I’m re-posting an entry I wrote 5 years ago. It still applies. Back then, Googling yourself was a relatively new concept. Now, it’s a truism that Google results are your home page.
Posted May 19, 2004: "Google yourself." That’s today’s pithy two-word tip from personal branding guru William Arruda.
As he puts it: "Being Googled reveals how visible you are on the Web, and visibility (at least among your target audience) is critical to successful personal branding. Your Google results also become useful data points for those who are looking to make decisions about you."
So… I googled him. 24,700 results for Arruda (now 73,600). #1 points to his site.
Then I googled yours truly. 77,900 results (today 143,000). #1 is this blog. Which proves that search engines love blogs. (Update: note that debbieweil.com is a blog AND a site. It’s built on Expression Engine.) This blog (started June 2003) is less than a year old. Whereas my (old) site, WordBiz.com (no longer live), has been up since 1995. I.e. it came up lower in search results.
Here are a few more: Seth Godin: 136,000 results (now 1.77 million). Ralph F. Wilson: 637,000 results (now 944,000). Martin Luther King: 2.48 million results (now 17.6 million). Seamus Heaney (my favorite poet): 76,800 (now 554,000).
Look at the doubling, tripling and exponentially greater increases in search results. Now do you get the explosion of content on the Web that everyone’s talking about?!
Useful Links
Why Google Wants You to Google Yourself (explains why Google wants you to create a "Google profile")
I googled the phrase Google yourself: 76.2 million results.
Previous Comments
businessethos said on May 23, 2009 at 01:53 PM
Debbie,
Absolutely!!
Increasing our visibility online is essential today for personal and business branding. The goal, of course, is to capture our ethos in a favorable manner.
“Googling yourself” is ...an eye opening experience. Professionals and businesses should know how search engines view us...our prospects/clients will find out when they search for us.
...competitive intelligence=search intelligence
Best,
Coretta Jackson, MBA
@businessethos
@corettajackson
SiteBetter said on May 27, 2009 at 05:51 PM
What cracks me up is when one of my clients (say, “Miller & Associates") tell me that they show up #1 on Google when you type in Miller & Associates. Well, duh, I say to myself.
It’s amazing that people do not realize how easy it is to show up on Google if you actually type in your own name. It’s too bad I couldn’t sell that: Get Your Name on Google: $5.
Dave Kellogg said on June 8, 2009 at 09:46 AM
I hate to be geeky but you should setup a Google Alert on yourself as well.
And it’s not a bad idea to set one up on your boss, your board members, your most important internal customers, or the hot topic du jour with which you might get blind-sided, et cetera.
Marly said on July 27, 2009 at 02:46 PM
I googling almost everyday since 2 last years, and till now i am rather satisfied with google service. I found much useful knowledge by googling and by this way i could get any informations i need from around the world.
WMind said on July 29, 2009 at 03:54 AM
Googling is the best and practice way to get your instant answer.
Josh said on July 31, 2009 at 12:45 PM
It’s true that Google loves blogs. I’m personally glad and hope they don’t change to become more “big box”. Blogging is something that allows everyone to express their feelings while also maybe making an honest income. It’s great to stumble upon new blogs that you never knew existed and to relate to a complete stranger on so many levels. Blogging is by far the coolest thing ever!
Alex Becker said on August 20, 2009 at 03:03 PM
Interesting post. I remember back in 2004 I wanted to try to target Realtors specifically to order TheirName.com for personal branding and an online presence.
It had some mild success however never quite panned out as well as I had hoped. Nowadays it seems that everyone has a personal web site, I know my personal website alexybecker.com has proven to generate me the most business of anything out there…
Mark Taylor said on August 25, 2009 at 03:52 AM
Googling is great no doubt, Yahoo answer also great to get your desirable questions answer.
