How To Make Google Love Your Twitter Profile

I wrote a post the other week about How to Make Google Love Your LinkedIn Profile and this week the turn has cometh to Twitter. Although you have far less space to write about yourself on Twitter, there are a few tricks you should be aware of to optimize your profile for search engines.

Good news, your name already ranks well on Twitter

Do a search for your name on Google; I bet your Twitter profile will come up on the first page (as will your LinkedIn profile). This means Google already loves Twitter in terms of search engine rankings for your name.

This means that if someone is checking you out online (a potential customer or employer), they are very likely to find your Twitter profile along with your blog, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.

Now let’s rank well for your keywords

When a potential customer or employer know what they are looking for but not who, they are likely to search using keywords. Let’s say you are looking for an SEO guru on Twitter, you are likely to search with keywords.

Using Twitter Search, Twellow or Twazzup you can enter “SEO consulant” and you’ll get a result for everyone doing this on Twitter. Now consider that people run these searches every day. From journalists to recruiters, searches are constantly being run online for individuals with your skills.

To get your ranking well for keywords you can add the keyword to your twitter user name; @YourName could be @YourNameSEO for instance. This will give you a significant boost as most people search for user names.

If you think this looks a bit spammy you can simply change the Twitter name, meaning the box just above the location where you fill your own name in. Change this to “Your Name KEYWORD” if you like.

The other obvious thing to do is adding keywords to your 160 character bio. The best way to do this is simply to list what you do, e.g. “SEO consultant helping companies being found on Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Jeeves and other search engines”. Anyone searching for any of these terms or a combination of these terms will get you on their radar.

As you can see I have put a few keywords on my own bio for this very reason. For more on bios, check out How to Breathe Life into Your Twitter Bio.

Let’s get you ranking well for location

And let’s face it – there will be lots of SEO experts on Twitter so the search will definitely use a location to narrow down the search results. So on top of punching in “SEO consultant” they will add a location like “Birmingham”. This will pull up all the SEO ninjas in Birmingham in a simple search.

To ensure you get on a search for your location, you will want to fill in your location info properly. Before you do this, think about your target audience. Are you a global blogging persona? Probably best to put your nearest big city, let’s say New York.

If you are a property surveyor in a specific area, probably best to localize it as much as possible so go with Hoboken, you could even state South West Hoboken. The more specific your location, the more specific interest you will get from people on Twitter.

The localization is one of this tool’s greatest strengths. Twitter is a global tool with a fantastic reach but in my opinion, it’s best at creating local communities. Every town, borough, parish, arrondissement and quarter has its own Twitter feed nowadays and it brings local folks together – and now they will all find you.

I used to have “London, UK” as my location but recently changed to “Covent Garden, London, UK” and it has generated quite a lot of interest which is exactly what I intended. Reaching the world is great but there are seven million people in central London who I can start with :-)

Your website link

If you want Google to love your Twitter profile, you’ll have to link it either to a site carrying your own name, your keywords or your location. If you don’t have your own blog, this might be a good time to set it up. In my case, I’m linking to my company site and in fact even to the company blog so that visitors will go straight to our content.

Whatever you do link your profile to, don’t use a link shortener here as the search engines won’t pick up on the original URL.

Google could even love your photo

As I mentioned in a previous post, renaming your profile picture with your name, keywords, location etc will also help your rankings. Search engines robots can’t actually see images but they do look at the image file names. So instead of using “myphoto.jpg”, try “john-smith-birmingham-seo.jpg”. It’s a mouthful I know but it won’t be visible to anyone but your new buddy Google.

Can you add any more Twitter SEO tips? Please share in the comments!

Related: How to Make Google Love Your LinkedIn Profile.

Filed Under: Google, Monthly, SEO, Twitter Tagged With: , , ,

How to Write a Bio in 7 Simple Steps

A well crafted and brief professional bio has become increasingly important as most of us suffer from information fatigue and cannot be bothered to read lengthy documents about anybody. Career and marketing experts reckon your bio is the most important document you will ever write (probably along with your personal brand statement).

A bio is useful for a host of reasons such as applying for a job, publishing an article or guest blog post, general networking etc. It’s basically a great vehicle for quickly communicating who you are and what you do.

