Companies, Clients and Colleges Are Googling You. Now What?

Let’s face it: how you’re perceived can have a major impact on your life -- from business meetings and interviews to social gatherings and first dates. There’s a reason Dale Carnegie’s 1936 classic "How to Win Friends and Influence People" became an instant best-seller and pioneered a trend of chart-topping self-help books. Cultivating a positive personality and reputation can be a major advantage, and it’s become even more essential in the digital age.

It wasn’t always like that. Over 100 years ago, perception still mattered but the audience was different. People lived in farms or small towns and did business with people they had interacted with their whole lives. How they treated family members and neighbors was the ultimate reputation litmus test. But as people flocked to cities, they suddenly faced the challenge of doing business with complete strangers. The dawn of corporate America called for a new kind of employee -- one who thrived in social interactions with a ready smile and a confident handshake. Companies wanted likeable salespeople with winning personalities who could represent the company in external meetings, bring in new business and help drive sales.

Your Reputation Today

Today’s model employee not only has a likeable personality, but also looks great online. With a professional online presence, you lend credibility to the organization you work for and can even broaden the company’s external sales funnel through your online network. Imagine if you’re a hiring department -- all else being equal, wouldn’t you rather hire someone with an impressive digital presence over someone with no presence at all?

It’s not all great news though. Employees with a tendency to badmouth or post questionable things online are seen as huge liabilities. You never know when an employee’s dumb tweet or angry tirade can turn into a PR nightmare. Remember the woman who lost her job over the AIDS tweet? What about the woman who lost her pizza job before she even started? That’s why 75 percent of hiring departments are required to look applicants up online and 70 percent say they have rejected applicants based on what they’ve found. It’s just too risky to hire the person with a questionable or negative online presence.

Even colleges and universities are taking this seriously. With scholarships and top-tier acceptance rates as competitive as they are, admissions officers and coaches are looking for any reason to drop a prospective student. Students are losing scholarships over dumb tweets and getting rejected based on what admissions officers find online.

What Can You Do?

If companies, clients, and colleges care so much about your online presence, what can you do to ensure yours portrays you in the best light? Sure, you can delete your questionable content and watch what you say online. You can fix your privacy settings and try to disappear. But is that really the answer? That’s like learning that people care about what you say and deciding to keep quiet to avoid saying anything bad.

Your online presence is one of the best ways to build identity capital and invest in your future. Don’t throw that opportunity away by avoiding the digital sphere. Instead, focus on maintaining an active, positive online reflection of your personal brand.

There is no quick and easy way to build a strong personal brand. The first step is laying the groundwork for success. Be clear about your personal brand. Determine your goals, define your values, and flesh out an effective strategy. Put in a little extra thought now so you can cruise efficiently later.

Think about your target audience. What value can you provide them online? Can you distill your expertise into digestible digital content like articles, videos, or slideshows? Do a little research on others in your industry and see how you can improve upon their online offerings. Armed with an effective and adaptable content marketing strategy, you’ll have the right tools to accelerate the process.

Once you have a tangible brand and a content strategy, you can choose the right online properties to publish that content and grow your audience. A personal website and an arsenal of social profiles will give you a nice start but make sure you’re optimizing everything for maximum SEO value.

Finally, make an effort to stay consistent. Anything of value takes time but growing your personal brand doesn’t have to be a full time job. There are several tools you can use to help you along the way, but the best advice I can give is to schedule time into your calendar. Just as gym sessions and diets don’t happen by themselves, your personal brand won’t develop if you don’t make it happen. If you think you’d benefit from a gentle kick in the pants, try my 28 Day Online Reputation Challenge.

Your digital footprint is a valuable asset. Don’t let the opportunity slip by -- your online presence could be the difference between getting that job, earning new business, and landing that first date.

A version of this article appeared originally on Entrepreneur.com. Image credit: Hero Images | Getty Images

How to Get Organic Backlinks Using Your Existing Network

Despite what you might hear, backlinks are still a critical part of ranking well in search results.  

One way to earn backlinks is through publishing high quality content. If you write articles that people want to share and link to again and again, then you’re well on your way to earning your website lots of authority.

But given that backlinks are so important for rankings, is there anything else we can do to earn more of them?

Yes!

Asking Your Existing Network!

Asking your existing network doesn’t mean go and ask your entire address book to link to your website. You’re bound to come across as spammy, and irrelevant links won’t do you much good anyway.

Instead, make a list of websites where you’re currently mentioned and a separate list of websites where you ought to be mentioned, but aren’t yet.

Having trouble? Here are some common places:

• Your company’s website

• Your school/university website

• An alumni organization

• A philanthropic organization or charity

• An author page from a web publication

For instance, I found a page on my company website, an author page from the Bowdoin Orient (my college newspaper), and an author page from Social Media Today.

Then, ask yourself the following questions about each website.

