Where Do You Rank?

This story caught my eye yesterday so I thought I’d share it with you. Have you ever wondered about how to improve your personal ranking online?

I have to be honest, it’s not something I’ve ever worried about that much… but that’s because I’ve always ranked highly for my own name. My only competition these days is from a barrister in the UK… and about 5 years ago there was a professional golfer who’d turn up. Aside from that, the first page of “nicola timmins” on Google has been all Me, Me, Me!

It appears I may be one of the lucky ones, either that or I’ve been subconsciously managing my own SEO since before SEO existed. According to the article on Mashable, half of people don’t show up in the first page of results for their own name and only 2% of people own the full first page. I’m not sure about how important it is to own the full first page, I kind of feel like that might be a bit greedy – Why shouldn’t Nicola Timmins, Barrister-at-law, has her space too! – but I’d be pretty upset if I was off the first page altogether.

All this leads into the idea of Personal Branding. Obviously as a concept it’s been around a long time however as people are sharing more and more personal information online, ensuring your reputation online remains positive has naturally become more important.

In terms of professional life it’s even more important. A survey by Microsoft back in 2009 confirmed and measured with everyone had suspected. 80% of US hiring managers they survey said that they had searched for candidates online and 70% of them said they had rejected a candidate based on what they had found in their searches. Your friends, relatives and potential employers are Googling you, make sure that they find you and that what they find is positive!

If you’re one of those people missing off the front or you just want to improve your visibility, this infographic which breaks down which social media / online profiles score the best in Google results and thus are the most important when managing your online reputation.

The company behind the infographic is BrandYourself, a start-up which purports to help you manage your reputation online. You can join the site for free, create your own profile and start promoting positive links around your name. It basically helps people who may not have the know how, manage their personal SEO. They’ve also recently released a product where you can (sort of) track who has been Googling you. Using a database they have built of publicly-available IP addresses, they are matching IP addresses from searches with major organisations and letting profile owners see who might be looking to find out about them. It’s not exactly has accurate as you’d think as it can really only track major companies and locations but it’s all valuable information.

We want to hear from you, how do you rank? And do you care?

Of course, while I’ve highlighted personal rankings here, reputation management is something that you also need to consider for your business. A lot of SEO focuses on keyword management around products because that’s what drives sales. Don’t forget that you also need to manage how your company itself appears. Google your company name, your company website should obviously appear but have a look at what kind of websites you’re being associated with. Are they the kind of exposure you are looking for?

Here at Grafton Media we provide Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Management services, If you’re interested in our services, get in touch by e-mailing us at hello@graftonmedia.com or call +353 (0)1 531 2097.

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