December 2022 - Page 10 of 13 - BOLLYWOOD SURKHIYAN

How to Use Gmail for a Paperless Administration Workflow

If you’re serious about setting up a business that can run from anywhere in the world, paper just won’t hack it. You need access to your entire history of administrative bumf, but carting around lever-arch files and archive boxes is going to seriously increase your baggage costs. The obvious solution is to go paperless – something that most businesses dream of, but many struggle to make a reality.

A good step on the way to ridding your life completely of paper, is to at least digitise the administrative part – documents like incoming bills, statements, bank documents, tax notifications etc., which tend to arrive in paper format, but are also increasingly transmitted electronically. Whatever system you use, it should form part of a workflow where documents and communication, whether paper or digital, flow through the same process of inbox, processing, action and archiving.

My preferred tool for the job is Gmail, which has the following distinct advantages:

It’s free!
The storage allowance is massive, which means it should be years before you run out of space to store your documents; in fact, its unlikely to ever happen.
It’s highly searchable, which means you can easily find what you are looking for once its archived.
It has powerful organisational components, like labels.
It features an ‘Inbox’, which is the cornerstone of any good workflow.
It’s backed by one of the biggest companies on the planet, so my data feels safe.
No need to back up or administrate any servers, it’s all done for you.
It’s available all the time, anywhere in the world, from any internet connected computer.
Essentially, it’s an email system, which means getting information into it is very easy.
Email is ubiquitous and compatible with so many applications (like desktop email apps).

How to set up the system

Here’s a step by step guide to implementing and running Gmail as the centre of your paperless office and administrative workflow.

1. Set up a dedicated Gmail account for your paperless workflow

If you’ve already got a Google account, you’re going to need to set up another one in order to have a fully dedicated Gmail account. You don’t want to mix your regular email with your admin system. Choose an address like ‘mycompanyadmin@gmail.com’, although it’s not that important at this stage.

2. Set up an email redirect from an address you own

For example, if you own the domain yourcompany.com, set up an address like ‘inbox@yourcompany.com’ which should simply forward to the Gmail address you have set up. This gives you the advantage of getting used to an email address that includes your own domain; plus, should you ever choose to use another provider instead of Gmail, you would just change the target of the redirect and go on using the same email for your admin system.

3. Get administrative email flowing into your INBOX

You’re probably already signed up to 101 different internet services, some of which you may pay for, and most of which will send you monthly administrative-type emails including statements, bills, official notifications etc. Go into all of these accounts and change the email address that they use to contact you to your new INBOX address. From now on, all of this distracting administrative stuff will flow into your INBOX, separate from your regular, every-day email.

If you do happen to get any admin-type emails in your regular email (and you almost certainly will, at least at first), dealing with them is easy – just forward them to your admin INBOX.

4. Get your paper flowing into your INBOX

The rest of the administrative load you receive is probably in paper format, some of which may arrive by post, the rest you might collect in person (like receipts). Your going to need to digitise this to get it into your new Gmail admin INBOX. Get yourself a document scanner, turn all paper into PDFs and email them into your INBOX.

Because paper can be harder to search digitally than stuff that originated as email, I prefer to use a simple indexing system for all paperwork emailed into the INBOX – both myself and my post sorter use the following scheme:

Paperwork is sorted into different types: invoices, cheques, general correspondence, receipts.
Each batch is scanned and emailed separately. The nature of each batch is indicated simply in the ‘Subject’ of the email with: INVOICES, CHEQUES, GENERAL, RECEIPTS.
The sender, or originator, of each item is detailed in the body of the email. So, for example, for a batch of invoices from various suppliers, the body of the email would simply appear as:

Supplier A

Supplier B

Supplier C

Nothing else apart from the PDF attachment goes in the email.

This indexing framework means the archive can be easily searched using Google’s tools to find whatever item you might be looking for, e.g., ‘invoice supplier A’, will return a list of emails containing invoices from Supplier A. As they will be ordered chronologically, it should be easy to find what you need. The advantage of using Gmail is that the search functionality is extremely powerful and using advanced syntax you can always precisely pinpoint your required items.