1. Do I have an ideal URL slug?

   1. www.example.com/ryanerskine would be ideal

2. Do they link to my website or social media properties

3. Is it appropriate to ask for a longer biography or to have my name used more times?

I’m all set on Social Media Today. I have a link to both my website and Twitter, I’ve got a nice bio, and my URL slug is http://www.socialmediatoday.com/users/ryanerskine.

My company page is a mixed bag. I have a nice bio and my name is used several times, but there is no link to my personal website. (However there is a link to my BrandYourself site.) It would also be nice if I could get my URL slug to change from /rerskine to /ryanerskine.

My author page on the Bowdoin Orient is a good example of one with a lot of potential. There is currently no bio, no link to my website or social media, and my URL leaves a lot to be desired: http://bowdoinorient.com/author/685

Reaching Out

Once you have your list, it’s time to reach out. For my company, it’s appropriate for me to just ask the dev team, but I’ll need to send an email out to someone at the Bowdoin Orient and see if they can do anything.

No need to defend or explain yourself. Start with a small explanation of who you are and keep the rest of it short and sweet. Remember, you want to make this as easy for them as possible.

As an example, here’s the email I sent to the web developer at the Bowdoin Orient:

Hey [NAME],

I’m a ’12 graduate and a columnist on the Bowdoin Orient. I was wondering if it would be possible to make two small changes to my online author page:

1) Could we change the URL slug to be bowdoinorient.com/author/ryanerskine — right now it’s http://bowdoinorient.com/author/685

2) Would we be able to add a link on my author page leading back to my main website, ryanerskine.com?

Thanks in advance,

Ryan

He got back to me and explained that the two changes weren’t possible right now but that they were likely to change the system in the near future. It’s not an ideal answer, but now I can put that in my calendar to reach back out in a few months and see if anything has changed.

The process is actually very simple, just remember to remain polite and courteous. If anyone makes a change for you, remember that they are doing you a favor.

If you have any questions, reach out on Twitter and I’ll be happy to help.

Optimize Your Social Media Profiles for Maximum SEO Value

If you haven’t built yourself a foundational strategy yet, then go back to Day 1 and do that first.

Assuming you’ve already done that, it’s now time to register your social profiles and fully optimize them to be search engine-friendly. We’re going to set things up properly today so that you can reap the benefits in the months to come.

I already wrote a great post on the 6 Steps to Optimize Any Social Profile for Maximum SEO Value, and I’m going to distill that information here. As a general rule, try to FILL EVERYTHING OUT.

→ Follow the following steps for every social media profile in your link diagram.

1. Reserve Your Custom URL

Search engines look to the URL as a sign of what the online property is all about. If you want my Twitter profile to rank well for my name, it’s wise to have your name in the URL slug.

Protip #1: Don’t get twitter.com/rickross if people know you by Richard Ross.

Protip #2: You may run into trouble getting the exact name you want. That’s okay -- the same thing happened to me. You just have to get creative. Ryan_erskine and erskineryan were also taken and I’m not one to add numbers at the end of my username. I finally decided on ryanerskineNY.

2. Put Your Name in the Title

This is self-explanatory. Put your name — or whatever you’re trying to rank for in search results — in the title. Search engines still take title tags seriously and I would be wasting a useful spot for my name if I didn’t put ‘Ryan Erskine’ here.

3. Upload Your Profile Picture

Some social profiles automatically rename your picture -- as Twitter does here -- but it’s worth remembering to always rename your image’s file name as the full keyword.

It’s a good habit to get into because some places will use your file name, and why not give those images the best chance of rising up in your image search results?

4. Input Your Location

Take your public location (from Day 1) and use it consistently across your social profiles.

Yes, there will be overlap when people search your name from different locations, but the city you input will be an important factor for search engines that tailor their results according to geography.

5. Link to a Property In Your Campaign

Refer to your link diagram if you need to remember where things are going. My diagram is super simple -- I’m just going to link everything back to my main website, ryanerskine.com.

6. Write a Unique Bio Using Your Name

Your bio is another prime opportunity for you to use your full name or keyword. You might be able to use your whole bio in a place like Google+, but you’re going to need to have smaller variations for ones like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

Branding Note: This is a good point to mention a caveat. You have to pick your battles when working in the world of SEO. Sometimes what’s best for SEO isn’t best for the online branding campaign. In this case, I couldn’t fit my name because it was more important for me to have the association with my company and my author profiles. These 6 steps are all important defaults but they are just that — defaults. Feel free to break the rules when it makes sense for your campaign. 

7. Fill in as Much as You Can

The more sections you fill out in your social profiles the more likely they are to rank for your name in search results. We cannot perfectly control search results, but we can put things heavily in our favor. Flesh out your profiles as much as you can and remember to naturally use your name in the third person.

Activity Recap:

→ Follow the above 7 steps for each social profile in your campaign.

→ Add the username, email, and password for each profile to your excel document.

