Would you rather ask someone to follow you or communicate with you on Twitter? Twitter is designed so people can “follow” you, but the word follow implies a passive, impersonal connection. However, there is a way to use Twitter to promote communication, active engagement, and conversation that is relatively easy to implement.
Instead of just linking to your Twitter profile and asking people to come follow you, I suggest that you use a more direct approach. Use a link that looks like this:
But of course replace “andrewnadeau” with your own Twitter ID. This link is going to link directly to that person’s “What are you doing?” box, and already have @andrewnadeau filled in. It will look like this…
You will want to say something like “Send me a message on Twitter” rather than just “Follow me on Twitter” when using this type of link. This makes your message much more personal and encourages your visitor to take the initiative to make contact with you. It will then be up to you to make a personalized response to their initial contact. Once you have exchanged messages you now have a more personal connection with this person and they are more likely to engage in your Twitter posts later on. This is a much better result then just having someone passively follow you and never really build a personal relationship.
Here are what the current Google rankings for “Andrew Nadeau” look like:
Tasks Completed Since Previous Post on April 10, 2009
1.) Changed the name of my Twitter account to @AndrewNadeau
2.) Linked to my Twitter profile and LinkedIn profile from my personal blog
3.) Added “Andrew Nadeau” to the Title tag of my personal blog’s homepage
Notable Changes in Top 10 results Since April 10, 2009
1.) My Twitter profile page is now ranking #6
2.) There is a LinkedIn profile ranking #8. Unfortunately this is not my LinkedIn profile. It is the profile of another Andrew Nadeau.
3.) Some ManufacturedDirections.com website is now ranking #9. I am not associated with this website.
4.) An eduspaces.net profile is now ranking #10. I am not associated with this website.
Goals to Accomplish
1.) Bump ManufacturedDirections.com and eduspaces.net profiles out of the top 10 results
2.) Get my LinkedIn profile ranking in the top 10 instead of another Andrew Nadeau’s profile
3.) Create other public profiles geared towards my personal brand to rank for my name
About two weeks ago I listened to a presentation by Dan Schawbel at Bentley University on the topic of Search Engine Optimization and Personal Branding. If you are interested in viewing Dan’s presentation I have embedded the video at the end of this post. During this presentation Dan talked about creating a personal brand by controlling the search engine results for your name. Much of my background is in SEO having worked on SEO projects as a consultant as well as optimizing my own websites, but I never really gave much thought to actually building a personal brand and optimizing for my own name. When I googled my name, Andrew Nadeau, I was surprised to find that my Google results were in complete disarray. This gave me the idea to document the journey I am about to embark on of optimizing and aligning the search engine results for my name, Andrew Nadeau.
Current Rankings
Here is what the top 10 Google results look like for my name, Andrew Nadeau.
It is interesting to note that these results are out of 216,000 results. Now 216,000 results is a decent number of results, but should be easily manageable to optimize. If you have a popular name or the name of someone famous this is going to be a more difficult task, and might not be achievable. For example, Michael Jordan has 29,500,000 results. If you have a popular or famous name my advice would be to use a nickname, your middle name, a middle initial, or some other way to distinguish yourself from your generic name.
Analysis of Current Rankings
#1: I am currently ranking #1 for AndrewNadeau.com which is my personal blog. This is good.
#2: This result is a White Pages Search for my name and adds no value to my personal brand. I am going to have to work on pushing this result off the first page of Google.
#3: This is my Facebook page, but it is currently redirecting to the homepage of Facebook. I am going to have to figure out how to get this ranking to link directly to my Facebook profile.
#4: This is another Facebook result that is listed as a sub-result for someone on Facebook by the name of Eric Andrew Nadeau. I am going to try to push this result out of the top 10 results on Google.
#5: This is my profile at ArticlesBase.com. A while back I wrote some articles and published them on this website, but the articles do not relate to my personal brand. I will have to think about how to handle this ranking and will write about it in subsequent posts.
#6: This is my profile on a Ning community site that I contributed some ideas. Again, this isn’t relevant to my personal brand, so I will have to address this ranking.
#7: This is a sub-result for my Ning profile, which is for my Ning page. I will have to try to push this ranking off the first page.
#8: This is a result for the directory of all the Andrew Nadeau’s on LinkedIn. I am going to have to push this result off the first page of Google results and replace it with a direct link to my LinkedIn profile.
#9: A direct link to my LinkedIn profile, but as a sub-result. I will have to make this a main result and get it ranked higher in Google.
#10: My profile at CrunchBase.com for a start-up I founded called SyllabusCentral. This ranking is good, but I will have to fine tune my CrunchBase profile to my personal brand.
My Goal
My Goal is to completely control the top 10 results of Google for my name, so that each Google result is a page to adds value to my personal brand as a leader in social media, web 2.0 and search engine optimization.
What’s Next?
In my next post on this case study I will talk about some of the things I am working on to align my Google results and also give tips, so that other people can follow in my footsteps to build their own personal brand through their Google results. I want to make it clear that this is not going to be a quick process. It will take time for everything I do to take affect as it takes time for Google to find links and update their rankings. I think this should be a very interesting case study and I look forward to getting some results.
Dan Schawbel’s Presentation at Bentley University on SEO and Personal Branding
Every business professional should have their own blog where they blog about the field or profession that they are involved in. This should come naturally to anyone who is enthusiastic about their profession and classifies themselves as an expert on the topic. You can talk about industry trends, news affecting companies in your industry, create how-to guides, or give tips on your profession. The idea behind creating your own blog it to 1) get you thinking about your profession, 2) establishing yourself as an expert in your profession, and 3) linking your blog to your name, so your name because associated with being an expert.
How to associate your name as being an expert in your profession
Linking your name to your blog is going to provide a huge benefit to your career. I recommend that you try to register a domain name that either is your exact name or has your name in it. For example, my name is Andrew Nadeau and I have registered AndrewNadeau.com. If AndrewNadeau.com had been taken I could have tried to brand myself using a nickname like AndyNadeau.com or with my middle initial, AndrewJNadeau.com. The idea behind using your own name is that if someone Google’s your name your blog will most likely rank #1 in the Google search results for your own name if your name is in your domain name.
What if all domain names for my name are taken?
If all domain names relating to your name are taken and you do not have a famous name then I suggest that you get a domain name that has your profession’s main keyword in it. For example, if I am a social networking expert then my blog name might be TheSocialNetworkingBlog.com. What you then want to do is put your name in the title tag of every blog post that you make and also make sure that your name is in several places on your blog. For example, you might do a post titled “Is Twitter the next Facebook?”, so for this post the title tag in your blog will read “Is Twitter the next Facebook? - Andrew Nadeau”. With this type of title tag you will be able to rank for your name and people will associate you as an expert in your profession.
Will having your own blog help you find a job?
Absolutely! Googling a job candidates name is becoming an easy way to see someone’s virtual resume. If a potential employer Googles your name and the first result in Google is your blog where you talk about the industry in which you are applying for a job then it will greatly impress your potential employer and will separate you apart from other candidiates for the same job. Also, if you have not had much work experience or internships then this is also a good thing to put on your resume and talk about in interviews as it shows you are passionate about your industry and that you want to be a leading expert in your field.
