Where are You on the Web?
I wasn’t planning to post tonight because I thought I’d go relax in front of the tube once I got a good amount of editing completed. However, before my shows saved on the DVR could tempt me from my office, I had to check out what our task was for the Platform Challenge today.
But I’m glad to say I did not flunk today’s task.
This was a task I could not resist. I love research and I enjoy searching for people. I’ve done this before, just to see how people were finding me and my investigative agency but I hadn’t yet run a search on myself since I started my blog or my alter-ego writer Facebook page.
I first ran a search just using my name as I have been using it in my blog and my Facebook page. Yahoo gave me a big goose egg, Bing listed a bunch of other Paula’s who use Facebook or LinkenIn while Google listed someone else with my name who had died! The only saving grace is that Google listed my actual Facebook page…at about #6.
Next I searched my name with the word “blog” after it and that pushed me down to #2 on both Bing and Yahoo and all the way down to #9 on Google. Even though my Facebook page was #1 on Google, my blog was pushed below articles about someone else with a similar name that had been arrested. Isn’t that nice? Now, I’m getting a bit concerned. After all, I’m using Blogger, by Google, yet it is Bing and Yahoo who have my blog at the top of the list while Google does not.
One of the things I’ve learned when it comes to blogging and social media in general is that it can take quite awhile before it catches on. Blogging itself is not a quick fix to get your motor running but instead it is a very slow Sunday drive. Traffic might go up and down at times, your race might quicken at the unexpected rise in readers after you have offered an intriguing post everyone seems to appreciate but it can takes months and months and even more months before you gain the real momentum you are looking for.
But something did surprise me.
You just never know what you may find but this was a fun and very useful task for me. You can imagine I will now be looking at ways to make sure Google keeps me at the top of the list where it concerns my blog. I’m sure Brewer will also be offering some suggestions on how to make that happen but if he doesn’t, I’ll be researching for some advice on that issue.