Your Personal Brand Online: How to choose a name to SEO for

One of the most important steps in figuring out how to build a personal brand is determining what name you will create a strategy around.

For most people this is a daunting place to start.  Perhaps you have gone by a name for your whole life and now suddenly you have figured out that when you try to create an online strategy around it there is also a famous indie movie actor with the same name.  Don’t let this discourage you as it is an obstacle that is easy to overcome if you follow these steps.

Here are 4 simple step to help you choose a name to SEO for:

  1. Type the name you currently use into Google
  2. Look at the first page of results for the following items:
    1. Number of results
    2. Someone else with your name as their domain name
    3. Wikipedia (if there is a Wikipedia page with your name and the page is not about you, it will be very hard to compete with.)
    4. Images that appear (if Google populates the results with some images, that means that there are a few big figure heads with that same name)
  3. After you have looked at those results, try typing in your name with the following variations:
    1. Full first name Full last name
    2. Full first name Middle Initial Full Last name
    3. Full first name Full middle name Full last name
  4. With each name, repeat step two and analyze your results.

Understanding the competition around your name will help you greatly with figuring out which name to try to SEO for.  You do not want to be going up against a name with a lot of competition as you will not be able to compete initially.  Also be warned that changing your strategy from one name to another is a very difficult task and I suggest against it.

After you have narrowed down to the name that you want to build a personal brand around online, now you need to go and determine if the domain name with your name is taken.  You can sign up for a free account at Brand-Yourself.com and check your domain name’s availability when you login and look to purchase a domain name.

10 Comments

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  2. 2
    Trace Cohen

    For anyone with a common name it will always be an uphill battle and take a little bit more time to SEO for. In terms of keywords, what else are you trying to SEO for besides your name?

    My recommendation to you is to build out a great personal professional website that is heavily SEOed for your name so that you are found when searched for. From there you can try and rank well for other keywords after you have established yourself online.

  3. 3
    John Paul

    Het Trace, TY for the reply. I am ranking pretty well for my name. and I am ranking decently for the keywords I chase. I just know that I would be ranking faster for my keywords if my domain matched a lil better.

    But I am happy with my name as my domain, helps me brand myslef a lil better.

  4. 4
    Trace Cohen

    It is unlucky that a Pope has the same name as you, which will definitely make it harder. Glad to see though that you are still ranking well though. What other words are you trying to SEO for?

    A domain name though is obviously one of the best SEO tactics out there. Have you ever thought of buying the keyword in the domain and trying to redirect it to your site? Will take some effort but can pay off in the long run.

  5. 5
    John Paul

    I have thought about getting a more relevant domain name, and I know google now lets you do that without to much of a mess with your links.

    im in the making money with a blog niche soo.

    Ranking “ok” considering I just got back to posting on a schedule after 2 mnths with no posts. So for now I am ok with my domain but if I see with more effort I can hit top first page then I will dump this domain.

    Whats sad is domain thats fits my name money dummy the domain is sitting on never made wp blog money dummy.com yet he is gettign top rank lol on a dead blog that was never made..

    That's when I realized couple weeks back how important the domain was.

  6. 6
    sophiahudson

    Thanks for letting us know how to select a name for SEO.Now a days SEO work has been very popular and many people are working as a seo.So these are the important news for all SEOs.

  7. 7
    Trace Cohen

    Effective SEO is the best ROI you can have these days. Google does not deliver answers but merely results because of the SEO efforts of someone else. If you can master how to SEO and be patient it will pay off tenfold.

  8. 8
    Trace Cohen

    Effective SEO is the best ROI you can have these days. Google does not deliver answers but merely results because of the SEO efforts of someone else. If you can master how to SEO and be patient it will pay off tenfold.

  10. 10
    video search optimization

    It's great for building on the blogging connection and many are help from this!!!

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