Proof That Google Loves Social Networking
I’ve got a lot of content out there under my name on the Internet, and most of it comes right to the top of Google when you search for Lisa Dozois . Interestingly, however, my 1 week old blog, LisaDozois.com, comes up #2 even though everything else with my name has been out there for a much longer time.
Big deal, right? How hard can it be to rank #1 for your own name? Well, I’m not the only Lisa Dozois (oddly enough), and the “other one” used to rank higher than me until I started working on that problem. At least I’m glad she’s not a porn star. Unfortunately, someone who uses the same screen name I use on a lot of forums is 
That’s one of the reasons I started the Lisa Dozois brand building campaign.
Anyway, Google is starting to treat me well. In fact, my current Google search results look like this:
- Lisa Dozois – LinkedIn
- LisaDozois.com
- Lisa Dozois – EzineArticles.com Expert Author Bio
- Lisa Dozois (lisadozois) on Twitter
Proof that Google loves social networking and you should be using it if you want to build out your brand.
No time for Social Marketing? I can help. Get in touch.
Building A Brand: Day 2 (Late)
If I didn’t understand why people hire me to write their blog articles before, I’ve got a pretty good idea why now. It’s takes commitment and some time management skills.
You may have noticed (or not) that I ditched the original theme. I’m happy with the one I have now, so I’m moving on.
Blog’s Secure Sir!
I added several security features to lock WordPress down. I’m not going to say what they are though. After all, you don’t want your enemy to know the strength of your defense forces and what weapons they have.
But I will tell you this. WP is not secure “out of the box”, so Google WordPress security tools, do some reading, and pick the solutions that make the most sense to you.
Now that I have the basic setup out of the way, I’m going to start selecting and adding SEO tools and get my brand-building blog fired up.
I’ll be back!
- Lisa
Building A Brand: Day 1 In Review
I spent way too much time yesterday picking out a theme, and I’m still not satisfied with what I have. I’ll probably bail on it today. I don’t like the way it pushes the site nav to the bottom of the page. I thought I liked it, but I’m having buyer’s remorse, which is funny considering the theme was free.
One of the things I’ve learned over the course of writing thousands of articles, blog posts, tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, building backlinks and creating link wheels for my clients is that social marketing works. So yesterday I focused on adding some basic WordPress social marketing plugins:
- FD Feedburner for integrating my RSS feed with Google’s Feedburner.
- AddToAny creates the RSS subscribe widget at the top of the page.
- WPFollowMe is used to create that great floating Twitter badge on the right side of the page.
- TweetThis is for automatically Tweeting my posts and empowering readers to do the same.
- Wickett Twitter Widget for displaying my most current Tweets on the sidebar.
I also installed Akismet to manage the comment and trackback SPAM that’s sure to come from black hat jerks peddling their Viagra® and porn sites. And finally I added CFORMS, which is hands-down the best and most versatile WP form creator there is. I’m using it for my contact form right now. As the site develops, I’ll use it for order entry and other tasks.
Next Task
Tighten up security a bit. I know I should have done that first, but it’s not as glamorous a task as social marketing is, and I needed a sugar boost yesterday. So I went for the glamor.
I have several projects on my plate from clients, so I won’t be getting back to LisaDozois.com until after I should be asleep. I’ll update you all then.
- Lisa
Building A Brand
I’ve spent the last 5 years building the Lisa_G brand at RentACoder, and I’ve done a pretty good job of it if I do say so myself. I’m ranked #2 out of 280,000 service providers, and that fact alone contributes to my winning a lot of new projects even though my fees are often two to three times higher than my closest competitor.
Despite my success there, I’ve set a goal to make 2010 the year that I expand my business outside of the relative comfort and security of RentACoder and take my company into the open marketplace. And I’m going to share how I do that with you.
My first step is to build this LisaDozois.com into a showcase for my products and services. I’m going to add e-commerce and order processing features as well as project management. This site is officially 2 hours old.
Follow along as I define the site’s requirements and pick the plugins and widgets I need to get the job done. I envision some custom programming and database design as well. I’ll share all the gory details, successes and failures as I make my way through the process.
Check this post daily to see what I’ve accomplished. And start thinking about how you can use what you learn here to build or strengthen your own brand.
After the site is built, I’m going to kick off my SEO and social marketing strategy. That should be informative, so don’t miss it.
It’s 3:10 AM. I’m going to bed. Hope to see you tomorrow at LisaDozois.com. I’ve got a lot of work to do.
- Lisa
