This is a guest post from Amir Noghani

Image Source: Freepik

Personal branding is a method of marketing that is still under-utilized, although it should really be a part of the marketing strategy of every person and business interested in reaching more people. Personal branding can be defined as creating an image and personality associated with a person or business, and using that perception as a means of promoting your ideas, products, or services. Personal brand SEO can have a strong impact on your audience, and you should use it to your advantage.

Benefits of Personal Branding

Personal branding can do a lot for you. Perhaps most importantly, it gives you the opportunity to reach more people, particularly through social media. If you develop individual personal brands and post frequently from those brands, you can grow your audience even more, an impact known as syndication expansion.

With personal branding, you can associate your content with a specific author, rather than just with a corporate brand. Individual authors that are associated with specific brands tend to be viewed as more trustworthy by people, and individual authors are often a preferred choice to contribute to outside websites that publish content. This trust can improve sales and expand your reach to customers.

You can also use personal branding to segment your audience. By developing more than one personal brand, you can cater to different market segments, and you can use individual personal brands to target those specific audiences in different ways.

Personal branding can be a good way to motivate your employees, too. Giving your employees the chance to develop their own personal brands will give them an incentive to succeed, if they know that they can carry their reputations with them, should they ever leave your company. It’s a great way for them to build their resumes, along with benefiting your business.

It’s also easy to get started with personal branding. It doesn’t require any special training or significant investment of money, just some time. This means that there is the potential for a significantly higher return on investment than with other marketing strategies.

Optimizing Personal Brands for SEO

Just like your other content, you can do many things to optimize your personal brands for SEO. Optimizing your brands for SEO means higher rankings in search engine results, which attracts more people. It’s a good cycle to be caught in.

Optimize Your Google + Profile

If you haven’t already completed your Google + profile, do it now. While you’re completing that, add your city or town to the employment field, so that it will show up in local search results. Use keywords that are related to your skills and personal brand, preferably keywords that don’t have as much competition.

A Search-Friendly LinkedIn Profile

Again, complete every part of your LinkedIn profile, paying special attention to the fields of location, position, and company name, since those field appear in Google’s snippets in search results. Make sure that your profile is visible to the public, and you can customize the URL of your public profile to include your name. You can also add links to your website, blog, and Google + profile, along with adding an active Twitter account and embedding a WordPress blog into your profile.

Your Own Website

Your profile on your own website should be the center of your personal brand. Use your name in the URL, and make sure that your profile has its own page. Every profile should link back to this page on your website. However, this page should only like to the profiles and networks where you actively post. You should monitor the analytics on this page, to get a better picture of how people respond to you and your brand.

Twitter and Facebook Profiles

Every brand needs both a Twitter and a Facebook profile. Again, complete the entire profiles, and use a primary profile picture that is high-quality and looks professional. Include a short bio, with a link to your website. It’s always best if you can be active on both of these social media platforms, and followers love consistency. If you choose not to be active on Twitter, at least add one tweet that tells people where they can find you (your website, Facebook, etc.).

Establish Your Authority

An important part of SEO is establishing yourself as a trusted authority in your field, and personal branding is no different. The creation of your domain authority is achieved by social signals, content you publish, and the quality of the websites that link back to you. You can achieve this by authoring quality content, such as a blog or white papers; offering to do interviews with others about yourself and your brand, or sending out press releases; and asking for reviews or testimonials about your brand. Use a variety of types of content, not only text, but videos, infographics, and images that are relevant to your brand.

One of the most important things you can do to advance your personal brand is to have patience and understand that it may take time to see the effects of SEO on your personal brand. It’s not instantaneous. Be consistent with your posting, don’t neglect any of your profiles, and publish the highest-quality, relevant content possible. These are all good strategies to grow your personal brand.

Bio: Amir Noghani is the General Manager at Agseosydney. He has been working in the field of marketing and communications for over seven years and developed rich knowledge and skills in Online Marketing and Public Relations, as well as writing journal articles and blogs.