The option to claim your own profile on Google and have it displayed within search results for your name has been available for nearly a year now.  With the growing popularity of social media networks, it’s surprising to see a relatively small percentage of web users have actually utilized this free service.  The truth is, most professionals can benefit by having a Google profile so here are a few reasons you may want to consider it.

Profile results for John Powers

5 Reasons to Claim Your Google Profile:

1. Personal SEO – Google profile links are displayed on the first page of search results (see image above).  Unless you have an extremely common name, there’s a good chance your Google profile will show up on page one when others are searching for you.
2. Personal branding – A Google profile can act as a “home-base” for your online presence.  Not only can you have photos and video in your profile, but you also are given the opportunity to write a detailed bio.  This bio can include a resume, skill sets, achievements or anything else you wish to display to the world.
3. Become part of social search – Last week, Google announced the public beta release of social search.  By having a public Google profile, there’s a greater chance of having your own content displayed within search results.  Others in your social circle (social network connections) are more likely to see your content when they search on Google.
4. Connecting social profiles – Since Google profiles allows you to add links to each of your social media accounts, it provides a way for others to easily find you on various networks.  However, you do have complete control over what is included or excluded.
5. Showing your personality – With space for an online bio, interests, “superpowers” and more,  Google profiles is an opportunity to show a little online personality.  Even if you intend to use your profile strictly for business, there is still a benefit to displaying an appropriate amount of personality.  Isn’t that a significant part of what the social web is all about?

Before claiming your profile and making it public, it’s important to consider what information you would like to have displayed since there is a very good chance others will find your profile when they search for your name.  Without a doubt this is another step in the direction of transparency so it does require commitment and discretion.

Perhaps the most interesting component to a Google profile is the fact that it exhibits yet another example of Google’s gradual shift to becoming a social service.  It remains to be seen how Google intends to tie together all of the existing social fragments in their network.  Maybe we’ll get some insight on that today since Google is expected to announce new social features built into Gmail.

Last week, Google announced the public beta release of Social Search.  The announcement was met with little fanfare as it happened to be on the same day as Apple’s iPad event.  However, the potential for SEO and other marketing opportunities created by this new shift in search should not be overlooked.

What is social search?

Google’s concept of social search places greater relevance on content from people/organizations in your own social circle.  In other words, Google will actually display content on the first page of their search results from those which you have a social media connection.  More importantly, this works in reverse.  Your own content has a better chance of being displayed in Google search results if you have a connection to the individual performing a search.

The video below is a nice demonstration from Google showing social search in action.

How social search works?

Understanding how social search works will help you to make a greater impact with the public content you are currently offering online.  By analyzing your social connections, Goolge creates a “circle” of those you are likely to find more interesting than others.  This circle determines what content may be displayed in the social search portion of the results.  Google currently determines your social circle in 3 different ways.

1. Public Google profile – When you set up your Google profile, you have the option of adding different social accounts such as a blog,  Twitter, Friendfeed, Flickr and Youtube.  You have the option of including or excluding any of your social accounts.  Accounts you choose to include in your profile will be publicly visible to others and also be used to determine your social circle.  For example, if you add your Twitter account, Google assumes those you are following as part of circle.  Consequently, you will be part of the social circles created by your own followers if they add their Twitter account to their own Google profile.
2. Google chat buddies – Interestingly, it isn’t your Gmail address book that determines more social connections.  Rather, anyone added to your Google chat will automatically become part of your social circle.
3. Google reader subscriptions – Blogs you subscribe to through Google reader are also added to your social circle.  This is a very logical step in the evolution of search because your subscriptions indicate which online content your value most.  So if I do a search for “Facebook fan page tips”, Google will now assume articles generated from those sites in which I subscribe may be more relevant.

Content from your social circle is displayed at the bottom of the first page of search results.  In order for this to happen, you must be logged into your Google account and you must have a public Google profile.  When Google social search was launched as an “experiment” back in October, Matt Cutts released an informative video detailing how Google determines who is actually in your social circle (see below).

Why social search matters?

The primary goal of social search is to continue the ongoing effort by Google of making your search results more personal.  Clearly this new offering will have the desired effect for those who use it.

When our algorithms determine that it would improve your search experience we surface public content from your social circle at the bottom of the search results.

Matt Cutts, Google Search Quality Group

More importantly, it reemphasizes the importance of building your influence online by continuing to create new connections through social media.  The more connected you are with others, the more your content will be displayed in the social circle search results.

Obviously, this works for businesses as well.  Would your business benefit by more people seeing the content it has generated?  Google’s new social search is just one more reason businesses should embrace social media and connect with consumers.

How 8 characters of code can make your site more relevant than your Twitter profile

Have you googled your name lately?  If so, there’s a good chance your Twitter account or another social media account is displayed as the top result.  While this may seem like a positive thing if you’re making an effort to build a personal brand, it may not be the most desirable.  In my daily reading today, I came across a very interesting article at Marshall Kirkpatrick’s blog.  The issue is prevalent enough that merely tweeting it with a link does not do it justice.

I’m apparently not the only one who considers this to be an issue.  With regards to the same article, Whitson Gordon at Lifehacker had this to say.

Having a say in what Google says about you is extremely important these days, especially for professionals such as freelancers, for whom a Google search result of their name is a first impression for potential employers. You definitely want your blog or professional web site to show up before your non-professional social networking profiles.

It turns out that Twitter and other sites often use 8 simple characters of code that may be positively affecting the rank of your account link.  So how do you perform this magic for your own site?  Let Marshall Kirkpatrick explain.

So the long and short of this story is that if you want to make sure that Google understands your blog to be your primary beacon on the web, then you should add the words rel=”me” to a relevant link on your blog. I’ve added that tag to the link on my sidebar that goes to my feedback page, because that’s a good page for me. It’s as simple as making the link text read a href=”http://marshallk.com/feedback” rel=”me”.

While it may seem too good to be true for such a simple change to have that kind of impact on search, it certainly warrants testing.  Does your site already include this tag?  Are you aware of other simple tips to help resolve this issue.  Let us know.