Ever wonder why some brands have better search results than others? Or how Google decides who gets rich results like knowledge panels, snippets, and image results?
Brand search engine results are what you see when you Google a brand name.
At some point in the B2B customer journey, your customers and prospects are going to Google your name or the name of your brand.
And what they find will either hurt or help your reputation.
Search results have a direct impact on perceived authority and credibility. Negative results surfacing in search has compelled many brands to retain the services of a good SEO consultant.
For example, if you call yourself a world-renowned expert and it’s hard to find your website or someone less influential outranks you, there’s a disconnect between what you think about who you are, and what Google thinks about you who you are
In this episode, I have a very special guest.
He’s a world-renown brand SEO specialist Jason Barnard who publishes a series of Brand SERP courses and we’re going to talk about how to manage your reputation in Google Search, which is very different from trying to rank for unbranded keywords.
In this podcast, we discuss:
- What are Brand SERPs and why do they matter.
- The difference between online reputation management and SEO.
- Impact of brand SERPS on brand reputation.
- How brand SEO impacts thought leaders.
- Skills required to manage Brand SERPs.
- Impact of earned media on Brand SERPs.
- And much, much more!
Subscribe to the Earned Media Podcast.
The post Managing Your Reputation on Google with Jason Barnard appeared first on Eric Schwartzman.
[00:00:00] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Seven or eight years ago, some guy called Jason Barnard in the UK drove 157 miles an hour down the motorway. And he kept ranking on my Brand SERP. And I thought, how can I get rid of that? Because I don’t want to be associated with this guy who drives like a maniac.
[00:00:24] Eric Schwartzman: Talkwalker just released its 2021 Social Media Trends Report. Now, this is a deep dive into social media marketing trends that are going to be most effective for 2021. It’s based on interviews from top influencers and research from their platform. Talkwalker is a social media monitoring intelligence platform. It is an amazing report that you do not want to miss. And you can download the 2021 Social Media Trends Report at ericschwartzman.com/talkwalker.
A Basic Explanation of the Topic and an Introduction of the Guest, Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy)
[00:00:59] Eric Schwartzman: Now, I’m excited about today’s session because if you’ve ever wondered why some brands have much better search results when you search the name of the brand than others, then this is going to be a great session for you. How does Google decide who gets a Knowledge Panel, who gets a featured snippet, who gets carousel results? Because we know we want our website to come up, but what about all those other rich search results that can come up when you search a brand?
[00:01:33] Eric Schwartzman: Brand SERP is what you see when you search the name of yourself or your brand on Google. And at some point in the customer journey, people are going to search either your name or the name of your brand. And what they find can kill or seal the deal. Search results have a direct impact on perceived authority and credibility. So, for example, if you call yourself a thought leader and it’s hard to find your website or someone seemingly less influential than you with the same name outranks you, there’s like a disconnect between what you think about who you are and what Google thinks about who you are.
[00:02:15] Eric Schwartzman: So, we have with us here today someone I’ve wanted to have on the Earned Media Hour for quite some time. He’s a world renowned brand SEO specialist. His name is Jason Barnard. And we’re going to talk today about how to manage your reputation on Google search, which is obviously very different from trying to rank for unbranded keywords. Jason, welcome to the Earned Media Hour.
[00:02:41] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Brilliant stuff, yeah, Eric. I think that was a great, great a precis. I’m in France, I’m in Paris, so I’m going to speak in French. That was a precis. That was a basic explanation of what we’re looking at. And I think it’s a basic explanation that people completely fail to look at. How many people seriously look at their Brand SERP and think, is this important, how does it look, and how can I control it? And the answer is pretty much nobody.
What Is a Brand SERP and Why Does It Matter?
[00:03:18] Eric Schwartzman: Now, Jason, you are an expert in this area. So, you throw out a term like SERP, and in your world that means something, but what is a SERP?
[00:03:28] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Search engine results page. That’s the really nice thing is Google’s result, the result page that Google shows for a search on your exact match brand name or your personal name is your business card. Google is showing your audience what it thinks the world thinks about you. That is really powerful.
[00:03:53] Eric Schwartzman: So, tell us what is a Brand SERP and why does it matter?
[00:03:59] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Okay. The Brand SERP is search engine results page, Google or Bing, but Google, because it’s so dominant is obviously the big one we’re going to be looking at. It’s the results page that comes up when somebody searches your brand name. Now, most brands think, yeah, okay, I’m going to be number, after that I don’t care. But question is what’s number two? What’s number three? Do you have videos? Do you have Twitter boxes? Do your competition have videos and Twitter boxes? Do they have Knowledge Panels that you talked about earlier on?
[00:04:34] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And we are now looking at something. If you search for Microsoft today, you will see their site number one, of course. But you will also see news, videos, images, lots of different opportunities to interact with Microsoft and on the right hand side, a factual panel. And that’s the right hand side is Google’s facts. The right hand side is what Google thinks is a fact. On the left hand side, it’s advising you what it thinks you might want to do. And there’s a big, big difference there that we’ll go into later on.
The Difference Between Brand SEO and Regular SEO
[00:05:10] Eric Schwartzman: Let’s do that. What is the difference between brand SEO and regular SEO?
[00:05:17] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Regular SEO is you’re saying in the case of red shoe seller, I want to rank for the term red shoes or number nine or size nine red shoes. That’s saying I want to attract somebody who’s looking generically for a product that I can provide. So, you have to convince Google that you can provide the best solution to its user. And remember, Google’s recommending you. So, Google is saying this is the best result I can find for this query.
