Having a large presence on Google can improve the way businesses, Universities, banks and lenders look at the digital you. If you have looked at our tutorials on managing the digital you, then you are heading in the right direction. However, what happens when you are fighting to rank above others with the same name as you?
Perhaps you share a name with people who are further along in their professional career, or worse, happen to be a celebrity. How can you separate yourself from the crowd or even famous individual?
How to Stand out from People with the same name as you on Google.
Play around with your name
If you have a very common name or the same name as a celebrity, you may benefit from creating a unique way of presenting your name. Here are a few things you can do.
- Go with your nickname- For example, if your name is usually Thomas, try going by Tom followed by your last name. It can potentially place you in a completely different crowd of results. Note: In order to build the best result for yourself you will want to put all your online profiles under this name, so if this isn’t a name you typically feel comfortable going by it may not be the option for you.
- Add a middle initial– If you have a middle name, or even if you don’t, try adding a middle initial in the spelling of your name to try and differentiate yourself from the crowd.
Find your Niche
If changing up your name isn’t getting the job done you may need to try an approach that makes you more unique. Finding your niche, in this case, is essentially a hobby or profession that helps separate you from others while defining who you are.
Take a name like “James Brown” for example. If you search for it, it will yield hundreds of results with people of the same name. However, if you searched “James Brown Architect” the results would be more refined.
You can make sure this “Niche” stays with you by creating mentions of it on all your online profiles and social media accounts. That way when someone does attach your niche when searching your name they will have a plethora of positive information about you that should appear in your results.
Let people know
If you do decide to create a niche for yourself you need to own it. Tell anyone and everyone about it. Outside of your social and online profiles, make sure to include it in any blogs or content that you contribute or create.
If applying for a job, feel free to specify in your resume on how potential employers should search for you online. It may seem strange, but the results will be stellar compared to the alternative of sharing the first 10 pages of search results with tens and hundreds of others.
Timing
As we have mentioned in other articles regarding managing your digital perception, SEO results can vary. Sometimes you will make changes and see a difference in search results the next day, other times it can take months. The important thing is that you are building unique results that you can point people towards, and eventually will create numerous results that can be found with the right query.
Be patient and keep building the digital you and ScoresMatter.
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