rank and file

One of the things I learned from Mitch Joel when I started listening to the Six Pixels of Separation podcast was to know how you rank on web searches.

This wasn't about being vain, but about making sure if someone is looking for you (or your products or services) that they can find you.

If you are meeting someone for the first time - be that 1-to-1, in a sales/service capacity or going to hear them speak at an event, it's more likely that you'll look them up on a search engine (or LinkedIn) to get a bit of background. If someone is looking for you or I, what are they going to find?

I'm no SEO expert (at this point), but to that end I keep an eye on a few things in my Google Reader feeds. Twitter, Blog and Website searches on topics I'm interested in. Having a listening post is one of the first things you'd learn in Trust Agents.

I've discovered a fair few people with the same name:

If you search for "andy weir" on Google, you find these results.

If you search for theWeir on twitter (theWeir being my handle/username) you find these results.

To my surprise there were a few people using #theWeir as a hashtag on Twitter on Saturday. Fortunatley, they were talking about a West End show...

So, do you track your online persona - or those of your businesses or projects? What works well for you?