→ Protip: Make yourself a BrandYourself account. The online tool is a useful way to track your links as they move up and down in search results. The free account will allow you to track 3 web properties and the premium version will allow you to track unlimited links (among other things).

Putting the Finishing Touches on Your Website (Tips & Tricks)

 

Now is the time to go through your web pages and find opportunities for improvement. 

Here are a few places to start:

Menu Bar

If you want to add a “Press” page or “Services” page, now is the time to add them. Perhaps you want to add a page with your resume on it or add a link to your CV. What about a media page to showcase some recent rich media? Make sure you’ve checked your SEO plugin for each page and you have everything filled out appropriately.

Sidebar

Take a look at your sidebar. Would viewers benefit from a small reminder on the side of who you are? Or perhaps you’d like to add the RSS Feed from a publication that suits your brand. Try one or two of the following options.

Add Image & Mini Bio

You can add a small image to the sidebar with a mini bio or call to action underneath so that people remember you while they're perusing your site.

If you’re using Wordpress, here’s how you’ll do that:

1. If you already uploaded your picture, click Media, click on the photo you want to use, and copy the File URL on the side.

   • If not, Go to Media → Add New and add your image first. (Remember to rename the filename before uploading!)

2. Then Go to Appearance → Widgets and add a Text Box to the sidebar.

3. In the Text Box, add this HTML code: <img src="File URL" alt="Your Name" style="width:100%;height=228"> and replace File URL with the URL you copied and Your Name with your actual name. (You may need to tinker with the width, depending on your theme.)

4. Hit Save.

5. Then add another Text Box underneath, and write something quick about yourself.

   • Example: Hey there! Want to improve your online presence? Contact me here.

6. Hit Save.

If you’re using Squarespace, here’s how you’ll do that:

1. Hover over the sidebar and click edit.
2. Hover to the left of the sidebar until you get that sideways-facing droplet that indicates you can add a block.
3. Add an image block to add your photo or a text block for text. That's it! 

Showcase Your Recent Blog Posts

This is a great way to keep people on your site longer. If they see a headline that catches their eye, that's a huge win!

Here's how to do that in Wordpress:

1. Go to Appearance → Widgets and add the Recent Posts widget to the sidebar.
2. Decide how many posts you want to show, and that's it!

In Squarespace, all you have to do is hover over in the sidebar and add one of the "summary" blocks and choose Blog as the item you want to display.

Add a Publication’s RSS Feed

Consider adding an RSS feed if there is a publication that suits your brand well. It will look like this.

Here's how you do it in Wordpress:

1. First Google the publication + RSS Feed. Example: “Forbes RSS Feed”

2. Find the URL of the RSS Feed you want. If I love Forbes Entrepreneurs, I might take that one. (http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/index.xml)

3. In your site, go to Appearance → Widgets and add an RSS

4. Enter the URL, give the RSS Feed a Title, and decide how many Entries you want it to show.

5. Hit Save.

If you’re using Squarespace, just add the social RSS block and follow these steps here.

Add Your Twitter Feed

Embedding your Twitter Feed is another great option because it showcases your latest tweets and viewers may be more inclined to visit you there as well. (If you don’t have a Twitter yet, don’t fret -- you can always revisit this tomorrow after you've built your Social Media Foundation).

If you're using Wordpress, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Twitter Dropdown Menu on the top right corner and hit Settings

2. Click Widgets → Create New

3. Make any changes you’d like -- or keep it as is -- and click Create Widget

4. Copy the entire generated HTML code

5. In your site, go to Appearance → Widgets and add a Text Box to the sidebar.

6. In the Text Box, paste the HTML code

7. Hit Save.

In Squarespace, this is as easy as double-clicking in the sidebar and adding your Twitter. 

NOTE: It’s generally a good idea to have some links or social icons in your sidebar pointing to your other web properties. I’m intentionally skipping this now. We’ll go through that process tomorrow after we’ve built your entire Social Media Foundation.

Footer

You don’t need a copyright symbol on your website to save your work from copyright infringement -- at least not since the Copyright Act of 1976 -- but it’s still a good idea. Not everyone knows this fact and you don’t want people thinking your material is up for grabs when it’s not.

I’d suggest a simple copyright statement that looks like this:

Copyright © 2015 Ryan Erskine

If your theme allows it, hyperlink your name in the footer to your website. It’s a best practice for SEO and can improve the user experience.

You can add your address, social icons, or anything else down there too! Don't be scared.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a great way to keep track of your website’s traffic, pageviews, bounce rate, and other important stats. Once you start tracking, you’ll always be able to look back to track growth over time. 

If you're using Wordpress:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics and add your website.
2. Verify your site by copying the code into the Google Analytics section in your All-In-One SEO plugin and you should be good to go.

If you’re using Squarespace, then you’ll benefit from their built-in metrics. But you can also add Google Analytics by following this quick step-by-step guide. 