You are likely to have a bio somewhere on the Internet already. If you write a blog, it will be your About page. If you are on LinkedIn, it will be your summary. If you are on Twitter, it will be your, wait for it… Bio! These three most probably have different lengths, with the minnow being Twitter that only allows for a 140 letter bio.

As writing a professional bio is the hottest thing since sliced bread, you best get on with it and follow these simple steps to do your personal brand proud. Here are 7+1 tips:

1. Identify your purpose

Why are you writing this bio? Who will read it? You need to take some time to think about your readers and what you want them to think about you. People write anything from professional bios for getting free lance work, a comedy bio full of in-jokes for your friends or a bio for the back of their next piece of pulp fiction. Keep your audience in mind when authoring your bio.

2. Third person perspective

This is your Harry Lime moment. Your bio should sound as though it were objectively written, although it is obviously anything but. If you look at any book cover, the bio will be in the narrative mode even though the author has probably written it themselves. So instead of writing “I have lived in Switzerland and I speak 3 languages”, try “John has lived in Switzerland and he speaks 3 languages”.

3. Micro, Short and Long

You will need a micro, a short and a longer bio for different purposes. You will find that your bio will be requested in different lengths and therefore it’s advisable to keep three or even more versions. The micro bio is basically a sentence that you can use as your elevator pitch and on your Twitter profile. The short one should be one paragraph long and cover all the need to knows. The longer one adds the nice to knows and should sum you up completely. As a rule of thumb, the shorter one should be roughly a hundred words; the long one could be up to one page.

4. Start with your name

You will want to put your name in the first sentence of your bio so the reader catches on and realizes what they are reading. Just like when you are introduced to somebody, you will start with your name and then move on to pleasantries.

5. State your business

Just like a resume, you want to drop your occupation and accomplishments in there early. The reader needs to be hooked and enticed to keep reading. An example would be to write that you are an “open market sales person” and you have “increased sales by 200%” in your current position – music to the ears of any sales manager.

6. Throw in some personality

Add some flavor to your bio by including something unexpected. This can be a bit of humor or just curious information that you think people will be interested in, such as you being a fine wine connoisseur – already a topic for conversation. I am sure you have read words to this effect at the end of a bio: “and in his spare time, he really enjoys writing about himself in the third person”. A little witty twist at the end can tell a lot about your personality.

7. Contact details

End your bio with encouraging people to get in touch with you pronto. Add your contact details or hyperlink the content to ways of contacting you like your email, blog or LinkedIn profile.

Bonus: Read and rewrite

Finally, get your friends to proof your bio before you publish it anywhere. Remember that your bio is a living document and you should review it on a monthly basis. As it’s fairly short it won’t take you too long to make changes that can make or break your potential opportunity.

Conclusion

Your bio is getting more and more important and you should make sure it sells you and brings out your personal brand. I hope these tips have been helpful, now that you have a great bio, remember to reach out to the right people and keep tweaking as your career and business evolve.

Any questions on bios? Just leave a comment and will do my best to answer!

Filed Under: Events, Personal Branding Tagged With: ,

How Your Bio Will Help You Attract Business

Professional bios are no longer just for authors, musicians and politicians. Anyone that has an online presence, that is pitching for work, who works in a front office capacity, will need one. This article looks at what a bio is, where it is used and why you need to get one written up sooner rather than later.

What is a bio?

A bio is the story-based version of your professional life. The information provided is similar to that of your CV or resume but the format is less formal. You are free to highlight the bits of your career you are proud of and omit anything that won’t help you. As it is a story, you can throw in interesting snippets about yourself and thus injecting some personality into your bio.

The purpose of a bio is to tell the reader who you are and what you do, listing your experience and achievements, and backing your claims up with facts and figures. All these parts will form the credibility of your personal brand.

Where is a bio used?

Your bio can be used a across a number of situations, here are a few:

  • The “About” page on your website and/or blog, visitors click on this to find out about YOU, not the version of WordPress you use.
  • The bio/summarty/about section of your social media profiles. This is what most people will find when Googling your name. You will need a longer bio for sites like LinkedIn, a micro version for Twitter.
  • In any marketing materials, proposals and quotes you send out to prospective customers.
  • Submitted for public speaking, presenting or training pitches (for speaking, you could also use a one-sheet). Designed to give the event organizer a quick overview of what you can do and hopefully book you.
  • Included in any publications such as books, e-books, reports, professional documents and even guest blog posts you author.
  • Job search, employers will definitely look at your online bio and oftentimes request it along with your CV or resume as it is more concise than your other documents.

