People often describe a strong personal brand as a magnet that attracts clients, job offers and opportunities. That’s because personal branding shows people you are the only solution to their problem. You are not just better than your competitors – you are the only choice for a certain group of people with a particular need.

Benefits of Personal Branding:

1. People trust you more

Your personal brand explains the “why” you do what you do – in other words, what drives and motivates you. This makes people more comfortable working with you. Your intentions are genuine and clear. This fosters trust. People feel more comfortable when they think they can predict what you will do. When people know the source of your career energy, they feel better about putting you in charge of their needs.

2. You have a much higher perceived value

As your personal brand develops, people will start thinking about you on an emotional level (as a brand), not simply an intellectual level (as a job title). People will connect more deeply with your brand, increasing your value to them and allowing you to charge more for your services. In addition, being actively involved in your niche and creating “credibility boosters” (like original, useful on-brand content) establishes you as an expert, driving demand for you and allowing you to work less and make more.

3. You are differentiated from the competition

Your personal brand is a competitive edge that separates you from your competition in the minds of potential employers and customers. The more you build your brand, the more you elevate yourself above your peers, and the less you have to work to convince people you are the solution to their problems.

4. You are always 100% authentic

Your personal brand is built upon your values, goals, skills and passions. It comes directly from your quest for meaning and fulfillment. It grows from what you stand for. It is one hundred percent you, and nobody else. You never have put on a fake persona or a contrived voice that isn’t genuinely you. Being totally authentic in all that you do makes life much easier and more fulfilling. Your work life will revolve around your deepest priorities and take advantage of your talents in a way that brings you joy.

5. You are the “go-to” person in your area of expertise for your specific audience

A highly successful personal brand makes you the best – no, only – solution to a certain group’s problems. Word of mouth will propel your brand forward and create enthusiasm for what you do, bringing in references, referrals, job offers and testimonials.

6. You are known as an expert in your field

As your network grows, you’ll find more and more people recognize your name before you meet them. Your prominence will grow and continue to keep you in a position of power in the workplace.

7. You attract ideal opportunities

Since Your brand is totally authentic and deeply rooted in your search for meaning, it will attract similar-minded people with the same values and goals. Employers and/or customers will connect on a higher level because they will understand why you do what you do, not just what you do. In the same vein, your personal brand will repel opportunities that don’t fit well with your life’s purpose. You won’t get offers that distract you from your mission in life, and you’ll get more fulfilling offers that connect with the “why” you do what you do. Without working any harder, you’ll attract more career options.

Author: Pete Kistler

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If I search for your name in Google, will the results actually be about you?

The hallmark of a strong personal brand online is the ability to be found when someone searches for you on the web.

The first step to ensure you can be found is to create profiles on major social networks and directories including services like LinkedIn and Ziggs. Besides your “home base” website if you have one, these form the foundation of your online visibility. (Look forward to an in depth review of social networks and directories you might want to join in a future post).

If you’re already on a few social networks or directories, make sure every place you exist online links to every other place you exist online.

If you have a LinkedIn, Ecademy and Ziki profile, then these profiles should all link to each other.

This is important because Google counts every link to a web page as a “vote” for that page. Google results are really one big popularity contest. The pages that come up highest in searches for your name are generally the pages that have the most sites linking to it.

Because of this, you’ll want to get as many sites linking to your profiles as possible. And that means “interlinking” all of your profiles to get more links.

An easy way to track your interlinks is to fire up an Excel spreadsheet. Along the top row, list every social network or directory you belong to. Then list them out again in the same order down the left column. You now have a grid set up to track the interlinking between all your profiles.

The items down the left column are the places on the web you exist, and the items on the top row track whether or not there is a link to that item.

As you can see above, I grayed out a diagonal stripe to show that, for example, you can’t link from your LinkedIn page to your LinkedIn page, or your Ecademy page to your Ecademy page.

Start filling in where you already have interlinks. Let’s say that on your LinkedIn page, you already do link to your Ecamdey profile, Xing profile, Ziki profile, and Facebook profile. Fill in the first row now (the LinkedIn row) to reflect that.

The LinkedIn row now shows what you link to based on the columns that are filled in green. Do the same for Ecademy, then all your web profiles. It might look something like this:

After you’ve done some interlinking, mark which places you’ll interlink the next time you open up your personal interlink tracker. A color like yellow works well. You might also want to use red to make incomplete links stand out (unless you think that looks horrendous, which I do, but it motivates me more to turn them green).

You’re now well on your way to creating a strong web of connectedness between your entire online presence. Remember, Google counts every interlink as a “vote” for that page, increasing your results when someone searches for your name. So check back often until your whole spreadsheet is complete. Then you can, in one quick look, be sure that you’re doing everything you can to improve your online visibility.

Next: 5 Tips to Rank Highly on Google and Increase Your Visibility Online >

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