How to: Get Found Online When You Have a Common Name

When you have a common name, it can be hard to ensure that you are found online and that people can easily identify you as the person that they are looking for. So here are some things that you can do to ensure that people can find you online:

01. Identify your Niche

Start by identifying your niche. What do you want to be known for, what is your area of expertise? This will help you ensure that your name becomes associated with your preferred niche.

02. Be a LinkedIn All-Star

If people are looking for you professionally, the easiest way to be found (as well as improve your google ranking) is to have a LinkedIn Profile. LinkedIn is one of the social media platforms that ranks most highly in search engines.

To take full advantage of this, make sure you have a completed “All-Star” LinkedIn profile. Use it to make it really clear to the person looking at the profile that they have found that right person. This is where using a clear headline and summary can really help as well as adjusting your privacy settings to ensure that people who are not connected to you can see enough information to identify you.

03. Publish in Your Area of Expertise

However, LinkedIn is not enough (particularly if your name is very common). You are going to have to also get your name associated with your niche or area of expertise. One way to do this is to get your name out there by publishing content. This might be on your own website or company website, it might be on LinkedIn or using a platform like Medium or it might be by using industry publications.

04. Use Social Media

Having an active and relevant social media presence can also help you be found online. So make sure you maximise your use of other relevant platforms, not just LinkedIn. This can then be used for curating and sharing content (both your own and that of others), it can also be a great way to engage with others in your niche and build your profile.

05. Be Consistent

Be consistent with how you describe and distinguish yourself. For example, you might use your middle name or your initials. You might use your location. You might use your niche. Whatever it is that you choose, try and use this for all your different usernames, profiles and any other online presence that you use professionally.

06. Tell People

Finally, the other easy way to help people get in touch with the right you and find you online is to tell them. Consider pointing your email signature to your online profiles and website. Do the same on your business cards etc. Simply put, make it easy so that they don’t have to be googling you in the first place.