In a moment you will learn how to build a personal brand and what are the advantages of this approach to your image. But let’s start with the basics. What is a personal brand associated with and what does it depend on?

Personal brand – what is it?

We can briefly say that a personal brand is the way other people perceive you, perhaps working in the same sector or in the same field. The image of an expert is the most frequently chosen image pursued by people working on a personal brand. If you are active in marketing, this image is very beneficial. We’ll tell you a little more why this is so in a moment.

A personal brand consists of everything that is related to your work and knowledge. Some items worth mentioning are:
– experience;
– education;
– profiles in social media (mainly LinkedIn);
– people you know and work with;
– the publications you create (blog, articles, social media entries);
– events in which you are participating;
– projects that you carry out.

Of course, there may be more such elements, but these are basic. As you can see, building a personal brand is actually a lifelong process. A personal brand is created over time and is constantly evolving. Donald Trump is a good example. Previously, he was seen as an ambitious entrepreneur operating in the hotel sector. Today, the vast majority of people know him as the controversial president of the United States.

It may be the same with you! Even if you started out in finance, it doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to develop in marketing. Many people built a personal brand in their forties or even later. It all really depends on what you are aiming for.

Personal brand: why build a personal brand?

Short answer: to help you achieve your goals. Let us consider for a moment what the image of an expert gives you? Let’s say people see you as an SEO guru. You have earned this position with your hard work – for several years you have been publishing regularly both on your blog and on social media. You give interviews and statements to the media and industry reports. You are a speaker at marketing events. How can you “cash” this output?

Most often, you are faced with three options:

A. You can start your own business that will operate in the area you specialize in. Because people associate you, there is a good chance that you will quickly obtain lucrative contracts and you will not run out of orders for many years ahead. This option was chosen by, for example, Neil Patel. He is currently creating an agency that helps clients grow on the Internet. When you enter his website, you will see that practically everything is branded with his image – from services to blog entries.

B. You can become a recognizable freelancer and provide your services to the largest companies or conduct training. If “managing” a large company is not your dream, you can still work independently and on your own account. A good example here is Kurt Thomas, who runs a blog and website under her brand name. Kurt specializes in WordPress and has built a strong brand and recognition in this market. And all this without the “back office” of a large agency!

C. You can continue to blog and earn money on it. The mere fact of blogging, as long as it is regular and high-quality work, opens the way to many business opportunities. Probably the best example here will be Mark Lee from the blog How to Save Money. Thanks to his blog, Mark has gathered a huge community with over 156,000 fans on Facebook alone. He also published two books on which he earned huge money. It proves that a good blog idea combined with persistence can be a good source of income.

Are any of these options better? No, everything really depends on your expectations and preferences. A personal brand should be built so that you are satisfied with it.

Personal brand: advantages

People who enjoy a solid personal brand take part in interesting and well-paid projects. During the negotiations, they dictate the terms. Both large companies and advertisers want to cooperate with them. This means that – sooner or later – you will not need a permanent full-time job to support yourself. New development opportunities will open up for you, and how you use them depends only on you.

Certainly, an important advantage of a strong personal brand is that you do not have to convince anyone to cooperate with you. Your image has done it for you before. So if you are competing for an important client or looking for partners for a new project, you can expect others to be eager to work with you. Remember that a strong personal brand translates into trust that is key in business. People trust you because you know what you are doing and get good results. And it is crucial in building a personal brand.

Personal branding: the goal

As we have already mentioned, the goals of personal branding depend only on you. You can set yourself the goal of creating a thriving company or agency that will give you a decent income. You can strive to become an influencer or a person who makes money by training others. You may even want to have your program on TV or publish a book – today the possibilities are virtually endless. It all depends on how successful you will be in your endeavors.

Personal branding

Personal branding is, in short, a process to help you build and maintain the right personal brand. You can do it in person or use external support from a branding agency or personal branding consultant. Regardless of which path you choose, you need to be aware that building a personal brand is a long process (years, not months) and does not have to be successful. Why?

