Your record

Most people's footprint on the web was built by accident. A LinkedIn profile written for a job search six years ago. A conference bio someone else trimmed to fit a program. An Instagram handle from university. A Crunchbase entry that still lists a role you left. Each was reasonable when it was written, and together they describe four slightly different people. This module turns them back into one.

It is the least glamorous module in the course and probably the most valuable. Module 1 explained that Google builds confidence from agreement. This is where you create the agreement.

The three things that must match

Everything in this module comes down to three rules.

One name form. Pick the exact form of your name you want Google and AI to use, and use it everywhere you can edit. Not "Sarah Lockwood" on LinkedIn, "Sarah W. Lockwood" on the company site and "Sarah Walling-Lockwood" on a speaker page. One form. If you have other names that people might search for, such as a maiden name, a middle name you sometimes use or a name you published under, those go in your site's hidden layer as alternate names. They do not go into your display name on profiles.

Credentials go after the name, never inside it, and ideally not in the name field at all. "Dana Reyes, JD, MBA" in a headline or bio is fine. "Dr. Dana Reyes JD MBA" as the profile name creates a different string for Google to match, and it will.

One photo. Choose one headshot and use it on every profile for the next few years. Not a set of six crops. The same file. The photo is one of the strongest signals that two profiles are the same person, both for Google and for anyone looking. It is also the photo you will ask Google to use in your panel later, so pick one you are happy to see there. A studio original is better than a phone export, and a real photo is always better than one generated or heavily retouched by an app.

One set of facts. Your role, your company, where you studied, where you are based, and the dates of the things that have dates. Your site is the reference copy. Every profile either says the same thing or says less. It never says something different.

Your site sets the standard

Before you touch a single profile, open your own site and read the home page as if you were Google. Is your full name stated plainly in the first few lines? Your current role and company? Where you are based? If you studied somewhere you want recognized, is it there in words, not just as a logo?

Write down, in one place, the exact wording you will copy everywhere else:

This is your fact sheet. MeMyself clients have it already; it is the record we built your site from. Everyone else should write it now, because every step that follows copies from it.

The profile audit

Now go through every profile you control and bring it into line. Work in this order, because the profiles near the top carry the most weight with Google and are the most likely to be read by people deciding whether to work with you.

Two points apply to every profile. The website field points at your own site, not at your company, a link page or a single article. Your site is the hub; everything else points to it. And where a profile has room for a bio, the first sentence of that bio should match the one line description on your fact sheet. You can say more after it, but say the same thing first.

Duplicates, old handles and the ones you cannot change

Almost everyone finds at least one surprise during the audit.

Duplicate profiles. A second LinkedIn account from an old work email, an abandoned Twitter account, a Facebook page someone created for a talk. Duplicates split the record. Where you can, merge or close them. LinkedIn lets you close a duplicate account you own, and to report one you cannot access as a duplicate of your real profile. Old social accounts you can still log in to are best closed, or renamed and pointed at your current account.

Old handles. Handles from years ago, like a username with a former surname or a university nickname, are worth changing where the platform allows it without losing followers. Where it does not, accept it, and make sure the display name, photo and bio on that account match everything else. A mismatched handle with matching everything else does little harm.

The ones you cannot change. Some fields are locked. Facebook limits how often you can change a username. Some directories only update through a support request. A conference program from 2019 will not be reprinted. Fix what you can, ask for what you cannot, and do not lose sleep over the rest. Module 3 covers asking third parties to update old bios, which is a separate job with a different approach.

Pages you own that should point back

Your other properties are part of your record too, and they are easy to overlook because they feel like separate projects.

If you have a newsletter, its About page should name you in your one form and link to your site. If you have a podcast, its host page should do the same. If you have a company, your bio there should link to your site as well as describing your role. If you have a book, the author page on the publisher's site and on retailers should carry your one name form and, where there is a field for it, your site.

These are the easiest links on the web to get, because you control them, and they do something a profile cannot: they connect a separate entity, your newsletter or your company, to you, with your name and your site in the same place.

Your evidence log

Start a simple log now. You will keep adding to it for as long as you care about this, and module 3 builds on it. A spreadsheet with these columns works well:

Every profile you fix goes in. Every article, episode, talk page and listing you find goes in. The "independent" column is the one that matters for Wikidata and Wikipedia later; module 3 explains how to fill it in honestly.

Keeping it right

The audit is not a one time job. Your record goes out of date the moment something changes: a new role, a new company, a new book, a move. When that happens, update your site first, then work down the same list. MeMyself clients on the Evolve and Authority plans have this done for them; on the Maintain plan, update your site through us and use the list above for the profiles.

Two habits make this easy. Keep the fact sheet current, so you always have the exact wording to copy. And when you start anywhere new, a new platform, a new speaking directory, a new board, set it up from the fact sheet on day one rather than improvising a bio. Improvised bios are how the drift started.

Questions