Why do you need a bio?

To stay professional and credible in the eyes of current and potential clients. Every entrepreneur, business owner and professional should develop his or her professional biography today. Whenever you email or leave a message for someone you never dealt with before, you can expect to be checked out online. Your bio is a brand building marketing tool that will entice the reader to want to contact you.

There is stiff competition out there and for you to differentiate, it’s imperative you have a well crafted bio that points out what makes you unique. Your professional bio gives a quick showcase of what sets you apart from the crowd. A bio tells whoever reading it that you are not just doing your day job to pay the rent, it’s your passion and you are proud to tell the world about it. Your bio is the foundation of your personal branding toolkit and it’s potentially the most important text you write in your professional life.

Bottom line

A winning bio can tip the balance in your favor. It’s all about first impressions, and your bio is probably read before you even meet the reader. A convincing bio allows potential customers, business partners and investors to understand your strengths and achievements, hopefully leading to more business coming your way.

And remember, the best part of having a great bio is that it can be used again and again, and you are free to update it whenever you feel like it.

Filed Under: Monthly, Personal Branding Tagged With:

How to Get Speaker Bookings: Write a Fact One-Sheet

One of the best free ways to market yourself to your target audience is to take on speaking engagements in your field. I do this quite a lot in the London meetup circuit and I would like to share some tips on how to get booked to talk.

When you speak before a group of people, you generate lots of interest and you will have plenty of opportunities to chat with potential customers. Compare this to a normal meeting where you do your pitch to one or two people, it’s obviously more efficient to do it to ten or twenty prospects in one go.

Expert status

By giving talks on specific topics you establish yourself as an expert or even a thought leader. Being seen as someone that really knows their stuff will lead to increased interest from peers and customers. The more you are seen, the more you are likely to be mentioned and interviewed in the media, both online and offline. If you have a site or a blog, you will notice that your visitor stats can skyrocket after a good speech. Your increased exposure will in turn lead to more enquiries, business and hopefully allow you to increase your rates.

How to get speaking engagements

How do you pitch yourself and your speaking prowess to meetups, seminars and conferences? You obviously have to find out who does the bookings of speakers. The best way to convince this person to book you is by sending over a speaker one-sheet, basically a one pager outlining what you talk about and why they should book you.

Just like a resume is screened by an employer, the speaker sheet will be reviewed by the event planner and it needs to provide this person with enough compelling information to get you booked in. Here are the main five bits of content your speaker fact sheet should contain:

1. Name and photo

You will need a photo that brings out your personality and stays consistent with the topics you are proposing to speak about. The photo is critical to your personal brand as images tend to be remembered long after the text.

2. Topics and benefits

What exactly do you speak about? List a few of your ‘greatest hits’ talks and how they were received. What are the benefits to the audience, why do they need to listen to you? You can write what problem you are looking to solve and what others thought of your presentations.

3. Bio

The short biography will tell the reader what you have done in the past, what makes you an expert on your topic and where you have spoken recently. Just like your normal bio, make sure to stay concise, write what you do for others and back it up with evidence. Drop any prominent names that you think could be familiar to the reader.

4. Contact information

Your call to action has to be followed up with your contact details. Give the reader a range of options to contact you (phone, email, site, social media etc) so that they can use their preferred method.

5. Testimonials

This is where you let others sing your praises. List quotes from previous event planners and even audience members. Make sure to include glowing testimonials from a diverse set of people, so that any reader will be able to relate to the feedbacks you have received.

Final Note

Having a great looking speaker one-sheet doesn’t mean you now should spray and pray it to every event planner in town. Take your time to research the individual and personalize your message as best you can. Follow up with a phone call to make sure they have received it and to create some urgency. Best of luck with your speaking campaign!

To be a better speaker, check out our Personal Branding workshops which cover your communication skills!

Image credit JD Hancock

Filed Under: Events, Personal Branding Tagged With: , ,