First of all, due to the huge competition and the multitude of communication channels. Regardless of what field you want to cover, there are surely dozens of other people who are doing exactly the same as you.

Does that mean it’s not worth trying? No way! However, if you want to be successful, you must first of all have a well-thought-out strategy, implement it successively and be patient and persistent. Let’s talk more about the strategy itself.

Personal branding strategy, or how to start building a personal brand?

First, start with a solid analysis of yourself. Ask yourself a series of questions:
– What do I do / what do I want to do?
– Why is my job / knowledge useful?
– Do I know how to interest others with it?
– Do I have evidence of the effectiveness of my solutions?
– How do I want to promote myself and communicate with others?

Do I have the time and resources to build a personal brand instead of doing something that will bring a profit right away (or: do I have the strength to build a personal brand after hours?).

These are just a few questions that will give you a good starting point. Consider point five in particular. You have blogs, podcasts, newsletters, social media entries, YouTube recordings, webinars at your disposal – choose the channels where you feel good. And not all at once.

The next step is to identify the places of action and build the so-called plan content. Especially at the beginning, it is worth feeding the blog / channel with entries so that it does not look “poor” when someone views it. Plan your first 10-15 publications and start creating and uploading them to your channel. Only when something starts to happen on the channel, you can think about the next step, i.e. promotion.

That’s right, today it will be extremely difficult to build a personal brand without any advertising. You will just get lost in the crowd, even if you have something important to say. Performance marketing works the fastest, i.e. actions focused on a specific result (clicks, views, newsletter subscriptions, etc.).

The next step is to show yourself in the industry. You can try to publish guest posts on other blogs and websites, attend events and meetings, and even participate in forums and groups on Facebook. The point is for as many people as possible to associate you and value your contribution.

Finally, let’s say about one more element that is extremely important when it comes to building a personal brand.

The key to success: unique, interesting knowledge and an equally attractive way of communicating it

We have to say it openly – you will not succeed without it. If your posts are simply a conglomerate of what you find online, don’t count on success. People are looking for effective solutions and unique knowledge supported by experience. Therefore, it is best to first gather a lot of knowledge and experience yourself, and only then pass it on to others. Copy-paste here won’t work.

What about the way of imparting knowledge? This is something that must come naturally to you. If you are embarrassed by the performances in front of the camera – give it up. People will quickly sense that you are not at ease. Choose a channel that will help you spread your wings. And constantly work on your workshop. Wonder if what you write about is interesting and well written? Will the reader get any real benefit from reading the post or watching this video? If not, be sure to correct it before posting such material.

At the very beginning of this question, the question of keywords? With confidence or voting services that they are words typed by Google surfers. In other words, phrases are a set of phrases that allow you to characterize the content (text, image, video) and its key keywords in search engines. To temporarily help, the Internet user searches for information on the Internet.

Why is the selection of key phrases important?

Keywords are specific hints for Google and other search engines, thanks to which they can learn important information about the site, understand its subject, learn about the services and products offered or the location. Keyword selection is the first step towards effective SEO which leads to more organic visits to your site and therefore more conversions and sales. It is important that keywords are relevant to each of your target groups at every stage of the shopping journey. Thanks to this, you can reach a wider audience and increase the chances of sale. Before we get to the chase, let’s take a look at the types of keywords available.

A. Generic keywords
Short phrases of up to three words. Internet users usually use them at the beginning of their search. Due to their large number and competitiveness, they are characterized by a low conversion rate.

B. Long tail phrases
Long tail keywords are more than 3 words long. They are quite specific and have fewer searches than the leading keywords. Their main advantage is less competitiveness. More importantly, users using these types of keywords are usually determined to make a purchase.

C. Semantic keywords
These are terms closely related to your main keyword, which means that in order to get a semantic keyword, you have to select your main keyword first. This type of phrase works great when used in posts and blog posts.

D. Local keywords
These types of phrases are especially useful for small local businesses where customers from a specific geographic region predominate. This is the easiest type of keyword to identify as it stems directly from your target business area.

