About Internet Presence and Internet Marketing
aaindia
I get a lot of questions from people Im connected to on on-line networking platforms asking what the difference is between Internet Marketing and Internet Presence. This is becoming more important as more people actually care about being found when someone does a name search in Google.
It is one thing to have content on the Internet that you are associated with such as press releases you are quoted in, blog posts you have authored or commented on, articles youve published on-line, web pages and websites youve created, and similar content others have written about you or that reference your name. Its another thing if any of that content surfaces to the first page of Google when someone does a search only on your name (i.e., they dont narrow/refine the search criteria by adding additional terms such as your employer or field of expertise etc.). Someone searching on only your first and last name should be able to find you on the first page of hits.
It is one thing if your name is so unique that Google only surfaces 968 hits your name. Its another thing if you have a more common name like John Smith that surfaces 326 million hits. Someone with a name like John Smith has a lot more work to do to create a visible (key concept) Internet presence.
Thats where some basic Internet Marketing concepts come into play. Some people call it Search Engine Optimization, but that can have some cryptic technical connotations for those of us that dont wear propeller hats (having a Physics degree, I used to wear one). I prefer to look at Internet Marketing in a more common sense fashion.
In the context of building a visible Internet presence, Internet Marketing is quite simply using the Internet to market you or more specifically associating Internet content to your name in the eyes of a search engine.
You can have all of the content in the world floating around the Internet, but if no one can find it when they perform relevant key word searches in Google (or any search engine) none of that content is helping you create a visible (theres that concept again) Internet presence. You can waste a lot of time creating content nobody will ever see if you dont keep some basic Internet Marketing concepts in mind along the way.
Internet Marketing 101 - When it comes to building and establishing a visible Internet presence, it all starts with one fundamental concept: Your name is the key word phrase you are focusing on.
That means you want to have your name in the title of the content you create whenever possible. Ideally, that means you want it to be between the HTML titles tags of the webpage that displays your content. It also helps if your name is in the first 150 characters of the content you create as well. Why? Because every search engine grabs a certain part of a document or web page to use as the descriptive text which appears below the actual hyperlinked Title of the hit. but not always, a search engine grabs the first part of your content to use as the descriptive text. If you have a way of actually driving the META TAG description associated with the webpage displaying your content obviously make sure your name is in the first 150 characters of that description. In addition, if you have the ability to select the META TAG keywords associated with the webpage displaying your content obviously make sure your first and last name is one of the first 2-3 a keyword phrases you select.
Are you going through a resume writing or on-line bio writing exercise and trying to increase your visibility? Absolutely make sure you take the above basics into account if you are looking to ensure a document so obviously about you are going to be found when someone does a search on your name.
So what do you do if someone else is writing the article? Ask them if they would craft the article and associated HTML such that your name appears where it will be beneficial to you and not disruptive to the objective of the content.
What do you do if the content is already published on the Internet? You can create new content containing your first and last name hyperlinked to the associated URL of the content that mentions you by name. This is especially useful for women who go through a name change as a result of a change in marital status. Hyperlink your current names to content that references your former name. Basically youre building a key word association with your current name and the associated webpage containing your former name in the search engines.
To accelerate your rise through the search engine noise to the first page of hits, you want to also consider where you are actually creating content. In other words, are you publishing new content on a web site youve created, someone elses website, on sites that not only benefit from a lot of traffic, but also benefit from a lot of constantly changing new content, blog sites, etc.
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