Bold statement? If you look at your options for managing your online reputation, you wouldn’t think so.
Brandyourself.com is the only free solution available to systematically reclaiming your Google search.
When co-founder Peter Kistler was looking for an internship as an undergrad at Syracuse University, he watched all of his friends get hired, while he lagged behind.
So he decided to Google himself and found another Peter Kistler showing up in search results with a criminal record.
His options were limited to hundreds of dollars on professional reputation services or doing it himself, but he didn’t have the skills (that’s where the other co-founder comes in).
As a technology blogger, I’d been following BrandYourself for the last two years; in fact, they even won a place in my book, “Job Searching With Social Media For Dummies”.
But looking at their market position again, now that they’ve re-launched with an attractive new user interface, I finally see how ahead of their times they were two years ago. Their platform, in fact their vision, is one of many new technology companies putting once complicated systems into the hands of the end-user, a movement coined, “The Consumerization of Technology”.
Where once SEO and personal reputation management required specialized skills or lots of money, now you just need to follow an online wizard.
The Consumerization of Reputation Management and SEO
Brandyourself.com leverages the principles of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, to help individuals align with the search engines in order to regain control over the results.
Here’s the problem Brandyourself solves. We know that anywhere between 70-85% of hiring managers are going to Google candidates going for jobs (depending on what study you read). And I’m guessing it’s more like 90% based on conversations I’ve had with hiring managers who deny that they Google candidates, but have told me stories of when they Google candidates (don’t ask!).
Those results that Google shows these hiring managers are, for the most part, outside of the control of most lay-people. Unless you are knowledgeable about SEO (or have read that chapter in my book), you probably feel quite helpless in changing these results.
Reputation.com offers a great service, but their prices are aimed primarily at mid-market managers or private practice lawyers, starting at $300 and going up into the thousands.
The rest of us have to hope that we might get a manager in that 10% group that doesn’t Google candidates. But hope is not a strategy.
In comes Brandyourself.com, starting at free and going all the way up to $9.99/month. Can someone say, “online reputation management for all!” Even with their free subscription, you’ll be able to make significant changes in how your profiles are set up to better influence the search engines.
It Does What it Says on the Tin
The new user interface for Brandyourself.com is easier than ever. It took me 10 minutes to optimize my LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles so that they are more likely to rank; then another 10 minutes to build my own website pre-built with all of the SEO bells and whistles that might cost you thousands of dollars to get done professionally.
As an experiment, I wasn’t able to see any immediate changes to my Google results; but how can you make perfect better! Ok, that was cocky, I know. But since I do already dominate my Google Search after four years of effort there really isn’t much more that can happen. So, I’m curious to see some real results from Brandyourself.com (and I’m sure they would love the case studies as well) from people who are unhappy with what Google shows about them (or their name).
So I would like to offer a little something to my loyal readers. The guys over at Brandyourself have offered you, my readers, a three month premium membership, for the first five of you to retweet this article and @reply @brandyourself, and 15% off premium membership for all runners up, this offer will run through the end of April.
In exchange, I want you to take a screenshot of your Google search results before you sign up, and then again at the end of 30 days. Email me both screenshots and you may win a chance to get featured on the Brandyourself blog (how’s that for building your personal brand!).
ps. if you don’t have my email address, it’s because you haven’t subscribed to my newsletter yet. Tisk Tisk.
It is hard to move on with your business if it has been blemished by some negative comments. Fixing reputation requires expertise. It’s about time somebody could get them fixed!
@softscaper Readers. If you are looking for a book on Amazon and it has 10 positive review and 1 negative review, would you still buy it? I would! Brandyourself has proven themselves over and over again. They are blazing a trail. But there are some people who don’t like change.
All I can say is, try their software. It’s free. If it get’s you results, you win. If not, you didn’t loose anything. Please remember that with change comes resistance. And those people who embrace new things will have first mover advantage.
Join me in supporting this young and innovative new company. I’m putting my weight behind these guys. That should mean something.
