A couple of days after I put up the article on how to create your own Google web page through Profiles, I get an email from Samuel who asks “how can I rank high for my name in the Google search results“. An interesting question that opens the doors to the SEO realm. Anyway, I’ll try to make it brief and provide enough pointers for you to get started.
For those who are new at this, Search Engine Optimization is a technique that involves making changes to the web page and the web site so that the page in question ranks high in search engines for a set of chosen keywords. “Off-site” factors also play an important role in determining how a web page ranks.
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So in short, this is a completely different ball game that requires time, dedication and patience. Money obviously helps but for a long term SEO strategy the one thing more important than money is diligence.
Anyway, let’s come back to the topic of this page which is how to get a high ranking for your page when someone provides your name as the query on the Google search engine. The newly launched Google Profiles is just one of the many online services on which you can create your profile. And, as of now, Google Profiles links are shown in the search results pages only in the United States.
Ranking high for my name in Google
The other alternatives that are in rage are Facebook and Linked In profiles. As long as you are sufficiently sociable on these networks and have a not-so-common name, the chances of your profiles coming up at the top spot on the Google search results page is quite high. And let us not forget Twitter profiles. If you cross-link these different web pages, you would probably get a good online presence for your name
The best bet, I suppose, is to get your own domain name and make your own web site. These will cost you a little money; not much, though. And it’s the ultimate vanity feeder. For example, I own a domain name of my name – web site of Manish Sharma which comes up in the first position when you do a search for my name. I’ve held this rank for some years now even though my name is quite common – there is a state level cricketer and tons of other more social Manish Sharmas. And once you have your own web site you can add links to your Linked In, Facebook, Twitter profiles from all pages.
By the way, the URL of your Google Profiles page will be based on your Gmail username. If it’s the same as your name, you are in luck else you can pick up an alternative as long as it’s available.
