People are searching for your name online, like it or not.  Translation: If you don’t own your name when someone searches for you, you are behind the curve.The days of first impressions beginning with a handshake are over. Three quarters of companies search for job applicants online prior to meeting them in person.  How you manage your online presence is critical to your personal brand and future success, especially for job applicants.

How do you own your name online?  Below are six steps you should actively take to ensure that your name online is marketable and professional.

1) Google yourself. Do you already own your name?

If you are like most people, you do not. Nearly everyone falls into one of three categories:

1. The “undesired” category: The results are less than flattering. Social media use exploded so fast that the line between our personal lives and our professional lives began to blur before most people had a chance to pull back the reins. By the time many people realized everything online is permanent and that “private” isn’t exactly a reality online, it was too late.
2. The irrelevant category: Sure, the results are about you but do they really back up your qualification and align with your career goals? Do they make you more hirable? Unfortunately, at this point no one cares about your high school track times or the award you received in middle school.
3. The “hey, that’s not me” category: In this case, somebody else with your name shows up. They may be famous, or worse, they may be someone you’d rather not be associated with. For example, before owning his name, when you googled our CEO Pete Kistler, you were greeted by an ex-convict from writeaprisoner.com. We’ve heard plenty of horror stories along the same line, people being mistaken for having a criminal record and strip dancers showing up first when a colleague Googled them in the office. Whatever the case, you do not want to be misrepresented when you are searched.

2) Own your domain = own your name

Now that you know where you stand in Google, it’s time to take action. Owning your domain name and creating a compelling personal website there  is the quickest, most relevant way to get listed higher on Google, not to mention a great place to direct employers online. This will be the central hub where you link to all your other profiles, and it only costs about a dollar a month, well worth the investment.

3) Create a personal site around your name

The best way to really own your name is to include everything that makes you YOU.  Be articulate and precise with your language, and emphasize accomplishments you would want employers to see.  Identify what you do best, what differentiates you from your peers and know your audience when crafting your personal brand.  Write in the third person so that Google recognizes the site is about you.

4) Own your name on professional & social networks

Create profiles on high ranking networks, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Brazen Careerist, Flickr and Ziggs.  Joining these networks allows you to increase your presence online and protects you from others creating accounts using your name, resulting unwanted irrelevant results.

5) Create more content and links to rise to the top of searches

When it comes down to it, to own your name, your content needs to show up at the top of Google. One of the most important factors in getting to the top, besides your domain and keyword density, is inbound links. The more links you have pointing to your name, the higher you show up.  Join free directories and profiles, such as DMOZ, Yahoo, Web World Index and Zeal.  Make sure every place you exist online links to every other place you exist online.  For example, link your YouTube account to your Facebook account and your Ziggs account to your Twitter account.

6) Own your name on news-wires

A quick way to highlight your accomplishments in Google results and create powerful links for your profiles is write press releases. Write a press release detailing any of your latest accomplishments. An award you won, your graduation, launching a website, etc.  and submit it to free newswires, such as i-newswire and Article Circulation.

Like a job search, managing your personal brand is an ongoing process that evolves and grows over time.  Your personal brand is not stagnant.  You must be diligent and continue to tweak and update your online content to own your name online, especially when job searching.

Jim Armstrong is a senior advertising management major in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.  He works in the Tina Press and David Rubin Career Development Center where he reviews resumes and cover letters.

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As I watched President Obama give the State of the Union Address tonight, I thought about some important advice for your personal branding efforts. You need to promote yourself if you want to find a job or improve your career, but you have to be very careful about what you say.

Start from the realization that anything you say on the Internet – any picture you post – is effectively there forever. You simply can’t “unsay” something that you once felt strongly about, even if you change your mind. We’ve all heard stories about people who lost jobs or job opportunities because they had unwisely posted pictures or comments on their social networks. These are the obvious cases, though, and we probably all know better.

When you post your political or religious views, you may be thinking that you’re well within the bounds of proper social discourse. After all, our country was built on the very concept of free speech. But the world ain’t that simple. Whenever you apply for a job, you have to realize that the recruiter and/or hiring manager will probably search your digital footprint.

Simply put, what you may think is your absolute right to discuss – perhaps even a trivial statement of your beliefs – can (and probably will) be misinterpreted by somebody at some time. You could argue that you wouldn’t want to work with somebody who has vastly different values than you have, but the tripping point is hard to predetermine. So be safe – express these views privately.

Have you checked to see what the others will see in a search your digital footprint? Most of you have looked your name up on Google, but have you tried sites like Pipl, 123People, or Spokeo?

Did you know that your Amazon wish list is public? Your Pandora stations? It’s not just those drunken party photos on Facebook, it’s your entire digital footprint that you have to be concerned about.

If I’ve scared you out of maintaining any digital presence, that wasn’t my intention. You have an online presence whether or not you are active in social media. Increasingly, public records are going online (after all, they are public, right?), so there’s a very good chance that you’re already on the Internet somewhere. Your best strategy is to manage that presence to optimize your digital footprint.

