9 Tips for Controlling Your Online Identity

(www.inkthinkerblog.com) — For writers, online identity is a big deal. If you want clients and assignments, you want to be found. But what happens when you have a really common name, or when you have the same name as a pornstar, murderer, or frequent lawbreaker? (Just think about all the poor, innocent little Jenna Jamesons out there who want to be schoolteachers or accountants…)

Here are 9 tips for controlling your online identity and making sure you’re the you who comes up in search results:

1. Buy your name online. Go to GoDaddy.com or whatever domain name purchasing source you like and purchase yourname.com, yourname.net, and all other variations you can think of, with and without a hyphen if possible. Maintain ownership. (Hint: If you buy 6 or more domains from GoDaddy.com in one shot, they give you a discount.)
2. Reserve free domains. Hit Blogger, WordPress, and other free blogging sites and get yourname.blogger.com and yourname.wordpress.com (use a hyphen if it’s already taken) so others can’t use them. Do the same on Facebook.
3. Use your real name on forums and social networking sites. Join Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, Technorati, Propeller, Mixx, Reddit, whatever tickles your fancy — and use the same username whenever possible. I use kristenking or kristen_king on everything unless they’re both taken (and then my backup is always the same).
4. Write a blog. Use your name in the metatags for posts and pages.
5. Write about yourself in the third person. Kristen King recommends that anyone interested in improving their search engine ranking on their own name use their name in their website content.
6. Use a middle initial. When I was editing clinical research articles, I used to see articles all the time written by a guy named “Chuck Norris,” and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t this guy. If he’d used the byline, for instance, “Chuck A. Norris,” problem solved. Unfortunately, Harry D. Bear did not have any easy solutions on the horizon. No, I’m totally not kidding about that one.
7. Use your full middle name. It worked for Mary Higgins Clark, right? Because seriously, how many Mary Clarks are out there? Even if your middle name isn’t particularly distinctive (mine was Elizabeth until I got married and dropped it for my maiden name, Skove, which I also use from time to time in tags), the combination is more unique than just your first and last name alone.
8. Use a first initial and go by your middle name. The only example I can think of for this one is C. Everett Koop. That one’s kind of boring. Come up with a better one for me, will you? (My mom, brother, and best friend all do this, but I don’t think you need their full names.)
9. Use just your initials. Hey, it works for J.K. Rowling (whose first name is Joanne, if you’re interested — way less interesting and distinctive than “J.K.”)

If you have a common name, there may be no way to completely eradicate the problem — and just because you take care of it now doesn’t mean it will be gone for good, because search engine rankings change regularly and it’s easy to get bumped off the front page if you’re not active online.

Google yourself regularly to keep track of how your online identity is evolving, and keep these 9 tips in mind to make sure you own your online brand.

Contents Copyright © 2009 Kristen King

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Note: A version of this article originally appeared on BizChicksRule.com in 2008 under the title “What if Your Name Is Jenna Jameson? Personal Branding and Owning Your Online Space”

Tagged as: branding, online identity, search engine optimization, SEO, social media, social networking, starting a blog, Website