Images

Are there any other images that you’d like to use on your website? Are there any places where another image would fit well? Images are a great way to break up lengthy paragraphs and liven up those big walls of text.

User Experience

The arm of SEO is long, but it bends toward user experience. You want to ensure that your website is easy to navigate for a random user and that you can access all your pages in just one or two clicks. If you make things difficult for users, search engines will take notice.

See if there are ways you can make the most important pathways easier to access for users. For example:

1. Could you make it easier for people to contact you?
2. Can people find your social profiles easily?
3. Can users learn more about you with a simple click?

Activity Recap

→ Try to add another page or two to your site and add them to your menu bar. Services? Work? Media? Press? Videos? Images?

→ Add one or two items to your sidebar to improve the user experience. You can choose your recent posts, an RSS feed, some social links, your latest tweets, an image, call to action, etc.

→ See if you can add something useful to your footer -- perhaps a copyright statement, links to your social profiles, or something else entirely.

→ Link your website to Google Analytics.

→ Add some more images throughout your site to make it more engaging.

→ See if you can improve the user experience in any way. 

The Anatomy of a SEO-Friendly Biography

Today’s a writing day!

Materials you’ll need:

• Your selling pitch from Day 1
• Your updated resume or CV
• Any honors or awards from Day 2
• Pictures from Day 2

Here are your assignment parameters (and why):

• One biographical narrative about yourself, at least 500 words

  • Why: A beefy bio filled with lots of relevant information about you is great for branding purposes and is more likely to rank in search results than a thin paragraph of garbage. Who would want that for their brand anyway?

• Must be written in the third-person

  • Why: Google doesn’t know who “I” am but they sure as hell know your first and last name.

• The reader must be able to sense your unique selling pitch you built on Day 1

  • Why: You spent time crafting a smart brand for yourself. Do it justice here.

• Make sure to include relevant and pertinent details that support your narrative

  • Why: These details are tangible ways to contextualize your experience for the reader.

How to begin?

There are a few different paths you can take for your biographical narrative. You can use a natural timeline that explains where you started and how you eventually got to where you are today. You can start with the present and then flashback to the start of your career and build your way back up to the present.

Or you can use my favorite, which is starting with the present and going backward in time. This one is especially useful if you’re really having trouble getting started, because it’s a natural way to think about what you’re doing now and how you’ve gotten there. Check out my own bio to see what I'm talking about.

Some classic problems:

• I’m transitioning into a new industry.

Start off by highlighting your experience. Being transparent about your new direction might help you find the opportunity you’re looking for.

Example:

John Smith is an entrepreneur with 10 years of experience in real estate development who is actively seeking collegiate teaching positions in the tri-state area. Smith is ready to help the next generation of real estate leaders make their mark.

• I’m a recent college graduate and haven’t started a career yet.

You can still frame yourself positively by highlighting your assets and being transparent about your current direction.

Example:

Jane Doe is a recent college graduate with a BA from Terrific University. With a passion for neurology and biochemistry, Jane is actively seeking...

• I’m still a college student and haven’t graduated yet.

Determine your assets and showcase them here. Be transparent about your direction if you have one.

Example:

John Smith is a current college student at Amazing College where he majors in Government with a specialization in International Politics. Smith is actively seeking a financial consulting position in the Greater New York City area. He is a proud member of the Varsity Tennis team, was recently voted co-captain for his senior year and is set to graduate with honors in 3025...

→ Spend a few minutes gathering the materials you’ll need.

→ Plan out the main bullet points you want to hit.

→ Write your bio. Go back and edit.

Picking Out Photos

Once you’re done, pick out a few pictures of yourself that you’d like to put on your website and social profiles. Try to find at least 2-3.

Optimizing Images:

1. Rename your picture’s file name to include your keyword.

   • If your photo is named IMG913523.jpg, then you’re wasting a perfectly good place to put your name. Google checks the file name for ranking purposes, so change it to something relevant like John Smith Graduation 2015.jpg or Jane Doe New York City.jpg.

2. Optimize the image size

   • If you upload tons of really big images, it can slow down your site for viewers. This is bad for the user’s experience and Google takes it into account as a ranking factor. Do yourself a favor and make your images as small as you can while still retaining the quality you desire.

3. Rename the Title

   • Once you’ve uploaded the image to your website, remember to rename the title to something appropriate, preferably with your keyword in it.

4. Rename the Alt Text

   • The Alt Text is the text that Google actually reads to figure out what your picture is about when it finds it on your website. Throw your keyword in here too: e.g., John Smith at Amazing College Graduation 2015

→ Optimize your photos.

→ When you’re done, copy and paste your bio into your website’s bio page. Insert the optimized images and you’re good to go.

Activity Recap:

→ Spend a few minutes gathering the materials you’ll need (selling pitch from Day 1, updated resume or CV, honors or awards from Day 2, and pictures from Day 2.)

