NickiHicks.com

A few weeks ago, I noticed that on a search for my name, a very unlikely search result arose. A snippet of a comment I made a while back on an ex-boyfriend’s MySpace profile.

The trouble wasn’t that my ex-boyfriend’s profile ranked for my name, that wasn’t the big deal. The problem was: the search engine description was a piece of the comment from after mine (a friend of his who used semi-inappropriate language).

Long story short – I didn’t want people searching for my name and have this result come up.

So what did I have to do? Make my MySpace profile rank better. Since I don’t use it often, that’s why his was ranking: search engines love fresh, new content. So, all I had to do was update my profile in several places, leave a few comments on other friends’ pages, and badda bing, badda boom – my profile is ranking again.

The rules change depending on which social media network you’re talking about.

For all:

• Get a “vanity URL”. In other words, get your name. For each of my social media identities, I always get “nickihicks”.
• Update often. Again, SEs love fresh content.

Facebook

• Activity, in general; including status updates.
• Choose your location wisely.

Twitter

• Start the conversations – your username may show up as another person tweeting at you.
• Choose your description wisely (think about what people might be searching for).
• Always include your full name especially if your handle isn’t your full name.

LinkedIn

• Recommendations. (I had a similar story here: Another Nicki Hicks’ profile was ranking above mine. After getting a few more recommendations, I was ranking higher!)
• Get connected with more people!
• Join groups.
• Answer questions.

MySpace

• Comments on other profiles.