In today’s job market, personal branding is the name of the game. Not only are companies spending time — and lots of money— managing and cultivating their  brand profile but individuals are carving out niches for themselves as professional brands of their own.

Whether it’s one’s presence on the Web or one’s persona and look, all these elements make up key components to the brand that is you. If you haven’t started thinking of yourself as a brand, a great place to start is by doing a Google search of your own name to see what already exists and what needs to be tweaked. No matter how incognito you’d like to be, your personal information can be accessible with the click of a mouse, from those Facebook updates and photos to your resident location to your dating profiles.

Since many hiring managers and human resource professionals check up on candidates and employees via the Internet — especially their social media profiles — it’s vital to know what story is being told about you via the Web.

So, take a moment to Google yourself. You may be surprised. If you see things you don’t like or maybe things you wouldn’t like to show up first, experts have advised updating your social media profile privacy settings, tweaking your profile details or tweeting more relevant messages that include hash tags that you want your personal brand to be linked to. Though in many cases, Tweets and Facebook posts can be deleted but won’t totally disappear from the Web, you can also delete accounts that may be unused, unsavory or just plain outdated. Update Website photos and links, and try contacting unrelated sites to have personal data hidden or excluded.

Also, be sure your resume is SEO-friendly, and find ways to push down more dated or not-so-professional bits about on the Web by publishing a professional blog, Facebook fan page or professional bio site of your own. Be aware of the information you share on the Internet and what has your name attached to it, such as comments, e-mails, forum posts, tagged photos, and log-in information.

Take charge of your Web presence so that you can present the best “brand you” possible and have no worries when it comes to getting that new big job opportunity.

(Image: Thinkstock)

Many top employers and CEOs have agreed: Technical skills that can be applied to any occupation are vital in today’s fast-paced, innovative society. And it doesn’t matter the industry, since the way we all do business has been changed by the increased use of social media, gadgets, and the Web. Technological advancements have made tasks easier and quicker to accomplish, and have changed the way we all do our jobs.

To ensure you have the tech skills needed to remain competitive in today’s job market, check out AOL Jobs to see the five top qualifications that attract employers. Give yourself the edge that will keep you one foot ahead of the pack.

Read More at AOL Jobs…

How do you get prospects to your online destination? By utilizing Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing use really complicated algorithms to determine which sites get ranked higher than others in search engine results. The algorithm is based on a combination of keywords, useful, relevant content, and cross linking between your site and others.

“SEO is like an automobile with a lot of working parts,” says Pierre DuBois, owner of Zimana, a web analytics consulting firm, which offers online marketing strategy, operations, and financial analysis. “You need to get an idea of what those part are.”

If you are not able to hire an SEO expert to enhance your website, there are things you can do on your own. Here are a couple of DuBois’ tips to get you started.

1. Add images to your site. Photos will tell a story about what your services are and the end benefits that customers will receive. Images also help increase your ranking and if you apply keywords to your photos they will appear in searches for web images.

2. Consider creating a short video to explain your business. Video is another element that increases page ranking. The video should be about two minutes long, and if embedded in an analytics-tagged website, the video should have an event tracking code included to help count plays and determine visitor engagement. Try a video editor like Camtasia, which can merge images, music files, and even add narration. Remember, visitors do not like videos that play automatically.

3. Show recommendations from past clients. Although typically shown on sites such as LinkedIn and Yelp, accolades from former clients are extremely encouraging for visitors to do business with you.

4. Consider adding a widget to show your tweets or a Facebook Fan page to show updates. Online visitors are starting to respond more to companies with a social media presence. This is particularly helpful if your product or service has a social element to it.

5. Add keywords into the description tag of each web page. Not only does the description show in Google and Bing search results, but it also appears in social media sharing sites such as BizSugar, Digg, Delicious, and Seeded Buzz as well as when pages are shared across networks such as Linked In and Facebook.

6. Look for ways to refine keywords. As you understand what your customers are looking for, their choice of words changes over time. When you type a word into Google, use the Wonderwheel tool, which appears on the lower left of the search engine results. Wonderwheel provides additional suggested results that appear as spokes from your query. Click on each spoke to see new query hub and spokes for the given word — this can tease out new, unconsidered keyword suggestions for your pay per click ad or website. Use the content dashboards in a web analytics solution (Google Analytics, Piwik, Yahoo Web Analytics, Going Up!, Woopra, etc.), to review effective keywords phrases that produced average time on site, high conversion, and low bounce rate metrics.

7. Add comments about site changes in the annotation feature in Google Analytics. This will become not only a journal, but a way to see if a site change affected the analytics data and ultimately the visitor experience. You can also comment on dates of events that can potentially drive traffic.

8. Finally, never presume that just inserting the right keywords in a site is the secret ingredient to attract all traffic. Your site can be discovered in many ways, so don’t get hung up on one feature over the other. “Generating traffic is due to many methods — tweets, Facebook likes, podcast mentions, mentions in online videos, social sharing sites, online presentations, and offline activity via attending trade shows, presentations, appearances,” says DuBois. A web analytics solution usually examines direct referral and search traffic.

