Are You Find-able Online?

Maximize your online presence

An out-of-the blue email prompted me to consider how easy it is to re-connect with someone and what another person might find out about me online.

A long-lost acquaintance emailed me the same day my name, quote and photo were published in The New York Times. When I asked how she was able to get in touch with me, she responded that she conducted a search online and found my company website, which displays my email address (and phone number).

What about YOU?

Take five minutes NOW to conduct an Internet search of your own name. Your objective is to see which websites and social networks are listed in the search and make sure you appropriately connect those listings to your company’s or nonprofit’s website.

Start the search with Google.com, followed by Bing.com and then Yahoo.com; that adds up to 87.5% of global searches. (The remainder is Baidu at 10.2%, which is used in China, plus some minuscule search engines.)

Your LinkedIn profile probably appears first among the results. With its international database of 364 million members, LinkedIn outranks most websites.

Perhaps next on the list are your X (Twitter) and Facebook accounts; their enormous constituencies boost their rankings as well.

If you own a business or lead a nonprofit, a reference to your company’s or organization’s website might follow mention(s) of your name.

These personal profiles clearly list and link to your company or nonprofit’s website, of course. If they don’t, link them now.

Here are two ways to update your Personal LinkedIn Page:

Customize your LinkedIn Name/URL.
On your LinkedIn page, go to Profile and click Edit profile.
Under your photo, you have the link: www.linkedin.com/pub/xxx/1/234/56
Click on Edit.
Now you are in the panel where YOU control WHAT is VISIBLE in your profile.
Before you do anything with that section, look to the right and go to Your public profile URL.
Click on Customize your public profile URL.
Now you can type your name XXXX without the number /1/234/56 gobbledy gook that LinkedIn automatically assigns.
If there is a duplicate of your name in LinkedIn, you can use a hyphen or an underscore between your first and last names to differentiate yourself.
Then click Set Custom URL. You’re done !

Post your company website — and related resources.
On your LinkedIn page, go to Profile and click Edit profile.
In the lower right corner of the box, click on the Rolodex card labeled Contact Info.
Next to X (Twitter, click on the pencil and add your X (Twitter) account.
Next to Website, click on the pencil and select the category Other. Then enter the name (or description) of your company and link to the homepage URL.
You may add two additional websites; I selected the category Other to post Public Relations Tips and link to the Newsletter section of my website, plus Articles on Public Relations with a link to the Publication section.

This is also the place to post the name of your blog (category: Other) and link to it.
(Note: most people do not take advantage of this promotional space; if they do, they use the default setting of Company website and Blog, which is not particularly informative.)
Then click Save.

Contact me at Janet@JanetLFalk.com, set an appointment here or call me at 212.677.5770. It’s time to make yourself more find-able and more compelling online.

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