Have you googled yourself? No, seriously. It’s called ego surfing. It’s a thing. So, we’re going to talk today about how to Google yourself and own what comes up under your brand because boy, that is so important and people will make a split-second decision on whether they trust you or not based on what they see in search results.
Okay, are you ready? We’re going to Google ourselves. So, we’re going to do it. I want you to go to google.com and I want you to put either your personal name in or your company name in.
Now, let’s take a little step back and tell you why… Why do I have information about this? My son got in a lot of trouble. He made some decisions in high school. Maybe you guys all made great decisions in high school but it’s a whole new world now. And I had to start looking at his search results.
Everything worked out great and it was all cleared up. But Google has a very long memory. And anything that’s public record is going to show up under his name. Then my brain says, “Okay, he’s going to get married someday and her father is going to Google my son’s name. And that is not going to prevent him from marrying the love of his life.”
So, I started this venture around “How do we protect our name?” This is not just about your company name. It’s about your personal name. It’s about your kids, it’s about things that you sell, services you offer and I was very quickly and abruptly reminded while I was doing this for my son that you know, we make mistakes.
Employees leave, they’re unhappy. Maybe you know, one of our products didn’t do great. So, when we’re googling ourselves, it’s very important that we understand there are 3 different components to googling ourselves, also called ego surfing.
When you’re thinking about it the very first thing we want to do is just google your name. No I-N-C, no L-L-C. Just go in and Google your name. I want you to take a step back. Look at what shows up under your name. Clearly, we should say your website address.
Well, what else do you see up there? Like you can control every single thing that shows up in your search results. So, let’s take a quick look.
We go to Google and then we’re going to go and I’m going to type in findability University. Now, Findability University, that’s my brand name. The problem is I Google myself. I look at stuff, I search the first SEO stuff all the time and I’m looking for findable things. You know, I geek out on this stuff all the time.
The problem is that that’s all remembered by the search engine. No, I meant by the browser. It has cookies and cache and it knows where you’ve been and what you like. My husband’s really into 3D printers and drones. Yes, we’re all geeks in my house, and his search results are going to be full of those things.
How do I create unpersonalized search results? So, we’re going to go into something called incognito. Doesn’t that sound cool? Incognito. So, when you go back to your browser, go under file and new incognito window.
It creates unpersonalized search results. So, when I go to Google, so now in incognito,
I’m going to go to Google. Now, I’m going to Google my name. So, if you are going in and Google yourself all the time and you say, “Hey, we’re number 1 under that keyword, it may not actually be true.” Google is giving you search results based on what you already love.
What you’ve already searched for. So, we’ve got to remember that we want an unpersonalized search result. So, we can see how people see our brand from the outside looking in. That’s the most important part.
I spend most of my time training clients on how to unpersonalized their searches and to take a look at how the outside world sees me when they’re looking in through a search result. Now, we’re looking at our search result under your name, you could be your name, your son’s name.
We’re looking at our search results. So you’ll see here, Findability University. I have a wonderful kind of screen capture right here. You’ll see the primary domain and then you’ll see 6 popouts. Now, you’ll see these pop ups that come up right underneath and I’m gonna highlight them right here for you.
We don’t get to choose what these say, guys. But they are the most visited pages on our website. So, when you’re looking at these, how can I adjust what I’m seeing? When I Google myself, I can control what I see here. Look down on all the assets that come up. So for me, I have my LinkedIn profile, my Pinterest board, an interview I had with a client, speaker hub, and my Facebook page. I’m good with all those and all look really solid.
Now, what’s interesting is you’re like well, ‘Why these assets?” If you don’t like what shows up here, you have a couple of choices. The first thing is to buy a paid ad or new name. That’s going to kick the guy on the bottom off and now you’re going to own all those other listings.
Do a painting just under your name, and the nice thing about a paid ad is that you can control the language. So, if you have a seasonal business like Christmas, Easter, New Year, you can go in and change that.
As with an organic listing, you can’t really change that. Once you get that to rank, you kind of want to leave it alone. You can do a paid ad. Also, a couple of ninja tricks here are SlideShare. I don’t know if you guys have heard of SlideShare.net. It’s owned by LinkedIn.
SlideShare is like a Wikipedia of all powerpoints. So, a quick hack is to go in creating a PowerPoint deck like 4 slides. One is about our service testimonials. Name it your company name. Upload it to SlideShare. It will bump one of these other things off the page.
