is that a personal brand helps to build trust with your audience, and position you as an authority and a thought leader in your industry.
So this is how you should get started
Have A Clear Focus
“Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” — George Lucas
If you want to achieve your more difficult, long-term goals you need to have the discipline to stay the course.
Decide the one thing you want to be known for and work on that. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Stop running around looking for the next big thing to do or the next big deal to sign.
Decide what your key message is and stick with it. Often times, you’ll find that your focus shifts gradually as you grow older in life and in work. It’s okay to tweak your messaging once in a while as you see fit.
It’s okay as well, to change what you focus on from time to time, but make sure that your style flows into each other, not a dramatical shift in focus. Once you’ve built focus, then use it for the next step.
Build A Website
One of the best ways to control what people see about you on search engines is to build a website with your own domain name. This will allow you rank top in search engine’s result pages.
But it’s not enough to just build a website, you need to create web copies that are well optimized for search visibility. You want the content on the website to educate the audience about who you are and what you do.
This is where Focus comes in.
Since you’ve determined the niche you want to serve, you can make it easy for your audience to reach you and consume your content by creating highly focused content on your website.
By having well-optimized content on your website, you control what people see. So if you’ve once trolled a celebrity on Instagram or had a vicious twit-fight on twitter, those things will not come up.
Create A Great ‘About’ Page
An ‘About’ page is a page that informs your audience in details, who you really are, both professionally and personally. I see some people make the mistakes of just putting up their professional details on their ‘about’ page and skip their personal info.
People will love it more if they knew more about you personally. If they feel that you are a regular girl or guy just like they are, they will relate with you more. Letting your personality shine through your website's about page is a great way to get people to like you more.
Even if it’s a small detail, they’ll appreciate it. For instance, I wrote on my about page how I studied Biochemistry in school but moved into digital media because I “caught the bug of entrepreneurship and digital media” which is absolutely true.
This way, people who have made this shift can really connect with me and then want to learn more from me.
Build Your Portfolio
A portfolio is simply a compilation of all your skills, work, qualifications, training and experiences. Actively build it by doing those things that add to it.
Get more certifications, improve your skills by taking some online courses, work in places and with people that exemplify your strengths and once you do that, create a page on your website and include the necessary details on the page you've created.
Notice that I said the “necessary details”, this is because a portfolio shouldn’t contain all the work you have done just to fan the flames of your ego. It should only contain a few of the things you’ve done that you believe are extremely helpful to your audience.
Show off your best work, places you’ve worked, your projects, platforms you’ve been on, people you’ve worked with, your publications and media appearances. etc.
Include Your Services
One other page that should be on your website is your ‘Services’ page.
Inform your audience about what you can do to help them by including your services page on your website. Once people visit your website, they’ll naturally navigate to this page, especially if they are your target audience.
So include your services and explain in details how you will help them achieve their goals. Check out how I crafted my own services page and feel free to use the style.
The purpose of building your personal brand is to create more business for you and get your name out there.
Add Your Contact
And after you’ve impressed the audience with your info and your portfolio, and they’ve decided to hire you, you should have a ‘Contact’ page waiting for them to get through to you.
No ambiguity, just include your email, your office address, phone number and a little contact form (you can use a plugin for the form).
Having a great personal brand not only translates into more business for you, but it also helps build your credibility as a thought leader and builds trust.
These are just ways to build your personal brand on the internet. Building a strong personal brand goes deeper than just that. It's about the deliberate steps and actions you take every day of your life to be the best you can be.
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