Keywords are the link between what users are looking for and the content you provide to meet their needs. The type of traffic you get will depend on the terms you choose to apply. In order to successfully select keywords for positioning, it is necessary to conduct a keyword research.

Keyword research

SEO keyword research allows you to better understand your target market, audience needs and how they search for content, products or services online. Whether you are a blogger, website owner, or internet marketer, this step is fundamental to SEO optimization. Thanks to the keyword research in search engines, you will learn how Internet users search for your product or service, and thus you will be able to adjust the content of your website to their needs. In addition, search engines will be able to better understand the contextual relevance of your page. This means a better chance of getting the traffic of the desired quality.

Google keywords – how to do the research?

Choosing the most important terms is a more complicated job than you might think. It takes time and a lot of criteria to figure out how to write keywords. First, try to guess what expressions are used by Internet users who are looking for your products and services. Be creative and think about what might get your target audience to click on your site on Google.

Create an image of the perfect recipient

Your goal is to attract qualified traffic. By making sure you are attracting the right visitors, you increase your chances of improving your conversion rate. So, early on in your organic SEO strategy, try to describe your ideal user. Ask yourself questions that will help you define it, for example:
– What is he looking for?
– What language does he use?
– How old is he?

Think about the needs of your audience

People use search engines to find an answer to a question and keywords allow them to formulate it. Instead of thinking directly about key phrases, think about potential questions from users who need your product or service. To help you research your keywords, you can draw inspiration from the most common questions that customers ask. Also, do not hesitate to consider the suggestions offered by Google when typing a keyword into the search bar.

Think literally

The fact that you are perfectly familiar with the product or service you offer may make it difficult for you to understand someone who is unfamiliar with your industry. As a specialist, you probably use completely different terms than your customers do. However, avoid using specialized vocabulary to describe your offer, as your audience may not understand it. If you use technical jargon, only your colleagues or competitors will visit your site.

How to check keywords? The best tools

There are many tools and techniques for creating a keyword list based on a single idea. However, not all tools are created equal. In order for your keyword research to be successful, it is absolutely imperative that you have a tool with keyword ideas and the relative ratios of one keyword in relation to another. So how do you identify the most searched keywords? We present a list of tools that can help you with this.

GOOGLE KEYWORD PLANNER
When looking for a way to choose Google keywords, first of all, it is worth using the well-known and powerful Google Keyword Planner, which is integrated with Google AdWords and offers a number of functions for finding inspiration and analyzing relevant queries. This tool is a free keyword generator that will help you build your SEO strategy. After entering a few phrases, the tool quickly displays other related searches, including monthly searches, traffic forecast, and competition index.

UBERSUGGEST
Recently acquired by Neil Patel, Ubersuggest is another reputable online service that can help you find keywords based on one or more phrases. The tool works equally well for searching in English, as well as in German, Spanish or French. Ubersuggest also comes as a free Chrome extension that is always ready to use quickly.

KEYWORD TOOL
If you’re lacking in inspiration and looking for a keyword generator, be sure to check out KeywordTool.io capabilities to generate hundreds of SEO keyword ideas. The tool uses Google suggestions, but in the paid version you will also get access to suggestions from YouTube, Bing, Amazon, eBay, Play Store, Instagram or even Twitter. KeywordTool.io also has an API with which you can get data for competitor analysis.

SENUTO
Senuto is a SaaS-based SEO analytics platform that provides data that enables you to easily track and manage your website’s position in search engines. The keyword database allows you to find both generic phrases and long-tail keywords or semantically related words, regardless of the country and target language. Senuto also offers the ability to create your own set of phrases and access to numerous statistics and filters for sorting results.

SEMSTORM
SEMStorm is a free tool to help you with your long tail keyword research. When you enter any keyword, the software generates numerous hints. You can select a specific country or region, as well as up to five cities, to effectively promote your local business with key phrases. The suggestions are presented in a visual form, thanks to which their analysis takes less time.