→ Plan out the main bullet points you want to hit and the narrative path you want to take.

→ Write your bio. Go back and edit.

→ Pick out some photos and optimize them.

→ When you’re done, copy and paste your bio into your website’s bio page. Insert the optimized images and you’re good to go!

33 FAQs About Removing Negative Search Results

Negative search results can happen to anyone.

They’re frustrating. They’re unfair. And they can dramatically influence your chances for landing a job, earning new clients, and even getting yourself a date.

You probably have a load of questions (that’s why you’re here, right?) about fixing your search results. The world of online reputation management (ORM) can seem murky and mysterious to the uninformed, which is why I’ve put together a comprehensive list of the 33 most frequently asked questions people have about removing search results from Google. (I refer specifically to Google in this article, but the answers apply to Bing & Yahoo as well.)

One of our main tenets at Brandyourself is transparency — we want clients to know what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it. Scroll through these 33 questions and find the ones that most apply to you. Or, read the whole thing to give yourself the ultimate preparation for battling that negative result. When you’re done here I highly recommend that you head over to our reputation management guide and take things even further. Looking forward to answering any additional questions in the comments section below — see you there.

Here we go! 

1. How can I get this negative result ‘taken down’?

Unless you own the content (in which case, what are you waiting for?) getting a negative result ‘taken down’ is actually quite challenging. The website owner doesn’t have to take it down, probably has little incentive to listen to you, and may even miss your email request altogether.

For these reasons, getting a negative result taken down is unlikely to work. But if you succeed it can be very effective.

Here’s how you do it. Go to whois.net and find out who the website owner is. Contact the owner by email and request (politely) for them to take down the offending material. I’d suggest going the sympathy route — explain that the material is damaging your reputation and try to show how you’ve changed for the better since the content was published. Whichever route you decide to go, remain polite and remember that if they do help you out, they’re actually doing you a favor.

NOTE: The disadvantage of this method is that it doesn’t solve the underlying problem of having a weak online presence. You still leave yourself vulnerable to other slanderous results if you don’t take actions to build up a positive presence. See #6 for more details.

2. When is it right to submit a DMCA request?

The most common reason for submitting a DMCA takedown request is if the offending material infringes on your legal rights as a copyright owner. If someone is clearly using your material without permission (photos, written content, audio, video, etc.) you can submit a request by going to your DMCA Dashboard and creating a new notice.

You’ll need to be able to identify and describe the copyrighted work, show an authorized example of the work, and provide a URL to the allegedly infringing material.

Google gets millions of these requests every month, so don’t expect to get any results unless you can make your case crystal clear. You should also be aware that any request you send will be tied to your name and all requests are made public on chillingeffects.org so think carefully about the risks before you move ahead with this request.

3. Can we take legal action?

It is very difficult to get search results legally removed because people can say pretty much anything they want online. Even if you have a strong case proving defamation or libel, the legal process can cost you thousands of dollars and take many years to settle. The court system is a notoriously difficult place to solve these kinds of problems.

If you’re interested in hearing about your legal options, definitely speak with an attorney. Just remember that a lawyer may come back to you with the upsetting news that there is nothing that can be done to take down your negative result — and still charge you for their time.

4. What about the “right to be forgotten?”

In 2014, the highest court in Europe decided that European people had the right to influence the search results for their name in some certain circumstances.

The New York Times explains:

Under the ruling, Europeans who felt they were being misrepresented by search results that were no longer accurate or relevant — for instance, information about old financial matters, or misdeeds committed as a minor — could ask search engines like Google to delink the material. If the request was approved, the information would remain online at the original site, but would no longer come up under certain search engine queries.

This sounds promising. So what’s the catch?

As of this article’s publication (August 2015), removals only apply to European versions of Google search results (Google.fr and Google.de for example) and not the American version, google.com. The number of removals so far has also been relatively small. Of the 1,000,000+ requests since the court’s decision, only 41% were approved, and that number ismuch smaller for specific categories like public figures, serious crimes, and child protection.

Finally, beware the risks associated with this move. According to Danny Sullivan at SearchEngineLand.com, Google will disclose the removal in a process similar to DMCA complaints and even report the removal on chillingeffects.org.

Google tells us that it will show disclosure when URLs are removed under the new Right To Be Forgotten method in a manner similar to above. In other words, while the URL itself is forgotten, the fact that Google was made to forget it will be remembered.

If you are still interested, you can submit a search removal request here. You must submit a copy of your photo ID and be able to prove that the offending content is “irrelevant, outdated, or otherwise inappropriate.”

5. Can I submit a complaint to Google?

Aside from the “right to be forgotten,” there are only a couple instances where it makes sense to ask Google to remove something.

The first is the above mentioned DMCA request. The second is regarding highly sensitive personal information like bank account numbers and signatures. The third is revenge porn. Google decided to start honoring requests to take down those kinds of damaging results as of June 2015. You can read more about that on Google’s public policy blog.

