Twenty months ago (in this blog post), I ego searched my name on Google and discovered 621 results.
I spy 21,900 results today.
It wasn’t an overnight sensation, but a time honored tradition of commenting and being interviewed on other people’s blogs and frequently churning fresh content here.
Randomly glancing through the months…
Aug. 20, 2008: A comment I left on the Library of Congress’ blog about ducks.
Sep. 17, 2008: Jacob Morgan recognizing me in a blog meme I tagged him.
Nov. 28, 2008: Jason Alba wrote about me and jobs and guts.
Dec. 22, 2008: A comment I left on ReadWriteWeb about Twitter metrics.
Jan. 16, 2009: Fred Wilson attributed me in his blog post about the Hudson River terror.
Jan. 21, 2009: Recapping stories I wrote for Voices without Votes during the U.S. presidential cycle last fall.
Jan. 23, 2009: Erika Napoletano admitted I was her inspiration for migrating from WordPress.com to a self-hosted installation.
Jan. 31, 2009: Danny Brown assigned me to be a midfielder on his social media soccer team.
Apr. 19, 2009: Loki‘s interview of me on Social Gumbo.
May 26, 2009: A comment I left on the Center for Democracy and Technology’s blog about revisiting internet filters at libraries.
Aug. 3, 2009: Mark Drapeau referenced me in a blog post about Twitter strategies.
Aug. 16, 2009: I cross-posted a blog article to the Huffington Post on best practices for using LinkedIn.
Sep. 16, 2009: Marcia Connors quoted me in Fast Company about versioning the web.
I didn’t look at every entry (who can with that many?) but I did catch a mention of me getting married. Sorry folks, I’m not a Hasidic Jew and this page of wedding photos is not mine.
Comment, comment, comment. If you want to increase search engine results for your name or your brand, you need to get out there. Creating content is important, but don’t focus it to your own domain. Be part of the conversation, any conversation, on the world wide web. If I can do it and see a 35% ROI after 20 months, so can you. Depending on your product and resources, you can beat mine…and you may already have!
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{ 11 comments }
Congratulations Ari. This is quite an achievement in 20 months.
Congratulations on your milestone!
.-= New from Paul@diabetis: Apothecary Diabetic ID Bracelet =-.
I always know someone is saying something useful when the headline is something like “…in 20 months” as opposed to “… in 5 minutes.” And, as such, this is very good advice.
Thanks, Josh. All I can advise you on for 5 minutes is how to brush your teeth.
Twitter: DannyBrown
October 7, 2009 at 7:58 PM
You make a really important point in your closing, Ari. It’s great to have content; it’s great to be on Twitter, or Facebook, or LinkedIn, or anywhere else. That’s all ideal for raising people’s awareness of you. But to really get noticed, sharing ideas, opinion and adding to the conversations taking place elsewhere is incredibly important, and beneficial. And apart for the Google love, you never quite know who you’ll bump into on someone else’s blog. Like some of the folks you’ve named here – now I want to go check them out.
Cheers!
.-= New from Danny Brown: Do You Want Fries With That? =-.
What a fun and easy way to get noticed and build content on the web! Yesterday, I took a risk and left a comment in a new forum. Sherdog is mostly men talking about mixed martial arts and fighting. I felt self-conscious. So silly! This post has inspired me to go back in and contribute to the conversation. It will get easier!
BTW, my most recent post sounds ominous, but it’s really funny! No one was harmed.
Not sure what you mean about the keywords – would I enter Cheryl@yourkeywords?
.-= New from Cheryl from thatgirlisfunny: Administering The Eye Gouging Thumb Strike =-.
Nicely done. Web presence is entirely up to the blogger. If you write good stuff it is impossible to not achieve good results.
There are so many available avenues to pursue online nowadays that replicating your success should just be a matter of a little bit of elbow grease. As noted above, facebook, twitter, and a ton of social bookmarking sites out there can be helpful as well as the comments.
.-= New from Seth Sym: Picking the Right Men’s Ring =-.
Not sure if I agree. I`ve seen a lot of really good blogs that have had really good content, but they havent had a lot of visitors nor made any money.. On the other hand I`ve ran several crappy ones that have made quite a buck and had a lot of visitors..
Congrats, a job well done in very short time
.-= New from Aaron@beste kredittkort: Gebyrfri Visa =-.
Twitter: DamonDay
January 7, 2010 at 12:42 AM
Hello Ari,
That is good news because blog commenting has been one of my main forms of building awareness to my new blog. I have been blogging for about six months now and it is very addicting. In six months I have built my blog up to a PR3 and have an alexa ranking of about 112,000. Mainly I have done exactly what you said in this post. You know a great side benefit of building your site with blog comments is that you come across a lot of great blogs that give you ideas for additional strategies. I have found, favorited and now follow many blogs that I only found because I was looking for blogs to participate in. Looking forward to checking out some more of your posts to see what else I can pick up.
.-= New from Damon@Debt Settlement: TASC – Just Another Marketing Gimmick =-.
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