If  you’re a small business owner who is hoping to maximize your revenue online this shopping season, you better invest some time and energy in search engine optimization–otherwise you’ll be lucky if anyone finds you. “The overall concept of search engine optimization is to make your page content relevant to the search terms that people are looking for,” says Chris Curtis, founder of Web Business Ownership LLC, an internet business strategy firm based in Newark, Delaware that focuses on small businesses.

With that in mind its not to late to make some simple changes to your site so that you can reach the hordes of online shoppers hoping to score a deal. Here are three simple things you can do to make the most of Cyber Monday.

• Watch: How to Increase Your Online Presence

Think Like a User.
Ask yourself: “If I were looking for this, what would I type in Google?” For example, if you’re selling “cars”, remember that “automotive” and “automobile” are both relevant keywords that need to also be within the content on your page. “Summon your most creative skills, and work it out,” says Curtis. “The benefits in traffic will be worth the effort.”

Get Listed.
The more sites that link to your pages, the more important your page becomes. Post the link to your web site in directories, community boards, forums and blogs. Make sure that where you post your link is also relevant to the topic of your page. If your page is about “roses”, don’t post your link to a blog about “shoes,” says Curtis. “Doing so would diminish the importance of your link on that page–which means most people won’t click on it–and consequently not bring you much traffic.”

Name It!
Ever go to a page and want to bookmark it (add it to your favorites) only to find that the page doesn’t have a title? To avoid such issues on your own site you’ll want to make sure that every page has a descriptive title. The more descriptive the title, the better the chance of you being found in the search engine. Your title should also reflect the content on the page. If your page is about “traveling in Philadelphia”, then a title like “Where to Go in Philadelphia” or “Travel Tips for Philadelphia” would be beneficial to you.

• Also read: Up the Ante on Your Web Presence

Use these online tools to help you fine tune your approach to drawing more traffic online:

www.wordtracker.com
A resource that helps you to fine tune your keywords and build a SEO strategy

www.thesaurus.com
When in doubt, old school methods still work. Use the thesaurus to find keywords and synonyms.

www.wholinkstome.com
A great way to find out who’s linking to your web site.

“A high search engine ranking means that your Website will appear on the first page of a search engine, when someone searches for the subject of your site,” says Linda Girard, co-founder of online marketing consulting firm Pure Visibility in Ann Arbor, Michigan. An environmental consultant looking to generate new business online, for example, would want to take the steps necessary to make sure that his results appeared on the first page (and preferably in the top three listings) when someone types “environmental consultant” into Google, Yahoo, or another search engine.

Making that happen takes more than just a simple submission of your site and keywords to the most popular search engines. To get their attention, most companies use a mix of pay-per-click keyword searches (where you “buy” the most relevant keywords to ensure that your site attains a high ranking) and search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is the technique of attaining a high ranking in search engines and directories via changes to your site code that make it more search engine compatible.

The latter can be as easy as updating your company’s site map (which shows the site architecture), says Girard, who recently worked with a firm that was losing $5,000 a day because its site was relegated to pages two and three of the search engine results. By updating its site map and submitting it to the search engines, Girard says the firm was able to regain its first-page status.

Keeping title tag keywords relevant and updated is also important, Girard says, who advises firms to review the product and/or service descriptions regularly, keeping in mind that they must make sense to both the search engines and the users. “Look at whether the key phrases are really telling your company’s story to the user. If they’re not, then change them to better reflect your message and mission.”

The age-old SEO strategy of linking to and from high-quality, relevant Websites still work, says Girard. Link to publications, social networking sites such as Facebook, and those trade groups and organizations that are important in your industry, and your search engine rankings will improve exponentially, Girard adds. And remember to add video and photos to the mix.

“These days, it’s not unusual to see a search engine like Google pull up a YouTube video in its top 10 results, so upload your video there and attach good, searchable terms to the clips in order to get those high rankings,” Girard says.

Finally, Sergio Alvarez, COO at AI Media Group, a New York-based firm that helps clients invest in accountable branding and advertising, says companies that narrow their focus to a specific geographical area tend to get the best search engines. A day spa with two Manhattan locations, for example, should use specific keywords that target its customer base, such as “Manhattan Day Spa” or “Day Spa Upper West Side.”

“Rather than trying to hit everyone everywhere, focus on your past, current and potential clients within a certain area,” says Alvarez. “The end result will not only be a higher search engine ranking, but also a much better ROI from your overall Web strategy.”

Top 10 Positive Search Engine Ranking Factors

1.    Keyword use in the title tag
2.    Anchor text of an inbound link
3.    Global link popularity of site
4.    Age of site
5.    Link popularity within the site’s internal link structure
6.    Topical relevance of inbound links to site
7.    Link popularity of site in topical community
8.    Keyword use in body text
9.    Global link popularity of linking site
10.    Topical relationship of linking site

Source:  SEOMoz.org

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