5. Designate a time for processing the INBOX

Now that all your admin – both digital and paper – is landing in your INBOX and keeping out of your way, you should be able to get on with running your business. However, you will of course need to periodically process the contents of the INBOX, just as you would a pile of physical mail. Rather than doing this on a continued basis, it’s best to batch it. Designate a weekly slot to process your INBOX and follow this procedure:

Open each item and take the appropriate action, i.e., record invoices, expenses and payments, action any notifications and reply to any letters.
Once processed, hit ‘Archive’, which takes the email out of the inbox and places it in a folder called ‘All Mail’.
Repeat until your INBOX is clear.

6. Use your archived mail to search for any documents you need to reference

Now that your admin is being nicely archived in Gmail instead of folders and files, you’ve got access to it wherever and whenever you are. Should you need to pull up a receipt from last year’s trade show, just go into your Gmail account and search for ‘receipt trade show’ and you’re done!

Successful Tips For Pre-Launch Advertising of Your Website

Billions of pages on the internet – That’s your competition. Think about your daily visits; which sites you visit on a regular basis to get your news, stock quotes and other information. My guess is that your regular visits can be counted on your fingertips. So how do you, the entrepreneur help people navigate to the newest addition to the web? The latest and greatest site that everyone should know about but nobody is visiting due to poor visibility? There are several key maneuvers you can make to market your new site and attract people to your site even before it’s ready for launch.

Blog, Blog and More Blog – The first successful maneuver is to create blogs based on as many facets of your business as possible. Keep an inventory in an Excel spreadsheet of your blog locations, usernames and passwords. It’s important to try a few different blogs and see which ones pop up on the major search engines the fastest. Those are the ones you’ll want to focus your efforts on the soonest. Even if you’ve never heard of a blog, it may be spidered regularly and an important addition to your blog repetoire.
Comment, Comment, Comment – Another great way to get your name out there is to use somewhat of a secret way to backlink your website. A backlink is just a link on another person or company’s website. Do a search for blogs related to your product or service. Visit those blogs and post as many free comments as you can. Usually you can add a comment without having it be pre-approved, it just depends on the popularity of the site or personality of the blogger. Make sure your comments are relevant to the blog and only include one link per comment. Sometimes a blog will have several postings that you can comment on. Usually three comments is sufficient per blog.
Write, Write, Write – Articles are an important way to not only add credibility to your own personal talents, but it also adds credibility to your website, plus the ever important backlink from a highly spidered source. Write as many articles as you like. Keep them relevant and at around 500 words. This way, people will be more apt to read your article and possibly follow any links you may have included, which at least one should be to your website.
Act Larger Than You Are – The great thing about the internet is that you can be a small startup from the couch of your studio apartment in Fresno, California. This doesn’t mean your website has to look like it. If you’re not a great designer, find someone who is. If you’re not a great coder, find someone who is. Put together a team of people who have the same ambition as you and make your new site appear like it’s the Google of your niche. If your site has not launched yet, be sure to have a pre-launch registration page available and possibly a sign-up for beta testers to make sure your code is tight.

These are just a few examples. I’m sure you have other ideas of your own, but you’ll want to make sure that you do more than just submit your site to search engines. In today’s internet climate, that’s no longer enough.

Google Maps – A How to Guide

Satellite maps are a great resource to use when advertising a location, or to determine what the neighborhood and street of a location will look like. Is it an address you have never been to before? Do you want customers to know what the front of your building looks like? Is there nearby parking? This is the way to use Google Maps to your advantage.

The first step is to open a web browser and go to Google, then click on the link at the top of the page labeled Maps. Next, type either the name of a business or an address into the search bar at the top of the webpage. Be sure to include a city and state if possible, to help narrow your results. You can also type a business name and an address at the same time to find a business close to that location.