To ask Google to take down these results in these specific cases, you cansubmit your request here.

6. If we can’t take down the negative, what CAN we do?

The most effective way to handle a negative result is to bury it with positive, relevant content about yourself.

This is an easy three-step process.

1. Build yourself a website. Buy a domain with your name in the URL (likeryanerskine.com) and build it on a simple platform like WordPress, Squarespace, or BrandYourself. Then make some high-authority social profiles that fit in with your personal brand. Everyone knows LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter but some other great ones to start with are About.me, Slideshare, Crunchbase and Youtube.
2. Optimize your profiles to be search engine friendly.
3. Most importantly, keep your sites and profiles updated consistently with original, quality content and lots of organic activity.

As your properties gain more authority over time, they will start to rise higher in search results for your name, eventually pushing down the negative or irrelevant results.

7. How does Google’s search algorithm work?

When you type something into the search bar, Google tries to serve you the most ‘relevant’ search results for that term. Relevancy is determined by a number of on-page and off-page ranking factors. Let’s look at a few:

On-page Ranking Factors

• Quality Content: Google rewards sites that have amazing content that provides lots of value to users. Content that is longer, well-written, and original is considered higher quality (from an algorithmic standpoint) than short, thin, and duplicate content.
• Keyword Optimization: Keywords are the core words and phrases you want to rank for in search results. In this case, the primary keyword will be your full name or business. Keyword optimization does not mean unnaturally stuffing your keyword onto your site — that kind of behavior can earn you a nasty Google penalty. Focus instead on writing engaging content and weaving your keyword in naturally when it is appropriate. Some obvious places to include your keyword are in the URL of your website, the title, the header tag, and an About page.
• Outbound Links: Outbound links, the ones you use to link out to other sites, are seen as signals of trust. Link out to authoritative sites in your industry that provide real value to the user. As a general rule of thumb, don’t exceed 25 outbound links per 1,000 words.
• Site Architecture: You want to make sure that your site structure has a logical hierarchy and that you are linking to all your pages in an easy-to-use navigational menu. Give your URL slugs appropriate titles and make the process of getting around your site as simple as possible.

Off-page Ranking Factors

• Backlinks: Links still matter a ton because search engines use them as signals of trust and relevancy. The important distinction today is that the QUALITY of the backlinks matter. One link from a highly authoritative site like the New York Times is going to be far more effective than hundreds or even thousands of links from no-name sites. The opposite is true too — spammy backlinks from link farms can do your site more harm than good. Focus on creating incredibly useful content for a target niche and you’ll be well on your way to getting a variety of links from relevant websites.
  • Don’t be afraid to reach out to your network to politely ask for links to your website. Appropriate places to start might be your business or a philanthropic organization that you’re heavily involved with.
• Social Engagement: It’s not clear how much weight Google gives to social connections and interactions as a ranking factor but there is a correlation between social votes and high rankings. Build your personal or corporate brand across your social network, grow your following organically, and share your content to get the most out of your social connections.
• Personalization: Local search is becoming an increasingly more important factor for search. There are many ways to take advantage of this factor, including registering your business’s address in Google+ and setting your location in your social profiles. If your site is getting loads of links from sites related to your location, it is more likely to rank, at least in that target location.

This just scrapes the surface, but it gives a good sense of the factors Google looks for when ranking search results. For more info, check out Google’s own SEO Starter Guide 2015.

8. Are there any special SEO tricks I can use?

Even as recently as a few years ago, you could get away with using “black-hat” SEO techniques, tricks used simply to game search engines like Google. These were things like link farming, cloaking, and keyword stuffing.

Today, these techniques will do you more harm than good. Google has gotten much better at detecting these tricks and penalizing the websites that use them. If you remember one thing about the future of SEO, it’s this: The arm of SEO is long, but it bends toward user experience.

Want to know the best SEO trick in the book? Do things that real users would do. Create incredibly engaging and valuable content that makes other people want to share it and link to it. Play by Google’s rules, and you’re much more likely to win in the long run.

9. Can we buy backlinks?

Buying backlinks falls into the “black hat” camp and is never a good idea. Backlinks from link farms and the like are in breach of Google’s webmaster guidelines and the search giant is quite adept at identifying violators and dishing out serious penalties.

10. How long does it take to bury a negative result?

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. Anyone who guarantees a specific timeline for pushing down a negative result is lying and, frankly, being irresponsible. Depending on the competitiveness of the keyword and the authority of the negative result, pushing a negative off the first page of Google can take up to a year or longer.

11. Can we buy traffic to our websites?

Purchasing website traffic is another “black hat” technique used to game the system and is therefore inadvisable. It might seem like an attractive short-term solution, but it is unsustainable and can actually hurt you in the long run. Google has released multiple algorithmic updates to penalize this kind of dishonest traffic-building behavior so your efforts are likely to be for naught.

