The objective is to have the search engines consider us an authority and serve up our conversation as the relevant content it offers when people are online searching a subject for answers. If we’re successful, they will find us and we’ve created opportunity.
The ubiquitous way is a great ideal, but in reality it can be a challenge to manage and monitor. One of my favorite tools for this is StepRep.
StepRep let’s me know what where and when content that includes me is picked up in the search engine index. I set it up so I get alerts on my BlackBerry and I also get an Executive Report once a day around 5:30 PM that includes my stats and ranking over the past 24 hours. It’s somewhat like ‘Google Alerts’ but more user friendly and it includes some really handy features.
Why is this important? I’m saving a tremendous amount of time by letting StepRep auto-search the web to collect targeted findings that include me. Without help, I wouldn’t know the effectiveness of my online efforts.
I can influence and categorize what it finds.
Notice in the example above that StepRep, based on the predetermined search term “René Fabre” + “marketing” + “Ticor”, found a new entry in the Google Index and it includes a brief synopses with a link back to its source. This is really handy for verification and you can set up as many search terms as you want.
Now I can quickly sort through the findings and categorize these results about me as positive, negative, neutral, my content, or not relevant. What a fabulous tool. I can’t rewrite entries in the index, but now I can influence them.
What we’re doing is assisting Google to index us more precisely. We’re talking to the index and giving it our opinion about its findings that include us to refine how we relate to searches and content.
This is powerful, especially for those who have common names. For example, if your name is John Smith, there are a billion indexed conversations about everything out there on the web that include your name. By identifying an indexed entry as Not Relevant you’re telling Google that content is by a different John Smith.
I can also help the index discern what content is My Content and promote it, Tweet it, and/or publish to Facebook. If I don’t like a finding I can’t delete it, but I can influence its ranking downward by selecting Negative. If it’s a Positive I can vote it up. Which is saying, yes I want people to find this. Neutral just simply means its content, includes a mention, but it neither helps nor hurts my online reputation.
StepRep is free. All you need is a Google account to log on. To get the best results make sure your StepRep profile (like your Google profile) is complete and lists all of your online locations. A great tool for keeping your online presence manageable and in step.
In part 2 - we’ll take a look at the tools that enhance your online presence through the people that trust you and the power of group.
related post: The Road to Ubiquity by René Fabre
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