How to improve search results for my name?

Look yourself up- It’s important!

Have you ever looked yourself up on Google? Honestly, almost everyone has. But because there are so many people across the world with similar names, it might become hard to have your name at the top of Google search results. Do you usually scroll past the first page unto the second or even the third? Almost all users refrain from doing that. They never scroll past the first page. So what you gotta do is boost your search results in such a way that your name pops up right there on the first page. Appearing first on the Google search results page can have significant professional and personal benefits. You must be accurately represented in order to have a good reputation and strong relations.

Statistically speaking, every single day, Google records a search of 80 million names across the globe. Additionally, over half of the Human Resource departments are required to look up the candidates online to get a better insight into their nature. So, it is highly important that your content is up to date, relevant and accurate. Irrelevant information should be eliminated. It is recommended to update your site at least once a month. Google has a strong bias towards newness. This means that the more often you update your information, the more often it will be indexed by Google’s spiders and the higher your site will score.

There are a couple of things you can do to maximize your chances of appearing at the top of Google search results. Some of them are listed as follows:

Make yourself a website.

The answer to appear more professional and trustworthy is simply to have a website of your own. An established website with Google will make any user have more confidence in dealing with you. Moreover, with today’s technology, making a website is hardly difficult. It’s efficient to tie up with a web hosting company or any personal branding service who will guide you throughout this process and even make the website for you- for a fee, of course. Name your website after yourself, www. yourname.com, so that it ranks higher whenever your name is searched.

Another important part of this process is to have relevant website content. Ideally, you must have information about yourself put up. This would include your name, a short biography and even a photograph of yourself. Additionally, you can write more about your interests, profession and other useful information. A substantial amount of content is preferred by Google over snippets, this means that you must aim to have around a 1000 words on your website.

It’s particularly favourable to have unique information that spikes the reader’s interest so that they keep going and don’t close your website out of boredom. Be authentic!

Keyword optimization

When a user looks you up, your name will most likely be searched with an associated keyword. This could mainly mean your occupation or profession as it differs from person to person. For example, if your name is Jim Scott, and you are a teacher by profession, it narrows down the search results for ‘jim scott teacher’.

This would automatically bump up your name higher on the search results page. But context plays a paramount role here too, as by having associating terms in relation to your website doesn’t always mean that your website will end up getting more exposure.

You can improve this by having articles and content on your website that you would like to be known for. As per the above example, a teacher would have relevant information regarding learning and teaching processes on their website like subject-wise tips, study habits, improving concentration, etc.

When more people access your website searching for these related terms, Google will start associating these topics with your name, which will be favourable for you in terms of gaining more public exposure.

Have a Social Media presence

If you type in a person’s name, the topic results or the more probable ones will be directly linked to their social media pages. So it would be a good call to have personal accounts on popular media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Keep in mind to use your name as your username and profile URLs. For example, your Twitter or Instagram handle must be @yourname. You can make a public profile on Facebook and have your own custom URL with your name- www.facebook.com/yourname.

This would make your online presence a lot more stronger and gain you considerably more publicity.

Have multiple website links

Search engine algorithms usually give more weightage to those sites that other websites link back to. This helps you rank higher on the search results page. However, there is a catch.

Search engines treat those websites unfavorably which actively participate in link exchange schemes, so making sure that the links are non-reciprocal is a good idea. This means that you want various sites to link to you without you having to link back to them. You can use the follow ideas for the linking purpose-

Donate!- Most charities and nonprofit organizations will provide a link back to your site in exchange for all your valuable contributions to their cause.

Professional directories– If the industry that you’re in houses professional directories that list members on their website, you can try to get them to link to you.

Content– Put up content on social media. The publicity that you get from this is unparalleled! People will share your stuff, making it more likely for someone to link back to you. This is a very simple and effective measure also free of cost.

Blog- If writing is your strong suit, you can approach your industry and propose to write a blog post on any topic that interests you. If this happens, you can have another source to be linked from.

Mention yourself throughout the site

If you are familiar with keyword optimization at all, you know that dropping specific words here and there all over your content is beneficial to your rankings. Keep in mind that Google algorithms are constantly changing and improving. So, keyword stuffing, that is the use of keywords excessively, can actually affect your chances of ranking higher in a negative way. So, aim only to have your name only in a few key places that rationally fit in with the surrounding site content.

Domain-oriented

This is one of the best steps that you can undertake in order to get into Google’s good books. Google is a huge fan of domain names and helpful websites. If your domain is named after yourself, you have a better chance of bagging a higher rank on Google’s results page. A well known website to carry out this process is WordPress. They are highly professional, trustworthy and popular as per their customer reviews.

Controlling negative content

It is not uncommon for undesirable content to surface on the net. A lot of personal data is exposed on a public scale to defame someone and spoil their social reputation. Your friend may tag you in online posts or your name could be mentioned in an article. Managing your online reputation then, could get a little tricky.

First, you must get information about the wrong data or information that is not meant for the public. Look yourself up on Google and quickly find out what information is displayed above you. If you have a Google account, you can manage this information. This includes your bio, contact details and any other information related to you that appears across Google services and can be seen by the public. In case there is any information that you would like to delete but you don’t control the domain, Google’s help centre is always available and will promptly attend to your inconvenience.

It will take some time, but you should be able to build up a strong online presence that establishes your identity, your authority and your continuing activity. Those are the things that will definitely increase your reputation with Google’s search algorithms, and improve your visibility to the public. Appearing first on the Google search results page can have considerable professional and personal benefits. You must be accurately represented in order to have a good reputation and strong relations. You obviously cannot make your namesake disappear, but you may yet be able to outrank him!