People, Market Thyself!

I stumbled on an excellent blog article outlining the 3 rules of Self-Marketing by Mike Gunderloy.  The article effectively presents why it is important to create ‘You, the brand’, especially in today’s unpredictable economic landscape.  As a matter of self preservation at the least and establishing our leadership position, we all need to start now with a sense of urgency and an inner drive to showcase our selves. And foremost, we need to differentiate ourselves in how we communicate the unique value we bring to our network and marketplace.

 

The advice in Gunderloy’s article was effective and illuminated the process to brand your self online.  Yes there is a process. And it is logical, easy to follow and effective at carving your space on the web.

 

1. Own page one on your search engine results

 This can be done by acquiring your own web page (www.myname.com) or subscribing to a service that has immediate page one placement with a web view. I am an advocate of acquiring your own name.com as a first step. Simply because there will only be one ‘your name.com’ to purchase. Although, creating and maintaining your own website can be more time consuming and costly than presumed. There are services now that give you page one presence with an easy-to-use web view template that has all that your website might have anyway. I recommend this action as it secures the best positioning and you can direct people to your website(s) from that space effectively.

 

1. Control what appears first and drive what follows

This can be more daunting as the search engines determine what appears first and what order that follows by its relevance to the subject being searched.  Understand the three keys to search engine relevance:  Clicks, content and inter-connectivity.  (There are some more subtle algorithms which are the formula-for-coca-cola to the search engine giants)  Most important of the three is to create inter-connective links from your website or web view to the areas of your expertise.  In other words, optimize the content of your website or web view.

 

1. Create a showcase for yourself on page one

Blogs alone don’t guarantee your prominence on page one.  The new tact is to focus on that area for which you are most interested in becoming an expert and begin carving out that corner of the web through articles, blog and video postings.  Use the latest technology (video) in your communications and design an appealing, professional space for you self-promotion.

 

1. Direct traffic to you using the ‘google me’ methodology.

When you brand yourself, it gives you another powerful avenue to drive people to your products and services.  Your clients may not remember your website or your company name, but they can find all of these through you if you have done your work to position yourself well and optimize your name with the search engines.

 

Make branding yourself online the essential first step.  You will establish credibility for yourself and it will prove to inspire you to become the leader in your life’s work.

 

Charles Fellingham is founder of QAlias, a personal branding tool that provides prominent personal placement optimization on the web. He is also a corporate trainer for the Forum Corporation and a Sales Manager for a Fortune 200 company.