Once you have pulled up a map of a business, address, or place of interest you will have the options of reading and writing a review, learning more information about the location, getting directions, searching for a nearby location, zooming in, saving the location to My Maps, and sending the information. There will also be information such as the address, phone number, and website of the location you searched for.

Google Maps also allows users to view traffic, a simple map, a satellite map, and a terrain map. While viewing a satellite map, it’s possible to view the map from a street view by dragging and dropping the little stick figure at the top of the zoom-in/zoom-out bar, or by clicking on a specific direction to see road at that stage of your trip. Feel free to drag the street view photo, as this will cause the photo to rotate so you can look down the street and behind you! It is also possible to move up and down the street to see what the neighborhood looks like, simply click on the arrows in the center of the photo (on the white line where the street name is provided). From the street view, you may also zoom-in by double clicking on the photo.

At the top right of your map you will always see three options: Print, Send, and Link. Print will allow you to print a basic map of the location you entered. Send will allow you to email or send to a phone, car, or GPS. You will be able to send to multiple destinations and include a personal message. Link will provide you with a link that can be used in an email or instant message, or with HTML that can be used for a website.

Using the Print, Send, and Link features as well as the zoom-in and street view features is a powerful tool for both marketing and your own personal use. Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) is an easy to use tool that is both free and useful.

How Google Updates Affect Your SEO Campaign

Google updates its algorithms quite often. In fact, if we visit Google’s algorithm update history, it is easy to note they roll out new updates multiple times a month, and several times a year. Some updates include simple changes in the aesthetics of the search results page, whereas others include the introduction of new ranking factors.

We all know performing SEO on a website is continuous work, a routine. Actions made today will only reflect on your traffic down the road, and it takes patience and persistence to continue.

However:

Things out of our control can happen and ruin all the methodical and daily work we’ve done for our website’s SEO: the drastic changes in Google’s algorithm!

Does That Mean I Should Change My SEO Strategy Every Time Google Releases a New Algorithm Update?

While it is good to pay attention to these updates, you shouldn’t worry about having to change your entire SEO campaign.

Google Algorithm updates represent new ranking opportunities and criteria that SEOs should comply with, which is why SEO is a continuous strategy.

So, Why Does Google Update Its Algorithms So Frequently?

Google constantly releases algorithm updates in order to maintain its superb online advertising and search services. Several things can go wrong when running a business online, causing it to shut doors unexpectedly.

When this happens to a brick-and-mortar store, it is easy to see they have officially closed down; however, how can you tell if an online business is still operating or not?

That’s where “Bots” come in!

Google has “crawling robots” that go around discovering and inspecting websites 24/7. If Googlebots can’t get to your website, it will never be indexed. This means if Google can’t see your website content, then it won’t rank your website either.

You can avoid all this stress by performing technical SEO strategies to ensure your website is visible to crawler Bots, loads at fast speed, and depicts a true representation of your brand image.

Once your website is discoverable, Bots will analyze the layout and structure of your business, indicating how Google should be evaluating and ranking your website. Clues such as breadcrumbs, structured markup and sitemap can help guide the Bots through your content, pointing out the most important pages and blocking the ones Google shouldn’t consider.

Why Are Google Algorithm Updates Necessary?

What makes Google better than Bing, among other search engines, is the speed, accuracy and quality of the content it provides in its search results page.

Think about it:

If the search results page displayed links to websites that had little to do with what you actually searched for, or if it took too long to display it results, wouldn’t you try a different service?

We would!

That being said, Google is looking for the best content available online, so it is safe to say that “content is king”! Quality content must be helpful, informational, readable and digestible – not just fluff.

The general rule of thumb here is:

“the better the content, the higher are the chances it will rank on the first page of search engine results.”

Choose Quality Over Quantity – Always!

Since its inception, Google has been fighting off cheating practices of rank manipulation. This includes link schemes, link spamming, hidden keywords and keyword stuffing. Such practices are known as “black-hat SEO” and are used to boost website rankings.

