Posted under Career Management, Job Search, Online Identity on May 20th, 2008
Continually searching “your name” (in quotes) in Google or other search engines, sometimes referred to as “Googlitis”, is a relentless need some of us have to see where we stand in the search results – monitoring how the results shift and multiply or diminish with each new search.
The practice has become so prevalent that “self-Googling” appears in the dictionary. Some may consider it a vain pursuit, but it’s become a best-practice for job search and ongoing career management. The fact that it’s fun to do is an added bonus.
As Seth Godin said on a Personal Branding Blog post last week,
“Google yourself. If you’re a salesperson, your prospects already do. If you’re looking for a job, your prospective employers already do. If you’ve got a job, your co-workers already do.”
If you’re purposefully trying to build online visibility for yourself – and there are many reasons you should be doing this – you need to track your search results regularly to see what’s happening and what’s working for you. Take a look at which results come up on the first page. Do all the results truly represent you? Is the information on-brand and relevant to the way you need to present yourself now? If you’re not happy with the information people will find about you when they link to the sites, can you change it?
William Arruda categorizes 5 levels of online presence in an article at MarketingProfs, from “Digitally Disguised” to “Digitally Distinct”, the last being the brass ring. If you have results that aren’t consistent with your brand, or are downright undesirable, you’ll have to run damage control and begin repairing the bad stuff by outdistancing it with positive, on-brand content to expand your visibility and build the kind of presence you want. The good stuff will fairly quickly percolate to the top results, hopefully pushing the bad stuff to the tail end of results.
Profiles on online social networking sites (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) usually rank within the top few results. If you haven’t joined a few of these groups, it’s a good idea to do so. If you already have, make sure your profiles are hard-hitting and on-brand.
Some other ways to increase your on-brand online visibility include writing articles for relevant websites, contributing to relevant blogs, writing reviews of relevant books (for Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, etc.), and joining relevant professional associations with websites that have a strong online presence. Consider launching your own website and blog and investing in search engine optimization.
If you are “Digitally Disguised” – no results appear when you Google your name – you have the opportunity to carefully build presence and control what information about you is out there.
posted by Meg Guiseppi
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