Today is great news. You get a chance to be ahead of your peers. Google just released news about opening up more access to its digital reputation feature called the Knowledge Panel. When you search for a name of a person, business or organization on Google, you might see a box on the right side of the search results page with key information and links to resources. Individuals and organizations with Knowledge Panels can “claim their knowledge panel” and be able to update and provide authoritative feedback on the information and images presented in the panel.
Here are the steps to follow to get verified on Google:
- See if you qualify. Do a search on Google for your name or business name. See my new barebones knowlege panel here.
- Make sure you have a Google account with Google.com, Gmail, YouTube or Google+.
- Make sure you have at least 2 of 5 social media accounts showing up in Google search results for your name.
- If you see the knowledge panel, click this link: “Do you manage the online presence for [name]?”
- On the next screen, click Get Verified. If you get an error it simply means login to your Google account again.
- Follow the simple steps to get verified. Get your social media URLs. I did Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
- Take a photo of your face with a license or passport and upload it when asked.
Fill out the rest of the form and hit submit. You could get validated in minutes if successful.
This week there is just one SEO tip.
If you want to boost the Authority of any web page then find one of the top web sites that relate to the topic of the page and link out to that website. This is called an outbound link. By doing this, you are tethering your website to that website and this adds to your relevance and strength.
Sorry I don’t have anymore SEO, advertising or website design tips this week. I thought that this news from Google is so cool that it trumps anything else for the moment.
Btw, for the summer I may switch to a bi-weekly post – or just not every single week. We’ll see.
