It’s funny. Here I am, an online marketing expert, and I don’t have any posts on the website that comes up in #1 when I Google my name. The irony!

And it seems to contradict what I’m going to write in this post. The truth is, there are different reasons why you get found online, and I’ll talk about some of them in this article…

Here’s part of the secret… I’ve had this domain for almost 13 years. I bought it when I barely even knew what a website was, but I knew I’d want one eventually.

And so, several years later, I set up my very first website. I did it myself too, and it looked like it. But I was in love with my website, and so for years and years, I had this rather amateurish looking HTML site sitting there in cyberspace – with my name on it and my smiling face front and center.

Then, a couple of years ago, I felt that this was not how I wanted to be represented online, and so I replaced it with a blog. This one.

The trouble was that I was plenty busy with all my other sites, so I didn’t get around to doing much with this one.

I want to change that now, one step at a time.

Step 1: Add content

The first step is to start adding content. And that’s the key to getting found online if you have a blog. So I will begin adding tips on what to write about, how to write it, how to get found on Google, and lots more.

Obviously, I’ll also write about the kinds of services (and products) I’m offering. Basically, I want this to become my home blog and website. I mean, it’s ME, right!

Step 2: Create a decent header that “brands” it as MY website

Fortunately, I already have one. I had that created a couple of years back when I subscribed to a graphics design service that created website graphics for me. I’m not so sure about the logo, but it’ll do for the moment, until I find something more exciting to use.

Step 3: Integrate it with my other web “properties”

I am going to integrate it with my other activities online, so that my friends and people who know me from various places can easily find me.

Turns out that I have somewhat of a split personality online, but it’s not so split really.

Most of what I do fits into one of the following three (or maybe four) categories…

1) Internet Marketing

Internet marketing includes affiliate marketing, creating products and courses, and providing marketing services as well. Lately, it also includes more involvement in niche marketing. It’s all part of making a living online.

2) Online Marketing for Business Owners

It’s interesting how internet marketing and online marketing are different, yet they seem very similar. A lot of the techniques are quite similar too.

Online marketing, though, is mainly considered online marketing support for businesses that aren’t actually in internet marketing. I help them with the online marketing stuff, promote their business, and help them with their sales and promo pages. Sometimes, I also set up their website. It varies with what a specific client wants.

3) Self Help Stuff

Okay, so this is a bit different. But here’s the thing. I actually started my online life as a self-help expert. Well, not counting my scholarly activities that made it online somehow. That and my poetry, which seems to be all over the place, including on my own site, Average C-Cup, which is my book of poetry.

So what I’m trying to say is that I started my official internet marketing life as a self-help expert. My first online product was an ebook on stress relief, and you can still buy it here:

Instant Stress Relief Strategies

It has great strategies, and it even comes with a relaxation/hypnosis audio bonus.

My very first blog was a self help blog. It has grown quite big now… Go take a look if you’re interested in self help and stress relief and other such things. I’ve been neglecting it a bit lately, but I’ll start postiing again, and try to make it regular.

For me, part of self help always has been self-empowerment, particularly financial self-empowerment, so I found that internet marketing as a path to financial self-empowerment would fit right in.

As it turned out, some of my readers didn’t think so, and the more I wrote about internet marketing, the more of them didn’t come back. Ouch!

So I started a SECOND blog: my web stuff blog. And I put my internet marketing stuff there. Still do.

And once I started Richmond Web Marketing, I created a website for that too.

I also have lots of other, smaller ones.

But enough about me. I want to talk a bit about how to get found on Google… This has changed over the last couple of years, and it continues to change. The reason I have the image of the Panda and the Penguin at the top of this post is not just that they’re kind of cute, but they stand for the two major types of Updates that Google has wreaked upon us.

It’s been tough, but there’s no way around Google. We need to play nice with it. And from what I’ve seen, and from what the people at Google have said, there are a few relatively sure things…

1) Be an author

This means to let Google know who you are, and authenticate your writing. I still have to do the author thing task with Google Plus, but it’s on my to do list.

2) Write lots of quality stuff

The next thing goes along with being an author. Write lots of high quality stuff. It should also be engaging and entertaining (or very useful, preferably both), and it should be original. So I’m now starting with that. Google always valued content, but the spiders didn’t used to be sophisticated enough to distinguish between spun drivel and high quality content.

Two things have happened. The spiders have gotten smarter, though they’re still not as smart as they may think they are. But it doesn’t matter, because of the second thing: Google has hired human “raters” – that’s people who actually visit and read the websites, and spun content can fool no human. Certainly not those hired by the big G.

So now, it is both necessary and worth it to create high quality content, and lots of it.

3) Social Proof and Engagement

This goes along with the high quality content. Google actually cares whether anyone cares. If you have visitors and get Facebook likes and Google Plussed, they consider your site to have social proof. If you get quoted and linked to by high ranking authority sites, that too constitutes social proof.

And woosh, you’ll zoom up in the rankings! And you’ll get found.

So how do you accomplish all this?

Well, this is a subject better left for another post, since this one is quite long enough already.

So look for another post on how to go about the specifics of pleasing Google!

In the meantime, you may wonder what my 4th thing is. Well, it’s writing, and it’s really integrated with the other three, more or less. More about that another time too.

In the meantime, let me know what you think about the recent Google updates and paradigm changes, and how you work around them. And do let me know if I can help you with your marketing.