What is one SEO best practice I should know about as I seek to build my personal brand and create positive results for my name?
The following answers are provided by members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
1. Focus on Multiple Content Types
“When a vanity search is conducted, Google will serve up images, video, and of course text results that are relevant and contain your name. To create positive results and have diversification, make sure to go beyond just your social profiles and basic personal mentions. Tag professional photos with your name, and conduct video business interviews to serve up additional content types.”
Nick Chasinov, Teknicks
2. Write a Wikipedia Article
“If you have news written about you in independent news sources, you can write a brief Wikipedia article about yourself. It will rank extremely high.”
Joel Butterly, InGenius Prep
3. Generate Content on Multiple “Authority” Sites
“The ideal scenario is to Google your brand/name and see 10 positive results appear. One way to do this is to generate content on authority sites (sites that rank easily in your vertical), and then promote those pages with links and social activity. For example, create a Facebook page, Twitter page, Pinterest account, a post on a popular forum/site that ranks in your industry. It really works.”
Alex Miller, PosiRank LLC
4. Don’t Neglect Any of Your Profiles
“Every facet of your online presence should be purposeful. If you start a LinkedIn profile, complete it instead of leaving it blank. This includes everything from your personal blog to your Twitter profile. Have good content in all the places where you are present online, and don’t forget that a few good pieces of content trump multiple mediocre pieces of content.”
Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff.com
5. Beware of Your Earliest Content
“As you put your content marketing strategy into place, know that your earliest content will have the most weight in SEO rankings. What that means is that you shouldn’t put much out there until you decide exactly what you want to be known for. Quality, not quantity, is crucial at the beginning of your SEO efforts.”
Aaron Schwartz, Modify
6. Build Your Presence Over Time
“First, do you have a common name or a unique name? Google shows 97,100,000 results for my name. I added my middle initial for my personal brand to help. Then publish articles on LinkedIn and grow your connections. When you can get 1,000 or more readers to each LinkedIn article, you have social proof. Pitch bigger publications so you get you more prestige when you publish.”
Joshua Lee, StandOut Authority
7. Build a Website on [Your Full Name] .com
“A domain with your full name (and a dot com) still carries the most SEO weight. If you want to add a positive result for your personal brand in a Google search, register your name as a domain, start a website on the domain, and communicate what makes you unique. The longer this website exists, the more trusted it becomes in a Google search. It’s a great way to create positive results.”
Brett Farmiloe, Markitors
8. Don’t Just Talk About Yourself
“A website can act as a great home base for a new brand, but entrepreneurs must also think about other strategies to encourage outside influencers to talk about their brands. Contributing guest content or providing opinions to larger stories via expert commentary opportunities can provide a second level of reinforcement, which can prove to support a new reputation while also providing SEO value.”
Robert Lee, Circa Interactive Inc
9. Have a Quality URL
“Putting together the best SEO plan can be very intricate. One thing that many people don’t often think about is URLs for their website. For example, use a URL like www.stirista.com/digital/marketing instead of www.stirista.com/p2468niner. URLs should be user-friendly and bot friendly, not encrypted.”
Ajay Gupta, Stirista
10. Be Consistent
“The best practice for personal branding SEO is consistency. Whether you’re blogging, social sharing, guest posting, or creating content for your own website, keeping your brand consistent is key to ranking highly in the SERPs. Spend time thoughtfully considering your personal branding options. The more consistent you are from the start, the easier it will be to rank against your competition.”
11. Keep Related Content Closely Integrated with Proper Taxonomy
“Today it’s about hitting different types of content and interconnecting them with best practices. Engagement is one of the largest factors in gaining organic rank as algorithms continue to mature across all search platforms. By tying your content together with cross links and a proper tagging structure, your engagement metrics will soar, creating a greater relevance to the search engines.”
Michael Spinosa, Unleashed Technologies
12. Focus on Building Your Domain Authority
“Domain authority is the single most important factor when it comes to SEO. The three key areas you need to focus on are social signals, quality content, and the quality of domains that link to you. It should go without saying that your on-page SEO must be top-notch. Here are 6 tips to improve your domain authority.”
13. Emphasize your top personal keywords
“When it comes to your personal brand, you’ll want to define those key phrases for which you want to be known. Optimize your website and social media profiles to emphasize those keywords. If you want to see how your website is positioned for your best keywords, use this SEO keyword tool.”
Mark Cenicola, BannerView.com
14. Focus Your SEO Behind the Scenes
“To get optimal results, focus your SEO behind the scenes. Review all of the details that comprise SEO best practices, such as alt tagging photos, correct use of meta descriptions, etc. When you write your blogs, follow SEO best practices, but do not focus too heavily on keywords. Instead, create specific content that speaks directly to your target audience.”
Nicole Munoz, Start Ranking Now
15. Get Interviewed
“One of the best ways to build positive SEO for your personal brand is to seek out interviews. When someone else writes about you, they are going to likely put your name in the title of their post and these kinds of things tend to rank well vs. a social profile. Not only do you get the SEO perks of the article, but you also have a PR piece that you use.”
And if you don’t feel confident in your ability to implement these best practices, there are professional SEO services you can utilize.