I have tested it, and it works. It’s a great little hack. The other thing you can do too is thinking about, “Do I have on my social media setup? Am I seeing my social media here?” Another thing is…
I’m going to do something, it’s called command F. On a PC is going to control F. Now, what we’re gonna do… F as in Frank.
We’re then going to just type in your name. And you’ll see as I’m typing this in, you will see how my name highlights. So, I’m going to findability and then university. Now, what you’re saying here is everything that has my name is now highlighted. Which is pretty cool.
But what you’re looking at is the reason these things rank here is because your name is in them. So, we want to make sure that if we are going to be titling videos, you put Findability University right in the top front of the video. You’ll see here that I have 3 videos. All of them have Findability University right at the top of the title of that video.
If I don’t like the videos that are showing up, I’m going to go to my YouTube channel. I’m going to either make those videos private or I’m going to tweak them or tweak some other videos to show up there. Video is an incredibly powerful form of advertising online.
But under my name, I want to make sure they’re seeing the current testimonials, they’re seeing my latest work, my latest keynotes and I just go in there and finesse the title. It’s great and works really fast too.
Now, another ninja trick is Pinterest. And people like, “Pinterest is just for ladies who are searching for nail polish and pictures of their pets.” No. Not any longer. The male demographic is the fastest-growing on Pinterest. And the average time on Pinterest is 40 minutes. And if you’re a lady who likes to search for decorating ideas cooking recipes, men, you know, whatever you’re going to search for whatever your personal tastes or favorites, Pinterest is like massive google images.
Google images are the number 2 way people search on Google. So, think about the power of Pinterest. If you haven’t checked out Pinterest, go and set your account up and they have something called boards, they’re literally pegboards.
Think about each board as a different pegboard. This is on SEO and this is on keywords and this is on websites and this is on Google. So, you can have all these different boards. Name one of those boards your company name and it will show up here within 24 to 48 hours.
So now, we’ve bumped up another element. I want to see a paid ad if you want to kick another one off the bottom. I want to see your website and then your social media, your videos and then even a SlideShare or a Pinterest board.
This now that the listings that are coming up under your name are you’re choosing not just by haphazard findability. We don’t want that. Now, the next thing I want to talk about is Google Images.
So, similar to SlideShare and Pinterest. They’re image-based search engines. I’m sure a lot of
you have been on to Google Images. But let’s talk about Google Images. Now, when you do this, kind of sit back. Prepare yourself because sometimes this can be like the wild wild west of images.
I want you to remember, first of all, don’t beat yourself up about what comes up here. Ideally, I would like to see not just all logos here. So, when you look at mine, you can just go in a circle to Findability University and you’ll go to images.
I have made a study over the last couple of years to take pictures of my clients and put their testimonials right on the image. So, you’ll see on my google images, I have 3 or 4 testimonials over top of the person’s picture holding their certificate, and this is a wonderful way to convey a visual marketing piece if you will.
Google Images is the number 2 way people search on Google. It’s incredibly powerful. So, what we’re gonna do is we’re going to go into the very first image that comes up on your name. Click it one time. You will see where this image resides.
Click it again and now you’re going to see exactly where that image is on what page. So mine comes up to a Meet findability University page and there’s my logo right at the top. So, I have a couple of choices now.
I can leave it alone. I’m fine with that or I just change out that image that’s on that page? Google for whatever reason is decided, that’s the image. I don’t have time to figure out why Google thought that was the image. It just is.
I’m going to hunt and gather, I’m going to go to Google Images, and I’m going to search my name or whatever item you would like to come up with your product or service. And then you’re going to say, “Okay, I’m going to pick on the very first image.
I will also go to the page and I’m going to see where that lives.” If I don’t like my findability logo there, then I can switch it out with something else. The trick is naming it Findability University1.jpg. Not image 1 which is the way your web developer named those images.
Go to your website, find 8 or 6 images, name them, findability versity1.JPEG. findability university. JPEG. Findability versus 3.JPEG. And those images in Google Images will shuffle. And you could control the story of the image around your name.
Get those tightened up because it is a very powerful way that people are going to judge your company. They’re going to evaluate the quality of your services and do you just look fun.
Do I want to hang out with you? This is a very important part of your online marketing mix.
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