Did you know that there is 1 billon names searched in Google every day? There is no denying that managing your online presence is critical whether that’s for job hunting or building up your business credibility—what people find when they search for you can change their perception of who you are.
So what if someone has your same name and a bad reputation? Or what happens if those college drinking photos surface?
Well, now there is a way to control your Google search results that you can afford. BrandYourself was started after one of the co-founders, Pete Kistler, couldn’t land an internship because there was another guy with the same name from the same area who happened to be a drug dealer. So, naturally companies made the wrong assumption and wouldn’t hire him. Pete decided he would pay a reputation management firm a few thousand dollars to fix the problem. But his friend and fellow Syracuse University classmate, Patrick Ambron, a SEO expert, came up with a solution—BrandYourself.
Control Your Search Results
The start-up company allows you to create a profile and promote good links about yourself and push down bad links back a few pages on Google and the best part? It’s free. But if you really want to ramp up your search results you can pay for the premium version starting only at $9.99 a month. And what comes with that upgrade? Information on the people who’ve searched you and how they found you—what could be more valuable?
The biggest benefit BrandYourself offers is the fact that you don’t have to learn SEO to control your Google search results. It’s a Do-It Yourself platform. After you sign up it will walk you through the process of getting your LinkedIn profile or website to the top of your search results. It will tell you the exact actions you can take to increase the visibility of the links you want people to see and hide the ones you don’t want people to see. It also scores your profile and keeps track of your progress so if new links are added about you (or someone with the same name) you’ll be notified.
What are your Google search results saying about you? Check out this infographic from BrandYourself that shows what people are finding when they search you.
