Search engine optimization expert Heather Lutze named her book and programs "The Findability Factor." What I’m talking about here is increasing your findability factor, without necessarily SEO-ing your website (although you may want to do that, too!). Here are the four steps:
1. Define the word or phrase you want to dominate.
By using this word/phrase often in the titles and body of whatever you are publishing, you help Google know what you are and serve you up to the right searchers.
Believe me, as a Gemini who has many professional interests, I know how hard it can be to just choose one word or phrase. But make your life easy and start with one. It’s much easier to dominate one niche, and the more niche-y, the easier. If you’re not sure what word/phrase you should use, Google several of them and check out the relative competition. It can be smart to dominate a smaller piece of the big pie, than to compete with a lot of players for the big phrases (think "how to buy level term life insurance" vs. "life insurance").
2. Subscribe to Google Alerts on your product.
Have them delivered daily. This free service scans the news, blogs, websites and the whole Internet on your topic and throws the results into your email inbox. Pre-Internet, this would be done by a newspaper clipping service, who would literally cut out the articles and mail them to you, for a hefty price. Google News Alerts allow you to easily see what others are saying about your topic, which may inspire one of your press releases or other writing/expressions on your topic (read below).
3. Write and distribute press releases on your product.
This should be easy, since you’re an expert (and soon to be world dominator). If you can’t write easily or well, hire a writer. You will provide him/her the concept and facts, they will write. Find a writer at the bulletin board at your library, on Craigslist (really! - posting a contract job costs $25 - or you can search for writers), or at a service such as www.eLance.com. Send your releases into the world at a free site (such as www.PRlog.org) or at a paid site (I use and recommend www.Send2Press.com). By the way, paying for a release that includes a PRNewswire component isn’t cheap, but it will serve your content on a silver platter to legitimate journalists at the big name papers and magazines.
How about writing whitepapers and articles? Sure … but they are less likely to be seen by reporters and journalists and producers at radio and TV shows, for example.
4. YouTube your topic.
Even put it on LinkedIn. When you record and post videos on your topic, many experts say that’s one of the best ways to come up high on Google searches. Two reasons: Google owns YouTube, and people love to watch videos. YouTube rules in terms of impact across the board.