Most people would like to know how long it takes a website to rank on Google, but the truth is there are no pre-determined deadlines for search engines; trying to bypass the process will only work against you.

Understand this:

“More content” doesn’t necessarily mean “better content”,

which is why Google rewards websites that offer value to its users, punishing and removing the schemers from search engine results pages.

What Should I Do When Google Releases Algorithm Updates?

Ultimately, Google relies on a broad network of trust indicators that help determine the most reliable and trustworthy sources available online.

Besides quality content, another main trust indicator is the amount and quality of links pointing back to your website, known as backlinks.

The same rule mentioned above applies here: choose quality over quantity! You can always find people offering hundreds and thousands of “quality” backlinks to your website for very little investment, but if some of them are “spammy” and not trustworthy, Google will mark your website as untrusted, and will remove it from its search engine results page.

Once Google has established your website as spam, it will require double, triple, or quadruple amount of effort to help it bounce back.

Quality backlinks are directly associated with Domain Authority (DA), a metric calculated by evaluating linking root domains, total links and more that helps predict how a website will rank on search engines, like Google.

Thus, for effective SEO strategy, building and managing the link profile of a website is crucial to improve its domain authority.

In Conclusion

While rankings will constantly oscillate, your position on search engines results pages should not shift drastically if you follow these principles.

Whatever you do, DO NOT panic: poorly constructed ideas and actions will negatively affect your SEO strategy; if you are applying white-hat SEO strategies, just be patient.

How to Write an Article in No Time Flat

To make the most of your business blog, company newsletter, and online article directories, you need to be able to write quality articles on a regular basis.

If you haven’t been writing articles to build your business, you may think it will simply take too much time to do this week after week. But you’re wrong! It isn’t difficult to do this once you get the hang of it.

Here’s how to write an article in no time flat!

Step 1. Start with keywords.

It only takes a few minutes to use an online keyword research tool to identify the exact keywords people are using to find articles about the very topic you wish to write about. Once you’ve identified these exact keywords, use them to create a catchy title for your article. You’ll want to incorporate additional keywords into the article itself. But don’t overdo it on the keywords. Your main goal is to write something helpful for readers, not just attract them to your article through keywords.

Step 2. Determine the best structure for your article.

If you’ll be giving tips or steps in your article, then it’s easy to create the structure for your entire article. Simply start with an introductory paragraph, then list your tips or steps in bulleted or numbered form, then end your article with a concluding paragraph that ties everything together. Incorporate your keywords into the text as you go.

If it isn’t quickly apparent how you should structure your article, then use an article template. You’ll find many free templates available online. Simply Google “free online article templates” and see what comes up. Article templates give you an easy-to-follow structure so all you have to do is fill in each section of the template with the appropriate content.

Step 3. Include a call-to-action for your readers.

To make the most of each and every article you write, you want your readers to do something as a result of reading your article. Maybe you want them to sign up for your mailing list, subscribe to a free e-course you’re offering, or leave a comment. The thing is, you have to tell your readers what you want them to do. Just one sentence at the end of your article, like – Sign up here for my newsletter by putting your name and email address in the boxes at right – will do. Just remember to include some call to action with every article.

Follow these 3 steps to easily and quickly create quality content for your blog, newsletter, and article directories each and every week!

Try it!

Website SWOT Analysis – A Real Life Example

Do you wonder what is happening to your Internet Business? Why is that you cannot get traffic to your website; the conversion rate is too low; or opt-in visitor is too few?

I was faced with a similar situation lately and I attempted to use what I knew about SWOT Analysis into my Internet Business. I use the same technique to perform a SWOT on a website and had surprisingly discovered some valuable facts for my Website

In this article, I share with you my real-life example of my Website SWOT Analysis. You are invited to use it as a reference to your won Internet Business.

Below is a sample website SWOT Analysis performed on my own Total Quality Management website I published in year 2001. It was written based on a knowledge-based approach. The ranking for this website is on Google page # 9 and has a PR=2. After 8 years published, it has never moved up to within Google page#3. Some of you may know that my newly published 3 months old SWOT analysis Blog has ranked Google page#1 for the last 3 months. This success story has prompted me to wonder why my Total Quality Management website page ranking is so far behind.

