Required reading to own your name in a Web search
I don't want to repeat this anymore, so let me direct you elsewhere.
I got an e-mail from a young aspiring journalist, still in high school and already coming to the questions I
just started coming upon late in college. Her question:
how do you buy spaces on a google seerch?
Hey, even she will tell you that I told her to work on her grammar and spelling. (Oh, word processors, what have you done to us?).
But more importantly, it made me realize I never wrote the obligatory "own your name in Google" post. I have surely touched on it in previous posts, but rather than repurpose that information or rewrite what has been written so many times, I say to young reporter or fresh-on-the-web journalist, find out
why branding your name online matters, and then read the following - because they've already done the job.
Somewhat relatedly, lots of posts I've read have focused on what that branding should be (and whether it really matters):
I've written about using social networks to develop more control on a Web search of your name:
OK, that should answer your questions. Have anymore? Let me know below.
Christopher Wink is the marketing director of Back on My Feet, a homeless advocacy nonprofit based in Center City Philadelphia. A resident of the Fishtown neighborhood, I am also co-founder of Technically Philly, a news site that covers technology and innovation for the region, and Web editor and business manager for NEast Philly, a hyperlocal news site for Northeast Philadelphia. I also maintain a freelance writing and editing portfolio. On this site, I share clips and write about the future of news, social media and entrepreneurship. The opinions posted here, of course, are no one's but my own, and so should not reflect my employer.