AHREFS
Ahrefs Keyword Generator is a free toolkit for finding a large number of keyword ideas in any niche. Ahrefs’ keyword database is huge. It currently has over 8 billion search queries, so you can get tons of keyword ideas for any search term. In addition, Ahrefs offers its users free training materials and a helpful community and customer service.

ANSWER THE PUBLIC
Do you want to find search suggestions for autocomplete on google? Maybe you want to check what keywords users enter in a popular search engine? You should try Answer The Public. This is an amazing and free long tail keyword checker that visualizes web surfers’ questions related to a given phrase. Just enter any password to find out what Google users are asking about.

How do SEO keywords on your site?

Determining the semantics of the content and the correct placement of keywords on your website is one of the most important optimization criteria for Google. To find out where to add keywords on your site, it’s a good idea to learn the basics of content semantics.

Content prioritization

It is widely accepted that Google and other search engines give importance to where keywords are added on a website. This localization has a huge impact on the page’s ability to position itself on the key phrase. The main locations are:
– title: the title is specified by the tag: <title> The title of my page </title>. This is probably the most important tag for website positioning;
– H1 tag: looks like <h1> my title </h1>. This is the title that must appear first in the body of each page. Like a cover book, your page should have a clear title that briefly describes it;
– content: it is worth ensuring that the vocabulary used in the content of the website is integrated with the subject that the internet user expects to find on the website. We strongly recommend placing the main (or very close) key phrase in the first paragraph of the text on the page (under H1);
– meta description tag: this tag looks like: <meta name = “description” content = “tag content here” />. In most well-designed CMSs, it is possible to manage this tag individually for each page. The meta description tag has no direct effect on the positioning of a website on demand. However, it is recognized that this can have a strong impact on the click-through rate in Google’s results.

The image and its ALT attributes

To improve the positioning of your website, it is worth describing the images with the ALT attribute. It is especially important when the image is clickable. Alt text not only enables the visually impaired person to display the content of this tag in a specialized browser instead of the image itself, but also adds a description to images that can be read by Google and other search engines and thus visible in image search results.

Preview the texts of the competition

If your goal is to be in the top ten results of Google search engines, you should know how to check keywords in text created by competitors to position yourself on the first page of your target query and find inspiration on how to position your keywords appropriately. It’s common practice, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

You can use the SEMrush tool to do this, which allows you to view the ranking factors of almost any domain. In addition, with the SEMrush tracker, you can access the URLs that are ranked for each keyword, which will help you understand which content marketing elements work well for your competitors.

An effective way to identify your competitors’ keywords is to look at the source of their website in your web browser. Once on the page, right-click open a window that displays the HTML source code and look for the title tag, meta description, optional keyword tag, and any image title tags or phrase alt tags your competition is using. To find good results quickly, start by listing sites that belong to the same industry as you. This will give you the first keyword list to analyze.

Get started today!

As you may have noticed, choosing keywords requires strategy, imagination and patience. We hope that our guide will help you build a list of effective keywords, assign them to different pages on your site and become number 1 on the Internet. However, if you would like to learn more about building a list of keywords or you need expert support who will improve the SEO of your domain – please contact us. We will be happy to know the characteristics of your business and help you generate more qualified traffic to your site.

Q&A

A. When should I do my keyword analysis?
It is a good idea to analyze keywords before building your website and regularly as part of updating the content on the website.

B. Is keyword density on the page important?
Website owners often feel that putting a keyword in the text multiple times will help them rank higher on Google. It’s not true. It is enough to put your key phrase in 3-4 places in the content. If you insert it too many times, you risk distorting the text and making it less pleasant for Internet users to read.

C. Is it necessary to include the keyword in the domain name?
For many years, domains containing keywords have been favored by Google. Currently, however, with the update of the algorithm, this SEO technique has become ineffective, so having a domain name containing the keyword phrase is not a necessary condition.

Unlike analogue directories, Internet search engines have the ability to catalog information in more detail. With the help of web robots – programs that absorb information about websites – they are able to collect data on the structure of the site and its content. Thanks to the knowledge accumulated by the bot, the search engine is able to choose the answers to the queries of its users. The library equivalent of a search engine would be its employee, manually (thanks to knowledge and experience) searching for books for the reader.

