The power of a personal Internet presence was the subject of a conversation I had with a colleague the other day. He was trying to understand what the value of a personal Internet presence was to a non-executive.
I asked him if he saw value in other industry colleagues, peers, co-workers, subordinates, superiors, current or prospective clients, trade fair or media personnel, members of industry associations, etc. to be able to learn more about who he is as a person, professional and / or his experience and skills in the field. Notice I didn’t even mention the recruiters.
I then suggested to him that if he believed there was tangible value in the above, then having the ability to simply say, “If you want to know a little more about me, just Google” is an extremely powerful statement. I also told him that I would really know how powerful this is when, after saying this to someone they respond to, “I already googled you; that’s why I contacted you.”
In the business world, we are all pressed for time, and most of us have too many people asking for our time. Having visible information online that anyone can find by doing a simple search on “Google me” helps you decide whether or not you want to consent to a meeting with another person, but it can also help those who want to meet with you to have a more aligned and productive conversation with you. This says nothing about the increased exposure in the business world to opportunities to share your expertise in the field through talks, posts, forums, etc. Notice I didn’t even mention career opportunities.
The key concept that many people don’t understand is the following:
It’s one thing to have content that belongs to you floating around the internet. It is a completely different thing to have content visible on the first page of visits when someone searches for you on Google.
So how can you proactively go about not only building a personal internet presence, but also building a visible internet presence by getting the content under your control to the first page of Google? He begins to write. It’s that easy.
What are you writing about? Write about the problems you solve every day. Write about the systemic issues and / or issues that you address every day and how you approach them based on your unique perspective and expertise on the matter. You don’t have to give away the farm. Just talk about situations and solutions in more general terms.
This also begs the question: Where do I post what I write? There are all kinds of places to post content, but the mediums you’ll probably want to post to are blogs and articles. Typically, this content will become more visible (that is, it will rank higher) in search engines faster than general personal or corporate website content that you can post. That said, not all blogging and article sites are the same. There are many, many places to post content, but you want to post content in places that will result in high-ranking content that will eventually appear on the first page of Google.
So how do you identify the “right” places to post your content? Look for sites that have a lot of traffic combined with a lot of new or changing content. Sites that have these two elements going for them will generally result in content that ranks higher faster in search engines. Sites that combine a lot of traffic with blogging or article content are usually the best. Online networking sites like Ecademy combine a lot of traffic with constantly changing new blog content. Article sites like EzineArticles combine high traffic with constantly changing new article content. You can also create even more exposure for the content you create by leveraging sites like ArticleMarketer that broadcast your article content to more articles, blogs, newsletters, and more. publishing sites.
Here is the key: the power of leveraging sites like Ecademy, EzineArticles, et al. It comes from using them to flag other web content that you have created and / or that already exists and that you want to increase in search engine rankings. You benefit from “guilt by association” as a result of hyperlinking to other content. When search engines like Google scan your content on sites like Ecademy and EzineArticles and find hyperlinks to other content, they give the hyperlinked content a preferential ranking.
With a little effort and harnessing the power of sites like the ones I mentioned above, you can create a visible personal Internet presence in just a couple of months. Then you can benefit from the power of being able to say, “If you want to know a little more about me, just Google me.”