My objective is to move my Total Quality Management website to Google page# 1 – 3 and I performed a Website SWOT Analysis using the SWOT Analysis template and example as my guides. Below are sample my Website SWOT analysis:

The SWOT Factor – Strengths

S1 – 8 years old website – matured

S2 – website contained focused practical examples and case studies of Total Quality Management

S3 – website ranked Google page#1 on Google.com.my with single keyword – “tqm”

The SWOT Factor – Weaknesses

W1 – design of the website is not professional

W2 – website content remain static for several years

W3 – navigation of the website is not comprehensive

The SWOT Factor – Opportunities

O1 – online research on Total Quality Management has high demand

O2 – availability of TQM case studies and report are limited on website

O3 – online website builder software are commonly available

The SWOT Factor – Threats

T1 – website with fresh contents and blogs have moved up to top Google page

T2 – visitor to this TQM website is very low (from awstat)

From the four SWOT factors, I continue to evaluate the seriousness and impact of each factors as a way to prioritize as I continue to use the SWOT template to formulate strategies. Once the strategies are formulated, then only I can take action. I encourage you to take this sample as a case study for your own Internet business or website and Application SWOT Analysis

How To Do Digital Marketing For My Business

When launching a new business, making yourself known within the business sector is key to getting off to a good start. If before the digital age there were not many methods of dissemination and the few that did have a high cost and an impact that is difficult to measure or of doubtful success, the arrival of digital has democratized these practices and has incorporated a world of possibilities to promote a deal. Digital marketing and its different actions allow each entrepreneur to make their business known and thus boost their activity.

A common question toward all the new business owner: “how to do digital marketing for my business”, let me share you,

5 digital ways to publicize your business

Among all the actions that can exist, what is the best to start with? What are the almost obligated actions? Do you need to use all actions from the beginning to get results? These are some of the thousands of questions that arise when starting a digital communication strategy. The first answer that is here that it is not necessary to do everything at once, you will have to choose the first actions based on your strategy.

1. Create a company website

A topic so talked about that it is still surprising that many companies do not take it as a priority. Web agencies have tried for years to highlight the need for any company, whatever the sector of activity, to have a website. Actually, this page happens to be the first platform for your business. Before going to the store, the consumer looks for information on the internet. From the moment a company creates a web page, this page becomes the store’s first showcase.

2. Create content to boost your page’s ranking on Google

Once your website is available with all the “static” content ready, it will be time to work on the natural positioning or SEO of your business. To have a better position in Google, it is necessary to keep your website “alive” and the best way is to add content regularly. The best way to create content for your page quickly and easily is through a blog. Thanks to this you can tell everything related to your business to your community and your customers.

3. Communicate with your clients with emailing campaigns

Email marketing continues to be the first means of communication: Newsletter, promotional offers, private sales, invitations to events, thanks, birthdays there are many opportunities to communicate with your client, especially taking good advantage of the data you have since you can reach to high customization.

4. Keep in direct contact thanks to SMS marketing

To complete email communications, it may be interesting to use a more direct channel. Digital Marketing Agency Malaysia is the ideal one to assist you out in this situation so that you don’t be lacked behind. The goal is to communicate with your customers quickly and have the guarantee that they will have your information. With an almost total insertion of mobile phones, a method as direct as SMS, 98% of these are read within 5 minutes after sending. This means that bulk SMS constitutes a very useful channel to send relevant information.

5. Find and encourage your community on social media.

Last method of this article: encourage communities on social media. It is the ideal channel to group your customers and exchange information with them. Facebook, about to reach almost 2 billion users, constitutes an advantage to be known, acquire and retain. It is an immediate method of feedback with your followers.

Well, if any business owner found difficulties to start their business using digital marketing, or no idea how to do digital marketing for your business? You have a great choice by attending best digital marketing course. Checkout resources below.

