Google is Your Home Page (Whether You Like It or Not)
Ask anyone outside the world of high-tech or communications if they have a personal Web site and they’ll most likely scoff at the idea and tell you they don’t. Either they’re embarrassed at being that exposed or they feel that they’re not important enough to justify their own site.
As a second step in this experiment, have these people Google themselves and see what they find. Chances are that something will pop up. My father never had an email address in his life and there are still 3-4 pages on Google pertaining to him. Unless you’ve been living like the Unabomber for the past 15 years, there is probably some trace of you that has be collected and indexed by Google.
Everyone has a home page, from brands to individuals, and that home page is your Google rankings. Someday things may change but, for the time being, most people who want to know something about you will go to Google before any other source to learn more about you.
Seth Godin told readers to Google themselves and decide if they like what they see. Godin says “If you don’t like it, you can fix it.”
Fixing your Google results is one of most simple forms of online personal branding. As hard as it may be to think of yourself as a brand, that first page of Google results is your personal snapshot to the online world and if you’re not engaged in a little self-packaging then you run the risk of letting a false or damaging portrait of yourself run unchecked.
The ways to change this are numerous. Unless you’re name is Joe Smith (who Google has decided is a forward for the Bulls rather than the leader of the Mormon church), simply setting up a blog under your own name will probably move to the top of your search rankings. Don’t want to blog? Try social networks or HubPages or anything else that will get your name indexed on the Web in a place that reflects a little about who you are.
Don’t stop at yourself either. Do you have children that may be Googled before being accepted into prestigious educational programs? Do you have an elderly relative that, God forbid, would be Googled if they passed away? Are you financially linked to a spouse (or ex-spouse) that has embarrassing Google results? Time to ping your social network.
So do as Seth says and make a resolution to Google yourself more frequently.
