Have You ever Googled Yourself?

For the first time in a long time, I actually looked up myself on Google. It’s not something I typically do but any potential employers might. One thing I had never considered is how discoverable I am online. If you’re looking for a job, or someone is looking to hire you for a specific campaign you will more than likely be googled, so it’s important to know what is going to pop up when they search your name. Luckily with a name like Luke Janiszewski, the number of other people with my unique name is rather slim when compared to someone named John Brown or Sarah Smith, but still, I wasn’t the first person to pop up.

If this is the case for you, don’t panic! Just like everything these days, there is a website specifically designed to improve your “search-ability”. BrandYourself.com does a pretty good job of telling you what things you’re doing to help set yourself apart and showing you things you may need to bury away from sight. When I set up my free account it had me enter my name and check the results for people that weren’t me, and then filter out the ones that I actually wanted people to find when they looked me up.

Here’s my initial score…

B+ isn’t too bad! It may be a passing grade but 5 out of 10 results isn’t exactly what I want if people are looking me up. Fortunately, BrandYourself.com offers suggestions on how to bump up that rating into a more desirable ranking! Everything from tweeting more often to updating your bio on LinkedIn can make stand out among the other John and Jane Doe’s out there.

One important and subtly vindictive feature that I sort of breezed over earlier is the “bury” option on the site. If there is someone who shares a name with you that either tarnishes your name in any way or is someone that you could easily get confused with can be “buried” down deep in the depths of the google search results (no one really browses past the first two pages right?). While this is a paid feature it can be useful if you are serious about stepping up your personal brand. 

It’s important to establish a personal brand and make yourself more discoverable online. It’s good to know that there is a website that can help with that! I will definitely continue to check my online score and try to bump up my rating until I inevitably get into a long-standing burying battle with another Luke Janiszewski. Until then, I’ll just keep working on my brand and hope for the best.

 

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References:

Janiszewski, L. (1/25/17). BrandYourself [Screen Shot]. retrieved from http://BrandYourself.com/reportcard