How to Market Your Small Business Online in 7 Fast and Easy Steps

Without completing each of these steps successfully..the chances of marketing your small business online dramatically decrease. There will always be exceptions but these seven steps should be considered your building blocks to your online marketing success.

1. Your own Website.

And by this I don’t mean a corporate/brochure style site which bores visitors and has them clicking away in seconds. No. You need to entertain as well as educate your visitors.

To do this best I think it is essential to have a WordPress Website attached to your main business website…or even on a separate domain. Don’t just name it blog! Give it a keyword rich, benefit laden title…tell them how your will make their lives better. Use the common terms others use to search for your business in Google [and the other search engines].

There is lots of advice online on how to set up a WordPress site. If you are unsure you can hire someone from a site such as Elance or RentaGuru.

The beauty of WordPress is that it is so easy to use. Non-techie small business owners can add fresh content, offers, audio, and videos to their site without having to pay a webmaster every time. Small business profits is as much about saving money as it is about increased revenue.

Oh, and of course, Google and Social Media love WordPress as well. More free visitors is always nice.

2. Add a means of capturing the names and addresses of your visitors.

Unfortunately, buying cycles are getting longer and longer. This means that people are rarely going to buy from you the first time they come across you.

So, to get around this you will need:

an optin/squeeze page an autoresponder [e.g. Aweber] a series of emails in your autoresponder a free gift valuable enough that visitors will be prepared to give your their info

This may sound daunting if you’ve never done it. However it is easy to hire someone to do it for you…or even better, learn to do it yourself. These are very low cost marketing tactics with excellent results when done right.

3. Generate some visitors to your site.

You can either pay for traffic or generate it using your own time. Either way there is no such thing as free traffic…you pay with time, money or both.

Personally, I think a mixture of paid and self-generated is best. It will depend for you on your present skills and whether you are time-rich or money-rich.

Pay-per-click [PPC] is the fastest way to generate traffic. You can have visitors to your site within the hour. Sadly PPC can be very expensive and there is a learning curve. But don’t get me wrong…well done it can be a gold mine..just tread carefully and test and track your results.

Add new fresh content to your site every week. Make it fun. Make people smile as they learn new stuff and they will reward you by staying longer on your site and coming back for more.

Use photos and videos. Get them involved with competitions and surveys. My favourite tip is this…see what your competition is doing and do the opposite. No one ever got wealthy following the herd!

Other tactics to consider:

Social marketing ezine ads swapping links get all your past and present customers to sign up put your website address on receipts, signs, and all your other marketing banner ads post articles to article directories.

The more you do of each the more success you’ll have.

4. Build relationships with your prospects who have signed up.

The way to do this is to talk about their problems and offer solutions. That will get their attention!

Make sure your personalize your emails. Tell them about yourself, your family and your business. Get them to see you as a friend/trusted advisor: give them tips and tricks industry news free info

5. Make them offers

When your have their trust and they know, like and trust you…they will no longer regard your offers with suspicion.

Keep in contact regularly…you need to decide what you feel is right…but a minimum of once a week.

Make them repeated offers: vary them different bonuses discounts bundle products and services together make sure every offer has a deadline new products and services ask them what they want and need.

6. Keep doing more of the same.

The fact is you will probably lose 20% of your list a month. Make sure you keep doing each of the first five steps…this will give you a list of hungry, loyal buyers. Subscribers who look forward to hearing form you. Who want to hear your latest tips, news, and offers.

7. Never lose sight of where your focus should be:

“How can I offer more value to my customers?”

The moment you forget them and start concentrating on only yourself…they’ll know. It will come across in all your communications and marketing. Put them first, and they will stay loyal, and you will reap the rewards.

Link Popularity – Step by Step Guide to Attracting Inbound Links Through Google Site Maps, Part 1

Internet marketing today offers many methods to develop link popularity by using step-by-step guidance to attracting inbound links through using websites and tools such as Google Site Maps.