What is website positioning in search engines?

Search engine positioning aims to show robots that it is our site that best answers the question, and at the same time is convenient for the user. The SEO process is primarily about adapting the website to the rules set by search engines – an algorithm that determines the order of results in SERPs.

What affects position? Initially, the keywords and the number of links to the page were relevant. With the growing page base and changing user expectations, the number of factors affecting positioning has begun to increase. In the case of Google, it is estimated that as of today, robots analyze about 200 different signals on the basis of which they determine the site’s ranking position. To limit the possibility of manipulation of results, some of the factors are kept secret and Google employees provide rather evasive answers on this topic. Information on what helps websites climb search results is obtained not only from official search engine guides, but also from external tools and tests, the results of which are positioned by positioners in industry media and forums. The experience of a specialist also plays an important role here, as he has survived more than once!

Positioning is primarily talked about in the context of Google. It is this search engine that is the most frequently chosen way to search for information. However, this type of services is provided by:

Yandex – a Russian search engine of great importance in Russia and its neighbors. Yandex holds a 50% market share in this region. It works on a similar principle as Google – page indexing can be controlled through the equivalent of Google Search Console, here called Yandex.Webmaster. The search engine also has its own set of rules according to which pages should be created. The income comes primarily from advertising.

Baidu – a browser created for the needs of the Chinese user.

Bing – a search engine created by Microsoft. It is much more popular in the US than in other countries. Its market share in the US is around 30%.

Yahoo – another search engine whose importance is noticeable primarily in the US. It owns 10% of the market, which places it in the 3rd place in the poll of the most popular search engines in the United States.

In addition, there are also Ask, DuckDuckGo and AOL on the market, but the number of searches through these services is a small percentage of the total.

Search engines and the state of your business

Statistics say that the average person performs about 3-4 searches per day and, according to another source, about 93% of internet experience begins in the search engine. Both information is valuable from a business point of view and can only lead to one conclusion – a search engine is a place where customers need to be found.

Business in 2020 without the Internet and Google does not exist. The search engine is the basic source of knowledge of the average internet user – most of us are looking for information for private use, some – also for the needs of our work and company. Wishing to open up to new customers and increase your income, it is worth playing with Google and try to adapt to the rules imposed by the search engine.

The skilful use of the search engine allows you to expand the advertising space in which your business may appear. A properly prepared and positioned website can not only inform about the services offered by the company, but also support the process of building the position of an expert in a given industry and increase brand awareness. Website positioning is compatible with other marketing activities and brings results not only directly during the campaign, but also when a potential customer needs it.

First steps in the Google world

It is not difficult to appear in the search engine, and Google willingly shares knowledge about taking the first steps in its environment. Guidelines and tips can be found not only on the support pages, but also in the courses. In the materials prepared by Google and partner companies, basic knowledge of Internet marketing – SEM, SEO and an introduction to tools provided by a search engine, e.g. Analytics, is provided in an accessible way.

General knowledge about the search engine environment helps to understand how search works, why you should set up a map and how the prices of ads in search results are shaped. Understanding the terms used in the Google context and the capabilities of the search engine help in setting marketing goals. Even basic knowledge of the search engine also facilitates cooperation with a positioner or an Ads specialist.

Where to start? First of all, putting up a modern, secure and fast website. The size of the website and the technologies used on it should be chosen according to the industry and the goals to be met by the website. And then…

A. Invite robots – sharing a page with web robots is tantamount to agreeing to appear in the search engine. The crawl program analyzes the structure, content and links coming to your site, allowing it to appear in search results.

B. Find out how they see you – the data collected by web robots can be controlled on a search engine – in Google, this is Google Search Console. This is where statistics about site indexing, search, and alerts about errors or problems detected by other tools. Controlling the status of the page in the Google index allows you to quickly respond to problems in the event of a breach of data security on the page and when the movement within the domain ceases.

