So you've worked your ass off to have some quality online presence using your real name. Maybe you're a freelance trying to get gome buzz, generate some traffic to your site that translates into customers. You have a blog, some info about your business or company, profiles on LinkedIn and sites like that, you got some reputation. How is it going? Is it producing any benefit? You google your own name and...
Holy Goat of Babylonia! What's this?
This is what happened. You don't even appear on the first page of results. Instead of that, we see references to other people whose name is the same as you. Or even worse, someone is talking shit about you, and this someone has a better position in Google. Your business' online presence is at risk.
OK, you can whine if you want to. 10 minutes. After that, we're going back to work.
Our objective, in operational terms:
Your site should appear higher when someones searches for your name on Google.
Oh, that is, by the way, the Holy Grail of SEO. How are we going to accomplish this mission?
Rewind and read this section's title again. Does your website talk about you? Yes, it shows your work, your education, your pets, your...
¡No, no and NO! You did NOT understand. This is not YOU. Is your name in your site's title? Is your name in the description and keywords of your site? Is your name in your content, anywhere? Maybe in the footer, like “Site built and maintained by [insert your name here]”. Is there any section somewhere, or a block, that says “hi, my name is [insert your name here] and I am...”.
No? Fix this and come back.
Uh, you're back already. Let's see what you have done... oh, no, forget this crap about “the dude” and other stupid alias. Sweet yeti of the Serengeti! if you want Google to take seriously your name in your site, PUT YOUR NAME IN YOUR SITE, put it always the same and put it always complete.
Now it's time to ruthlessly bother your contacts and friends. Get as many links to your site as you can, and get them pointing at you. You get some blogger friends, that's good. They have put links to your site. Plusgood! The links are entitled “my best friends' blog”. Crap. Bother those blogger friends a bit more and tell them to make those links worth, that is. If your name is “Foo Bar”, the link to your site should read “Foo Bar”. No “my best friend's blog”. No “a dude's business site”. No kidding. If you really want your name to appear first in a Google search, you must use your name for links to your site.
The idea behind this is “tell Google” that your name refers to your site, and tell it clearly.
What we're doing here is a derivate of a method named Google bombing, or a Google bombing done right for the right purposes. If enough people link the same word on their sites to the same page on the Internet, Google assumes that this page represents this concept better than any other. All that is needed is more links than the competitors and consistency, that is, use the same words to point to the same page.
You've annoyed your friends, now annoy yourself. If you have profiles in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and sites like this, edit them applying the same idea: link your name to your site.
Get as many links your name -> your site as you can get.
You just need to raise yourself a bit over the noise.
Good luck.
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