Instead of buying traffic, focus on creating quality content — useful content that adds real value — and you’ll have a sustainable source of traffic for months and years to come. If you want to use some disposable income on your campaign, try strategically using paid campaigns for sites like Twitter, Stumbleupon, or Outbrain to increase your content’s reach.

12. Why is this old, irrelevant, negative result still ranking?

Google uses a number of on-page and off-page relevancy factors to determine the rankings in search results.

That negative result from years ago may not be relevant anymore but it’s probably built up lots of authority over the years. Even if it’s a static page, the rest of the site that it’s associated with might be constantly updated, which lends extra authority to that static, older page.

All the properties you’re creating for yourself will be keyword optimized and updated regularly with content, which puts them at a distinct advantage. But your properties are newer and they haven’t built up enough authority yet to overtake that ancient negative result. Here’s an example for you to visualize what happens over time.

13. Why did the negative result suddenly jump back up in the rankings?

Google frequently updates its search results based on a number of relevancy factors. Fluctuation in search results is completely normal, especially for a competitive keyword. For more information, check out question #22: “Why am I seeing different results than you?”

14. It’s been 3 months, why aren’t I seeing any results yet?

Three months is simply too short a time to see results. If you maintain regular activity on your web properties, you might start to see things rank in the first 3 pages, but you might not. Keep at it!

15. It’s been 6 months, why aren’t I seeing any results yet?

It depends how you’re measuring results. If your goal is to beat a negative result, there will be plenty of smaller successes along the way before you finally push the negative off the first page. Properties will begin to rank on the first three pages and you’ll start to displace other irrelevant results along the way.

If you’re not seeing any of your properties rank on the first three pages after 6 months, then it may be time to re-evaluate the situation. Is the keyword extremely competitive? Do you need to put more firepower behind your efforts? Is it time to restrategize the way your sites link to each other? Are there easy link-building opportunities you’re leaving on the table? Speak with a SEO specialist to come up with a new strategy to reflect what you’ve learned.

16. It’s been a year and the negative is still on the first page. Should we just chalk this up as a failure?

No! There are two things to consider:

1. Firepower: Online reputation campaigns can routinely take longer than a year depending on the competitiveness of the keyword and the amount of firepower you put behind your campaign. If your properties are ranking on the first few pages, you can be sure you’re on the right path. Keep up the good work and consider increasing the amount of time you put into your campaign.
2. Branding: Your online presence is not just a means to an end. It’s your personal brand and it tells a truthful, relevant story about you. That negative result may still be ranking, but it no longer defines your online presence. Are your other web properties ranking on the first page? If so, they’re mitigating the negative page’s impact and telling viewers the full story. Are you earning more monthly website views than the amount of Google searches for your name? If so, then you are beginning to really define the way you are perceived online.

17. Are there some short term tactics we can use?

No. Burying negative results takes time and there is no shortcut to generating authority on a number of web properties. Press releases can sometimes offer “flash-in-the-pan” results because they mimic a news article, but these results fall of SERPs as quickly as they arise.

18. If Twitter and LinkedIn are so authoritative, can’t we just create a bunch of those profiles for my name?

Google tends to rank only one result per domain on the first page. So while this sounds like a good idea in theory, it doesn’t typically work out in reality. It would be smarter to refocus your efforts on creating amazing content on your already-existing profiles.

19. Why does this process take so long?

It takes time for your web properties to generate enough authority to begin ranking prominently. Even if your properties are more SEO-friendly and optimized better for your name or business, they’re still much newer than that negative result. For that reason, it’s going to take time for your properties to gain enough authority to overtake it.

I’ll share the chart from question #12 here again so you can visualize what I’m talking about:

20. Is the process different if I have a negative image result?

Pushing down a negative image requires the same process as a negative search result, but a different focus. You’ll still need to build SEO-friendly web properties and generate consistent quality content, but you’ll want to remain focused on the images you upload to your sites and social profiles.

Perhaps you’ll add a gallery page to your website and embed many more images into your articles. Whatever you decide, remember to optimize your images properly: use your keyword in the file name, rename the title, and give it appropriate keyword-related alt text. Bonus tip: reduce the image size to the minimum you need for your site so you don’t slow things down.

21. How do I optimize a social profile like LinkedIn or Twitter for SEO?

There are 6 steps to optimize any social profile for great search results.

22. Why do I see different results than you’re seeing?

There are a number of reasons you might be seeing different search results than someone else. Here are the big 3:

1. Location: Especially after the Google Pigeon update, people have started to notice a sometimes-dramatic change in search results depending on the searcher’s location. Your results make look horrible in New York but much better in San Francisco. Want to check? To change your search location, click ‘Search tools’ and then click your location and replace it with your preferred one. (To get a different country’s search results, go to the country-specific Google address, like Google.fr for France.)
2. Personalization: Your results may be personalized based on your web browser’s cookies, your IP address, or other saved data. To avoid this issue entirely, you can reset your cookies or open up an incognito window and search from there.
3. Algorithm Experiments: Whenever Google engineers want to test something, they try it on a small percentage of random users. If you’re getting different results even after clearing your cookies and searching incognito, your search may be testing a new tweak to help improve the overall results.