C. Take care of the content and convenience of using the site – only and up to. The content of the page is important not only from the point of view of gaining high positions in search results, but also because of the end user – potential customer. It was he who asked the search engine the question that she is looking for the best answer. Preparation of content that will introduce him to the world of services offered and explain all the complexities of the industry in an accessible way, usually meet with a very positive response from customers and robots. They also help in building the right image of the company and increasing brand awareness.

Positioning on steroids

Positioning is a process that requires time, knowledge and experience. While in the case of small, local and sole proprietorships, activities on their own can be effective, the increase in coverage and more effective activities would require the extension of the day by another “day”. Do you prefer to reserve some time to rest? Take advantage of the professional help of a Paraphrase-Online.com specialist who will properly choose the methods and actions to increase the visibility of the site, and thus – traffic and sales!

Knowledge of Google search meanders saves a lot of time and money – the experience accumulated for years allows you to arrange a strategy tailored to the type of business and use methods that are effective in the fight for better places in search results.

The positioning of a website or online store in virtually every search engine begins with choosing the right set of keywords – passwords after which the user goes to the appropriate page of the site. Key phrases can be divided into so-called:

– short tail – phrases consisting of one or two words. They are characterized by a large number of searches and high competitiveness;
– long tail – phrases consisting of more keywords, with fewer searches and less competitiveness.

The words from the “short tail” look attractive at first glance – after all, any shoe store would like to be in the first position as a response to the query “shoes” … These types of slogans are usually occupied by large websites with adequate financial resources, allowing extensive actions for the highest positions. Interestingly, the phrases like “shoes” are not as effective as the slogans from the “long tail”, which more often lead to the purchase of the right model. Why is this happening? A specific question means a desire to know answers with similar characteristics, such as “pink children’s sports shoes”. Search results direct users to subpages containing the products they are looking for. The customer saves time and if he finds a matching shoe model – he will probably make a purchase.

When choosing keywords, you should consider words from both groups. It is also worth remembering that during the positioning process, the website casually begins to rank in search engines for other phrases. A whole set of activities is responsible for this, the main purpose of which is to improve the condition of the entire site. The positioning of websites in search engines resonates much more widely than you can imagine basically.

On Page – site from Google metro

On Page activities are the abovementioned “adapting to Google game rules”. Website optimization has a technical dimension, which includes:

– improved page rendering speed,
– Website display and indexing control on all devices,
– choosing appropriate titles and descriptions for subpages,
– adapting headlines to the requirements of Google’s art and guidelines,
– adjusting friendly links,
– selection and implementation of structural data.

The strategy and set of optimization actions are selected individually, according to what works a given page requires.

On Page activities also include work related to content creation and optimization. During the process, the positioner indicates places that should be supplemented with additional content or saturated with keywords.

Off Page – all roads lead to your site!

Off Page activities are everything that aims to get links directing to your domain. Sounds easy? In the olden days – yes! Today, however, links, link is not equal. Here you also need a strategy that allows you to collect links of different types and from different sources.

Off Page activities include, for example, creating sponsored entries, exchanging links with contractors, adding services and companies to catalogs, and obtaining reviews and opinions. Off Page activities are also indirectly linked to social media activity – a well-run Facebook profile is a great support for SEO and another source of traffic.

Website positioning – be the first in search engines!

In the first paragraph we mentioned what connects the library with the search engine, now let us pay attention to the differences between them. Suffice it to say one word – “change”. The order of library drawers is not subject to constant changes and modifications, the Google index and its equivalents in other search engines, yes.

The search engine algorithm is constantly being improved, and Google is changing its approach and putting more emphasis on other factors. A few years ago, there was talk primarily about “mobilegeddon” and “Mobile First Indexing”, and today UX issues are very important. Added to this are various smaller and larger changes, monitored on an ongoing basis.

Due to these changes, trends in user behavior and other factors, positioning websites in search engines should be treated as a process. Once done, the optimization will not last the test of time – especially during “hot” periods. To gain high positions and increase traffic it is necessary to keep the “mouse on the pulse”, monitor the results and, if necessary, modify the strategy.