@JoshuaWaldman Hold on there buddy, I’m sure no one is wrongfully accusing a fellow traveler of not “liking change”. New inovation means everything to an early adapter such as myself, and I believe true game changers are able to stand up to any amount of scrutiny (especially with you back them up) wouldn’t you say? Patrick did a fine job in answer to both my first post and the one that was deleted. That said, allow me to join you in celebrating all innovation that with the test of time will blaze new trails.
@Johnosborn123 @JoshuaWaldman
Josh: Thanks for all the support. You know as much as anybody how important this is for many people and how confusing and expensive current solutions are. After using our product we’re happy to have you as a fan and supporter.
Johnosborn: I actually appreciate the skepticism and criticism. This is a tough industry where unfortunately you don’t always get what you pay for, and companies don’t always keep their promises. That’s the reason we came into this market in the first place. We were in need, and nothing in the industry served us right. While we have tons and tons of positive feedback and use cases, it’s the skeptics (and I thank you for being constructive) that keep us focused and on our toes 🙂
Thanks for the great article Josh
Johnosborn123: Our whole mission is based on the fact that we believe SEO is something everybody SHOULD be doing themselves. Right now, if you want to improve your search results, you need to pay a reputation company thousands of dollars to do it for you. That’s just not realistic or even necessary for the average person who just needs to control their own name, but has no idea how SEO works. That’s why 98% of our product is free, and even the premium features are just a few dollars a month
The point is but reputation companies mystify the SEO process so they can overcharge. We wanted to put the process is everybody’s hands. When you submit ANY link with us, we walk you through the same exact process a reputation copmany would charge for, so you can do it yourself. It could be your wordpress site, your Linkedin profile, an article written about you, anything. Our own profile is also automatically optimized to show up high for your name.
In terms of wasting your time on something “likely to rank”: nobody can guarantee results. Thats not how search engines work. It’s important to us people understand that you can’t simply “game” a search engine and any company that claims to do that is likely using “black hat” techniques and can get you banned.
“The new user interface for Brandyourself.com is easier than ever. It took me 10 minutes to optimize my LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles so that they are more likely to rank; then another 10 minutes to build my own website pre-built with all of the SEO bells and whistles that might cost you thousands of dollars to get done professionally.”
– Really?
They offer nothing that you cannot do yourself. The “SEO bells and whistle website” is nothing more than a glorified wordpress blog, which increases the strength of their own websites’ larger network. Something like this will in no way cost you thousands of dollars to optimize unless you are willing to be blindly ripped off. Further, why would you waste time on something that is only “likely to rank”? Seems like they are betting on people’s ignorance to make a profit.
By the way, if you have serious issues with your reputation this service will not help. It will not push anything down. Period.
@Johnosborn123 Our whole mission is based on the fact that we believe SEO (for your personal name) is something everybody SHOULD be doing themselves. Right now, if you want to improve the search results for your name, you need to pay a reputation company thousands of dollars to do it for you. That’s just not realistic or even necessary for the average person who just needs to control their own name, but has no idea how SEO works. That’s why 98% of our product is free, and even the premium features are just a few dollars a month.
The point is, most reputation companies mystify the SEO process so they can overcharge. We wanted to put the process in everybody’s hands. When you submit ANY link with us, we walk you through the same exact process a reputation company would charge for, so you can do it yourself. It could be your wordpress site, your Linkedin profile, an article written about you, anything. Our own profile is also automatically optimized to show up high for your name.
In terms of wasting your time on something “likely to rank”: nobody can guarantee results. Thats not how search engines work. It’s important to us people understand that you can’t simply “game” a search engine and any company that claims to do that is likely using “black hat” techniques and can get you banned.
Now with that said, BrandYourself is the best way to get results using white hat techniques that wont get you banned. 80% of our profiles show up on the first page and tens of thousands of users are getting the exact results they were looking for. For some great examples, take a look at some of the comments in this recent article on Job Mob: http://jobmob.co.il/blog/contest-brandyourself-google-rankings/ or the success stories page on our site: http://brandyourself.com/info/about/successStories
I hope that helps answer some of your questions, as a rule we’re extremely transparent as a company, so if you have any questions you want to ask us directly, you can actually find all of our emails on the site by going to our about page and clicking on our BrandYourself profile. Thanks for the dialogue!