Social Media Reputation Management – Google Profile

Did you know that Google has a profile page and that it’s similar to a profile page on LinkedIn. Managing your reputation and curating your personal SEO plan is something you should do at least once a year.

About Google Profile

Google Profile can be associated with a normal Gmail e-mail address along with Google Apps domains and other addresses. In fact, you’ll find that if you use Google your profile comes ‘pre-filled’ with info on what Google might know about you.

You get to Google Profile from http://www.google.com/profiles

HOW TO Curate yourself online - an approach to Personal SEO

Well the term SEO is pretty ambiguous and I prefer the term Curate - basically you’re cleaning up what the Google and other sites know about you and visibly show about you.

That said if you’re world is about the internet and work, you may not need any pointers here - check out first the profile page that Google already created for you mine is http://www.google.com/profiles/damien.saunders

Notice I have a personalised URL - if you haven’t claimed yours already you should - and remember to think about the keywords, titles and description tags you want on your page.

Positives about this profile page is that its a great opportunity to add links, information about you and your work interests and hobbies. I’ve linked my profile to my Flickr account to show off some of my photos - we’re all human.

Google Profile has a set of easy to understand privacy settings and you can control who sees what of your profile (this is achieved by linking to you Gmail Contacts list and mail groups).

You will notice that Google suggests a whole lot of URLs and sites that it thinks are about you - now comes the fun part - remember that dodgy party back in your first year at Uni when you joined some social club website? Well maybe its time to delete that profile and those pics!

Curating your personal profile online can be an eye-watering experience - you don’t realise how much Google knows about you until you start a clean-up. Now that you’ve done this once, remember to come back in the next 6 to 12 months or whenever there is a major change in your life (and I don’t mean the kind that leaves your Facebook friends worrying about your relationship status).

Meet the author

Damien Saunders
An experienced management consultant and business leader interested in digital transformation, product centred design and scaled agile. If I'm not writing about living with UCTD (an autoimmune disease), I'm probably listening to music, reading a book or learning more about wine.