We talk a lot on this site about how to put good stuff up; that’s what Brand-Yourself.com is all about. But be careful about the bad stuff too. And if you have negatives in your digital footprint, the best way to hide these gaffes is by putting more and more good stuff on the Internet, on popular topics and popular sites. The good stuff will eventually rise to the top.

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So you’ve read all our articles here at Brand-Yourself.com about how essential it is to maintain your online reputation and personal brand identity. You’ve successfully set up your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts, emphasizing your individuality, visibility, consistency, and desirability as an employee.

The battle doesn’t end there, however.  Maintaining a personal brand is continuous work and will continue for the remainder of your working life – perhaps even beyond retirement.

In order to cultivate your identity and your online reputation, keep three things in mind:

Be smart, not paranoid.
This is the age of the World Wide Web and, although you should exercise basic common sense and abstain from releasing information like your social security number to the general masses, there is no need to be paranoid about your information being online.  Visibility is key, and it is up to you to take advantage of the accessibility of the Internet.  Although you obviously shouldn’t provide, say, a blueprint and a detailed aerial shot of your home, don’t make it difficult for interested employers to contact you, either.

Use your name as often as [logically] possible.
Look at your various websites and social networking profiles as web footprints.  Your online personality should be unique to you, but a clever, intelligent website means nothing if people have no idea who owns it.  It is crucial that your name be prominent on any work you post online – not only in titles and bylines, but also headings, URLs, etc. – so that there will be a higher chance of your page[s] receiving hits.  Exercise  discretion, however.  Sprinkling your name unnecessarily will look cheap and desperate, but thoroughly linking your work with your name shows that you are proud of what you can accomplish.

OWN YOUR ONLINE REPUTATION.
It can’t be stressed enough how important it is to own your personal brand identity.  If you haven’t already, do a quick search of your name and see what the Web says about you.  If you find there are people who share a similar name, you must work hard to differentiate yourself from those people.  Always keep in mind all those professional and personal traits that make you desirable to prospective employers, and protect this image with everything you’ve got.

Remember, your work isn’t finished once you’ve established a personal brand identity.  You must also work hard to regularly manage the impression you make on the rest of the world, ensuring now only that you remain individual but also that your brand remains true to who you are. Your online reputation is how people will differentiate you from the masses.

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Gabrielle is a recent graduate from Syracuse University, where she studied fashion design and fashion communications.  She occupies her time with photography and creating her own comic book, and  she plans to return to Syracuse in 2010 to pursue her Master’s Degree in art journalism.

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Are you an aspiring artist?  Is entrepreneurship your passion?  Do you have trouble sleeping at night while thinking about your next great idea?  The answers to questions like this will give you the insight to create your personal brand.  The great thing about the Internet today is that you can become anything you want to be, whether it is your profession or just something on the side.  During the days of most of our parents, Mom and Dad were strictly known for what they did for a living, what they looked liked, and how they interacted with their contemporaries.  This is no longer the situation.

For the first time in history we are able to become whatever we want and there is absolutely no one there to stop us.   Personal Branding is the way to become the person you have always wanted to be, whether it be on Twitter or on the congested streets of Manhattan.  The problem is that it can also stop you from becoming what it is you have always dreamed about.  My question for you is simply what do you represent?  Are you a struggling architectural visionary, barely paying your bills?  If you are then live that.  Do not be afraid to display your designs on your Facebook page or Tweet about your innovative approach to gravity-powered water-collection.

The question what do you represent is vital to your future success and happiness.  Here is what goes through a recruiter’s head when they see your Facebook picture of your recent record-setting keg-stand?

“Nice form, but is his unique ability to drink 50 fluid ounces of ice cold Natty Light really going to make him a great Financial Analyst?” (Midway through the thought, your beautiful resume on bone-colored 32 lb. paper with a barely visible watermark falls into the trash-can, never to be seen again by that organization)

This picture may be good for a beer-tap inventor, but not for a financial analyst applicant for Goldman Sachs. You are representing your ability to party, not your potential to become an industry-leading business executive.

We must take the actions to create a personal brand that is completely representative of what we want.  Take five-minutes and browse through a friend of yours Facebook or Linkedin page and write down some of the characteristics that come to your mind when you are checking them out.  Is that what they are really like?  They could be an aspiring minister or a driven lobbyist, but if they are representing something different, then unfortunately that is what they are.  There is no escaping it.

Your Personal Branding efforts will pay off huge dividends and your social status on Facebook will not falter due to your lack of drunken images.

What do you represent?  Whatever you want.

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Brendan Wales is a co-founder of StarvingFreelancers,com, a site dedicated to bringing together talent and opportunity.  He studied Finance at the University of Georgia and enjoys working with small-businesses.  Two of his favorite authors are Jack Kerouac and Ayn Rand.  Wales’ goal in life is to wake up in the morning and be excited about going to work.

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