23. Why am I seeing different results on mobile?

It’s official — Google reports that more Google searches now take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries, including the United States. Since Google always aims to deliver the best user experience, it has increasingly prioritized mobile-responsive websites, especially after the recent “Mobilegeddon” update. If you’re seeing different results on mobile, it could be that Google is serving up results based on your search history, your location, or simply because there are some sites that are better for a mobile viewer’s experience.

24. It sounds like a long process to change my business’s search results. Should I just change my business name?

That’s up to you, but consider this: what happens when people do their due diligence and search the previous business’s name to gauge your credibility? If you think you can completely cut ties from the business, then it’s might be something to consider, but don’t go that route before adequately weighing the risks.

25. What’s the point of linking everything together?

The benefit of linking everything together in a consolidated way is that you pass little bits of authority between your web of online properties. New social properties won’t hold that much authority by themselves, but they will be much stronger once they’re tied together on the backend.

This kind of linking strategy makes sense too because it’s exactly what a real user would do. Any professional with an array of social media profiles will want to direct people back to their website. When it comes to the future of SEO, focus on doing what a real user would do and you’re likely to succeed in the long run.

26. Are we done once we push down the negative result off the 1st page?

The good news is that less than 10% of people search beyond the 1st page. You can probably afford to ease up a little once you’ve pushed the negative off, but the worst thing you can do is rest on your laurels and let your properties get stagnant. Remember that consistency is key to high search results and maintaining activity on your sites and social profiles is important to keeping them above the competition.

27. Do I need to have a blog?

You don’t necessarily NEED one, but you’d definitely be shooting yourself in the foot without one. In most cases, it’s simply too tough to get a website to rank on the first page without a consistently active component like a blog.

28. How often do I need to update my blog?

This truly depends on the nature of the negative result and the goals of your campaign. At the very least, you’ll want to update your blog once a month with a 350-450 word post. But if you spend more time on your blog — in length, quality, and consistency — you’re much more likely to drive quicker results.

29. Do I need to worry about my search results if I don’t have a negative?

Yes, absolutely. In most cases, your online presence is the first impression you’ll give to employers, clients, and even potential dates. According to 2014 statistics, 80% of employers Google job applicants before they even invite them to an interview.

Plus, preventatively building up a positive online presence is insurance for the online world. The more authority your web properties have, the harder it will be for someone’s slanderous comment to rank for your name.

30. I’m a private person — do I need to put information out there about me to beat a negative?

Long gone are the days of keyword stuffing and shoddy content. If the negative result is about you, you’ll need to at least talk about yourself in some basic terms to give Google (and ultimately, users) what they’re looking for. By naturally weaving your name into the content on your site, you’re trying tell Google that your content is not only about you, but it’s also more relevant than the negative article. Google is getting much better at gauging quality, relevant content — if you use your name without providing relevant information, you’re going to have a hard time convincing Google that your website is more relevant and authoritative than the negative.

That being said, the benefit of having your own websites and social profiles ranking for your name is that you get to choose what information goes online. Instead of a negative article besmirching your name, you’ll get to define how you’re perceived online. If you’re a private person, consider leaving out the personal details and talk instead about your creative process, your love of a particular hobby, or something else entirely.

31. Why do I need to write about myself in the third person?

Google doesn’t know who “I” am but it definitely knows my full name. Whenever possible, write bios in the third person to show Google that your content is clearly about you.

32. Will press releases help bury the negative?

There are mixed feelings about press releases in the SEO and ORM industry. At Brandyourself, we’re not sold on their efficacy in the long run. In most instances, we’ve found press releases to offer short-term successes (because they mimic news articles) without giving the desired effect of long-term rankings (because they fall off SERPs as quickly as they show up.)

Like comment sections on blogs, press releases no longer provide dofollow links, the links that are acknowledged for ranking purposes. As Google gets better at sniffing out press releases, they are likely to have less and less of an SEO impact.

33. Would getting articles published on third party publications help?

Absolutely. If you can create really engaging, high-quality pieces of content, third party publications can be a big help to any ORM campaign.

Articles about you are more difficult to acquire, and you also run the risk of a journalist mentioning a relevant negative result.

But getting ordinary articles published on third party publications is a great way to supplement your campaign. Those articles can sometimes rank by themselves merely by being affiliated with your name as an author. Plus, getting an author page on publications like Huffington Post can often provide an awesome place for a valuable backlink to your website and social media.

Have any more questions or concerns? Let me know in the comments section below!

Originally published on BrandYourself.com