Lets set the stage first of all. This isn’t a post about why your should develop a personal brand or even what personal branding is. This is my journey into ranking #1 and dominating the SERP’s (search engine results page) for my name, “Lee Driggers”. I also want to get my name associated with my online alias which is my Twitter handle @mldriggs. It’ll be an uphill battle because I have some stiff competition with a fairly prominent Division III baseball coach from the Midwest. Not to mention all the other random people (in particular the “mugshots” in Google Images).
My goal is to get this website to rank #1 as well as some of my core social properties on page 1. It’d be an added bonus if I can take over some of the Google Images as well.
How I Started:
Here is what the SERP’s (anyone know of a good plugin to display large images better?) currently look like on 11/15/2012:
As you can see from the image above (click to zoom), I only appear once in the top 10 for my Twitter profile. I also have one image, the last one on the right (from Twitter).
On page 2, my Google+ page as well as my Quora profile page are ranking. On page 3 I have a SEOmoz profile page ranking, and on page 5 an empty Pinterest profile.
Steps to ranking #1
Step 1:
The first step I took to accomplishing this goal was registering this domain at Godaddy and transferring the domain to a hosting provider then installing WordPress.
This website will be the core hub and what I want to rank #1 as it will represent not just my professional side but my personal side as well.
Step 2:
I interlinked all of my “core” social properties. I refer to these as my “core” because these are what I actively use on a regular basis. *Note* I haven’t included Facebook because I intend to keep it private. These include the following:
- Twitter - Added this website address
- LinkedIn - Added this website, Quora, Google+ and my Twitter handle
- Google+ - Added this website, LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora, SlideShare and about.me
- SlideShare - Added this website, Twitter and LinkedIn
- Quora - Added this website (in the description field) Twitter and LinkedIn
- about.me - Added this website, LinkedIn, Twitter, Quor a, SlideShare and Google+
After all of these properties are interlinked, I’m going to wait a few weeks to see if I get any movement in the SERP’s.
12/13/2012 Rankings Update -
I’ve seen a lot of great movement. Its awesome to see what a few things can do. Just some great onsite SEO in combination with a little bit of basic offsite cross linking. I also successfully implemented my Google Authorship.
- Page 1 – This website ranks in the 5th position, and my Twitter profile is in the 10th position
- Page 2 – My SEOmoz is in the 11th position, and my Google+ profile is in the 13th position
- Page 3 – In positions 21, 22, 23 are my Quora, Pinterest, and Slideshare profiles.
- Page 4 – The “answers” page from my Quora account is in position 37
- Page 5 – The “about” page from my Quora account is in position 46
- Page 6 – Another Quora page in position 54
- Page 7+ – 7 pages from this site, an old Twitter profile, 2 Google+ pages, my about.me profile, a really old Live Journal
Step 3:
After a few weeks I will work on linking additional profiles from other websites. These can be anything from online blogs to less relevant site such as Pinterest, Instagram, etc.
4/4/2013 Rankings Update -
I continue to see movement across all web properties. Here are the updates:
- Page 1 – This website ranks in the 2nd position, my Twitter profile is in the 8th position, my SEOmoz profile is in the 9th position, and my Google+ profile is in the 10th position. I should also note that I have a listing in AdWords, although below the 10th position. For the time being its free visibility because no one ever clicks on it.
- Page 2 – In positions 16 and 20 are my Slideshare and Pinterest profiles.
- Page 3 – In positions 23 and 30 are my Quora and udemy profiles. If you don’t about udemy, its awesome! Its a great place to learn new things.
- Page 4 – I have two new profiles ranking, in position 36 and 39. They are Vizify and my about.me profile.
- Page 5 – Nothing here…
- Page 6 – An inbound.org page of mine and the “About Me” page from this site
- Page 7+ – Lots of random pages from this site
Step 4:
Getting backlinks… stay tuned. I think I want to explore doing a small video on YouTube and or Vimeo in hopes to getting a nice rich snippet from them, we shall see. See below for an example:
Step 5:
Improving the image results..
Lee Driggers
I work in a digital marketing agency in Atlanta, GA. I focus mostly on SEO and Web Analytics. When I'm not working I thoroughly enjoy creating delicious meals, partaking in a beer festival or cheering on my favorites teams, the Atlanta Braves and the UGA Bulldogs.
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