Having Google sitemaps set up for your websites can be very beneficial in getting more traffic from Google, because Google sitemaps help Google know about all your web pages and can, therefore, help all your web pages from all your sites get fully indexed in Google, which of course increases your chances of getting more Google traffic. It’s also a very useful tool for understanding better exactly what’s happening with your site regarding Google.

So, how exactly do you set up Google site maps for your website? I’m going to talk you through a detailed example here.

Follow these steps:

1. First of all, go to the Google Sietmaps website. And you need a Google account, a free Google account to use the sitemaps functionality. If you don’t have an existing account, you can easily set one up.

2. Log into Google Sitemaps with your own Google account.

3. So let’s start with adding sites. All you have to do is click on the add a site icon in the middle of the page to add your website address.

4. Next, you need to verify ownership of the site to make sure that this site genuinely belongs to you. So what you need to do is after the website address appears on the page is click on “try our new meta tag verification method.”

5. Okay, as you will more than likely see, the current verification status is NOT VERIFIED. So scroll down…and there are two ways you can verify your site: using the meta tag method, or upload a specific HTML file.

6. Using the meta tag method in this instance. If you have any problems with this there are full instructions on the page. Essentially, take the line of HTML code and add it in the head section of your website’s index page.

7. Selected it, right click and copy, and though to your ftp software. And on the right side will be listed your website, that is the site you are adding to Google Sitemaps. And what you want to look for is the index page. In most cases it will be listed as index.html. Download that, and open this, the index page, in Notepad so you can make the change.

8. Open up Notepad and there’s the index page on the desktop, so drag the HTML code and paste it into the head section, as Google instructed. So edit…paste. And there it is.

9. Scroll back and there’s the meta tag specifically for verifying this page.

Google will give higher link popularity to websites that have site maps. The more popular your website is on Google, which is the top search engine most people use, you will stand a better chance of having your site come up higher on search results that your target market is conducted. The higher your site becomes on the results you also stand a better chance of having people link to your site which will attract more inbound links for you.

If you are out to attract prospective customers and develop your online presence and exposure, you owe it to yourself and the financial future of your business to learn everything you can about Internet marketing.

Personal Branding – Improve Your Google-Ability

Have you ever typed your name into Google? When you do, is it really you that comes up?

It’s quickly becoming a well-known fact that HR personnel and hiring managers at many companies will type job applicants’ names into Google before deciding who to interview. What comes up when your name is fed to Google could determine whether or not you get a job.

But even if you have your own company or are currently employed, branding yourself online is a free way of making yourself more marketable. For an entrepreneur it makes it easier for people looking for your good or service to find you. For someone currently employed it can help you establish yourself as an expert on what you do, which can help you get a raise or, perhaps even find another, better paying job.

You can improve your Google-ability in three easy steps. Here’s How:

1. Join social networking sites. If you’re already on them great; if not, join. And not just sites like Facebook and twitter, which, while they will come up on Google, are not really designed to present the user in a professional light. You should also join LinkedIn and post your resume. Sites like Meetup.com can show your interests, even smaller, niche social media sites like brazencareerist.com will help. Find sites with message boards where you can create a user profile and post content. The key is, when you do that, use your real name as your user name. That way, those posts or at least that site will come up when someone types your name into Google.

2. Comment on major blogs. Find a blog on the New York Times’ website, and comment on the issues that seem relevant to your career – media, if your interested in publishing; small business if you’re an entrepreneur; finance if you want to be a broker. Include your name in your posts (sign them, or, if you can create a “user name,” use your real name).

3. Google yourself – and when you do, go through the results. Click on the results you want to come up higher in the results list (that is, the results that are actually you). One way that Google determines search result rankings (the order that results are in) is by what links have been clicked on in the past when someone has searched that term. So, on a regular basis (monthly, or even weekly) type your name into Google and click on the results that are actually you and that you want to come up first.

Congratulations, you now know how to improve your Google-ability.