When you send your resume to a hiring manager, meet someone new at a party, or add a Facebook friend, there’s a strong possibility that they will Google you. Are you confident that they’ll like what they see?
You don’t have to make a living as an influencer or blogger to care about your online presence. Even if you don’t use the internet in your professional life at all, it can be valuable to consider what your online life says about you. And if you do use the web professionally, having a well-crafted online presence can open new doors for your career.
But if you’re like most people, you’ve probably already spent some years posting things online without thinking much about how they reflect you. This means you need to do a bit of refining, so you can feel proud of what people see when they look you up. Not sure where to start? Here’s what you need to know.
Consider Your Brand
RELATED: How to Create a Personal Brand
Before you tackle this project, you might want to devote some time to defining your personal brand. Even if you don’t decide to build a complete and carefully defined personal brand, give it some consideration. This will help you know how to change your online presence, so it reflects you more accurately. You’ll also see that some of the steps listed here overlap with the steps required to build a personal brand.
Inventory Your Online Presence
Now, it’s time to make a list of everything about you that’s online. This includes all of your social media sites, email addresses, websites or online portfolios, mentions of you in other people’s posts or articles, and anything else.
Most importantly, you’ll need to focus on refining anything that has your name attached to it, since most people will Google you by name. (Make sure to Google yourself as part of this step.) However, keep in mind that even things posted under a pseudonym or private account can often be traced back to you with some mild online sleuthing. Consider whether those things will reflect you well if someone actually links them to you.
If you have both professional and personal accounts and sites, you may want to divide this inventory into two lists. While you’ll want to clean up the things on both lists, you can start with the professional ones first. But don’t forget that your personal and professional online life can easily overlap, too.
Define Your Goals
Now is an excellent time to figure out which, if any, goals you’d like your online presence to help you achieve. For example, are you hoping to get new clients for your business? To meet new potential friends? To grow a list of professional connections? Deciding what you want your online presence to help you do can drive the way you choose to refine it.
Make a Plan
