clifinar | self branding by clifinar | how to clifinar

Clifinar is a no-name for basically nothing, but it is a good example to show you how to run a self branding process using SEO practices.

CLIFINAR - INTRODUCTION

Today each person needs to promote himself and to actually become a brand. If you would search for clifinar at Google few days ago you would find nothing. Zero results for the keyword clifinar in the morning but there were some few results a bit later. If you will search for clifinar now you will probably find much more. Hopefully this page will be ranked first.

As I am working in a web marketing firm, we decided to practice and transfer a no-name (clifinar) to become a brand. We wish to take "clifinar" and give it a life and to check how far this can go with it.

What we start doing called self banding. We are using SEO practices to promote clifinar as a brand. In your case, other than clifinar, you will promote your own name.

Today each and one of us is to promote himself. We all want to be the 1st place whenever someone "Google" our name. We even like it better if we come up in all of the top 3-4 positions.

Self Branding According To The CLIFINAR Way

clifinar - Lesson #1: clifinar's digital ID

How to create an on-line presents according to the clifinar way?

1. First check yourself on Google. Search for your name, exactly like we searched for clifinar. We didn't have any competition but you will probably find some on your name. However, for most of us usually there isn't too much of a competition, unless your name is John Smith.

2. Start to create content using your name and bring it on line. Make sure it is a positive content and that it tells your story. You can set up a blog with your name and start writing about yourself (café the marker and others) , you can write talkback at news portals such as Ynet. Use your full name and show how smart you are :-)

You can make sure that your name will appear on your company's web site (on the "about us" chapter or at "our team").

3. You can write comments on articles using your name. You can write articles about your job or about your field and upload it to syndication sites such as http://www.articles.co.il/ or http://www.reader.co.il/

4. Make sure you use your full name for the one you want to get ranks for. Clifinar has currently 12 results at Google.com came and check it out in a few days

Homework for clifinar Lesson #1:

Create yourself a digital identity.

A Facebbok profile, you own blog or any other on-line presence.

Make sure to check if the page was index by Google few days later.

clifinar - Lesson #2: clifinar's added value

How to develop your brand according to the clifinar way?

So now that you have a digital ID, it is time to deal with quality.

When you create the content make sure you give added value to your reader. There are many brands around and your goal is to be the best. It is the same way as I am doing with the brand clifinar.

If my goal is to rank well for clifinar, I need people to like this page. People are more important than search engines...

But when you have the people, you most probably have the search engines too.

Clifinar's added value tips are:

1. You goal is to set a correlation between you brand (your name) and a expertise in your field. Make sure you choose to write on things you are good at.

I decided to create a correlation between clifinar to self branding, as a part of SEO Practices.

2. Understand what poeple are intersted in. Understand their needs and upply it with your content.

3. Create loyalty by making them to come back and read your content.

4. Know more. Learn more about your expertise. read and explore it .

5. Be innovative, original and interesting. Give them things they didn't have before.

Homework for clifinar Lesson #2:

Write interesting post at your blog and get 5 comments for it.

Alternatively, open a discussion at a forum and make sure you have at least 5 comments for it.

clifinar - Lesson #3: Quality traffic by the clifinar way

how to generate traffic to your page?

A good signal for performing lesson 2 would be traffic.

If people like what you have to offer them, they will come back. They might also recommend your page to a friend by linking to your page.

The more quality links to your page the more "power" your page will have.

The more "power" to your page the more ranking your page will have at search engines. This is the natural way; however, we can help it work faster. According to the clifinar way, you better act in order to get relevant links to your page.

clifinar tips for links are:

1. Relevancy - make sure your sources of links are relevant to your world. In case you're a lower and you want to brand yourself as a lower, get links from sites, blogs, and forums that deal with the legal world.

2. Quality - the more authority the source has the better. Google's page rank is an important parameter to look at. PR 10 is the highest and 0 is the lowest. Try to get links from sites which 5 and above.

3. Quantity - the more links the better.

4. Anchor text - Use anchor text in your links. It is the clickable text used in links. Search engines pay attention to the anchor text used to link to a page to help understand the theme of the target page. For example: clifinar, in which "clifinar" is the anchor text.

5. Variety - Work to get variety of links: from directories, blogs, portals and forums.

Homework for clifinar Lesson #3:

Get 10 good links to your page.

clifinar - Lesson #4: feedback and improvement by the clifinar way

How to improve your page ranking?

Now that you have your digital presents, you wrote some relevant and valuable content, you even got some in-bound links, it is time to check the current position at Google (If you check clifinar, you will see this page as the second result because I follow the clifinar ways of self branding).

The idea is to monitor and improve.

clifinar tips for feedback are:

1. Check your name's position at Google.

2. Make sure you waiting few days since your last moves.

3. Explore those are ahead of you. understand what they did better then you and create line of moves to improve.

Homework for clifinar Lesson #4:

Explore the 1st position and write down a list of 3 good things they did.Reading Materials on self branding (not clifinar):

http://personalbrandingblog.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/do-you-have-the-ego-for-self-googling/

clifinar - Lesson #5: Stay Fresh according to the clifinar way

how to maintain good ranking of your page?

OK, you Google yourself and BOOM your page is at top position.

It is not the time to rest! Now the maintenance work starts.

You need to keep refreshing the content, keep adding more and more relevant details. The updates frequency depends on the level of competition. In the general matter, Google like "changing" sites and web pages.

Keeping the old staff untouched might drag your page dawn Google's results page. I wish to rank well for clifinar and therefore I keep refreshing this page. As you can see This page is currently the second result at Google.com This dynamic page will have more insights to share. Stay tuned.

No homework for today :-)

Clifinar - Lesson #6: Things you should not do when self branding according the clifinar way

What to avoid from doing?

There are some actions that might cause you damage.

Some actions are considered wrong practices.

Below is a list of thing not to do:

1. Duplicate content - avoid that. Google tracks duplicate content and "punish" its owner with bad ranking.

2. Over dose of links - Make sure you keep a normal links to content ratio. Too many links will look that the page was over optimized and might "irritate" Google.

3. Keyword stuffing - make sure your content is readable for human readers as well as for the search engines. The rule is human first, the search engine second.

4. Same Meta Tags - create unique Meta tags for each page you create. Don't input the same one for all.

5. Shadow Domains and Doorways sites are bad. Avoid of using them. Clifinar - Lesson #7: Reasons to run a self branding process according to the clifinar way

What benefits can you gain out of a clifinar self branding proccess?

1. Getting a good job - Most potential employees will Google your name before the interview. They will try to verify detail you wrote on your CV.

With clifinar's self branding you can support your CV. Don't get me wrong here. Stick to the truth, however you can "market" yourself in a "decorated" way.

2. Getting a good wife / Husband - In case you have a blind date and your date knows you name. He / She will most probably Google your name. Let her /him find what you want them to find.

3. Ego - we all like to see our name on the TOP of the list.

This exactly why I enjoy being the very first result for "clifinar"

Clifinar - Lesson #8: patient pays off

When thing are getting not as expected and you are not ranking as you wished. Maybe even you already ranked well but suddenly you find your self pushed down on the result page.

Clifinar will advise you to do the following:

1. Don't Panic.

2. Wait a few days and don't make any changes with your pages. Most probably you are witnessing the "Google Dance" - a phenomenon where differing Google's data centers presenting differing SERPS. Results fluctuation and surprising rise or fall in rankings is indication for this "dance". In many cases the results will return into its previous status. So be patient.

3. In case you competitor remain first for few day, run some checks to understand what did he do better and improve your page SEO elements.