Kirsten Dixson, Personal Branding Strategist

Search Engine Optimization for Web Portfolios & Blogs

Since we build websites and blogs for individuals to help them establish and control their online identities for career management, most often we are thinking about their search engine rankings when someone is looking for them by name.

If you have an uncommon or unusually spelled name, like Kirsten Dixson or Brandego, then you will probably get the results that you want organically — without a lot of effort and investment. If you also have a presence on a very popular site, then you might need to work a little harder to get your own site to rank higher.

If you do have a common name, like our client William Reed, then you will have to optimize for your name and your niche — for example, William Reed Healthcare Finance. Try Googling that. The results just aren't the same if you only type in William Reed. If he also consistently uses William F. Reed, and people know to look for him by that in the search engines, then he will come up near the top of page one in Google.

Here are 10 Search Engine Optimization tips from our fabulous personal branding client and the Search Marketing Insider, Jessica Bowman:

Blog Posting: How Much is Enough?

One of the questions that I'm asked frequently about blogging is, "How often do I need to post?" It's an understandable concern since we are all too busy to have one more thing to feed.

Blogging experts will tell you that three times a week is ideal. I'm finding that this is not practical for most people, however. I think that bloggers should aim to post once a week, and definitely not post less than twice a month.

As you can see, I'm not always heeding my own advice. But I do think that it is very beneficial to have and maintain a blog. I'm writing this in a Starbucks in Manhattan so that I can save face when I talk about blogging tonight at the New York chapter meeting of the Association of Career Professionals International.

Inactivity on a blog does two things:

1. It demonstrates that you are not serious about your blog.
2. It makes your blog less search-engine friendly.

Tips for posting more frequently:

• Be attuned to content all the time and have a system for jotting down your ideas so that when you go to post it's easy.
• Remember that blog posts, unlike articles, can be super short as long as they are useful. Sometimes, you can write a sentence and link to something you've found.
• When you have some extra time, you can set up posts to publish on a future date.