[00:05:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And if you’re looking at brand searches, it’s saying here’s the information I can give you about this brand. And that’s a very, very big difference, because whereas in the red shoe department, as it were, you are just trying to rank above your competitor. In your brand searches, you are trying to present yourself in the best possible light to your audience. And that makes all the difference in the way you approach it.
The Impact of Controlling Your Brand SERP on Your Reputation
[00:06:24] Eric Schwartzman: So, what is the impact of a Brand SERP on reputation?
[00:06:30] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, the first time, most of my clients come to me and say, oh, I’ve got this bad result or the bad reviews or a negative result or something that isn’t a hundred percent true on my Brand SERP. When somebody searches for my brand, they’re not being presented with a message that I want to give them. It’s too late. You should have been looking at that months, years ago, because you need to control that message that people see, your audience see when they search your brand name.
The idea of reputation management should not come up if you’ve already proactively looked at your Brand SERP and learned to control it.
jason barnard (the braND SERP GUY)
[00:07:06] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, the idea of reputation management should not come up if you’ve already proactively looked at your Brand SERP and learned to control it. The only case where it would come up is if some really bad piece of news comes up, which happens.
[00:07:23] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): But I had an SEO buddy who said a year ago, I don’t care about Brand SERPs, I rank number one, what do I care for the rest of it? A year later, he came back to me and he said, I’m really glad you talked to me about that because I spent the last year actually looking into this. I had some bad press. And when that bad press turned up, I could control it, drown it, push it down onto page two within a couple of weeks. And if I hadn’t listened to you, if I hadn’t paid attention and gain control of my Brand SERP, it would’ve taken me months, if not years, to beat that bad press.
Your Brand SERP Shows Your Audience What It Thinks Is Valuable, Pertinent, Helpful, and Relevant to Your Brand
[00:08:08] Eric Schwartzman: So, pre-Google, the field of reputation management pretty much was about how neutral third parties, impartial third parties, like journalists and media outlets, how they talk about a brand. And managing that discussion was the thing of media relations specialists in the area of public relations. You think about search results, that is a media outlet albeit generated by an algorithm, but nonetheless. If I search the name of an organisation, my feeling is that the results are in some way an impartial third party account of what that organisation is all about. Is there any research that you’ve seen or anything interesting around what the relationship of Google search results is to corporate reputation?
[00:09:16] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Absolutely delightful, wonderful question. My personal opinion, and I don’t have data to prove it, is that your Brand SERP is a really good way to read the tea leaves. If you want a really deep insight into your brand, perhaps you do need a big company to look into where you are positioned within different segments within your audience. But what Google does, and I love this, is it’s watching us all the time. It’s so prevalent. It’s so much there all the time for all of us that its opinion of the world’s opinion of you, I think it’s pretty much unbeatable.
[00:10:05] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And your Brand SERP is simply Google’s opinion of the world’s opinion of you. It’s showing your audience or what it believes to be your audience, and hopefully it’s got that right, it’s showing them what it thinks is valuable, pertinent, and helpful and relevant to your brand.
[00:10:27] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So if you have number three on your list, a bad review site, don’t just think Google has got it wrong. It probably hasn’t. Google is the most powerful machine we know of that indexes the entire internet or as much of the internet as anybody else’s index and then some. So, it’s judgment of the world’s opinion of you is pretty good. Take a step back and think, yeah, why is it putting that there?
Managing the Effects of Earned Media, Which Are Short Term, and Long Term Media on Brand SERPs
[00:10:58] Eric Schwartzman: So, this is the Earned Media Hour. We focus on the use of earned media, organic media to drive impressions, to generate leads, to manage reputation. What is the impact of earned media on Brand SERPs?
[00:11:21] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yes. Great question. What I love about Brand SERPs, and I actually did an analysis. What tends to rank social media accounts, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, they’re the big ones, obviously the brand’s own site. But when you have a great article, The Guardian is my example because I read The Guardian or the New York Times, it will rank, but it’s news. It isn’t evergreen. It isn’t something that will stick.
[00:11:57] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, you have this situation where you’re saying, I can earn media. And that earned media will tend to be short termed. What I need to do in terms of convincing my clients, and remember your clients will search your brand name to navigate to your site. And they will do that potentially multiple times per day, my clients, but also my prospects. I want to make sure that they see something positive.
[00:12:25] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, I have both the controlled media, long term media, for example, my site, Facebook, LinkedIn, perhaps a review site, Trustpilot. And then I also have the short term news that will come and go. And you need to manage them very, very smartly.
Looking Through the Personal Brand SERP of Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy)
[00:12:48] Eric Schwartzman: Jason, just for practical demonstration’s sake, show us your Brand SERP and then walk us through the results and how you got them.
[00:13:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Brilliant. I love the question.
[00:13:05] Eric Schwartzman: So, today we’re talking about Brand SERP, what are the results you get when you search the name of your brand or your own name. So, Jason has searched his own name, and he’s going to show us his results. These search results are different than most people have.
[00:13:23] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And what’s interesting is how different this is going to be across different countries. Now, I hope now you can see my name.
[00:13:33] Eric Schwartzman: We see your name. Yeah. So, what are we looking at?
[00:13:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): What we’re looking at is number one is my site, jasonbarnard.com. That’s what represents me. And I think that’s the fundamentally most important thing about your Brand SERP. It’s that that first result is your own site, but Google shows your audience your site for information, for navigation to yourself. Number two is on this right hand side. This is really nice. I’ve got the Jason Barnard is a British French musician. I have a description that’s from Semrush that immediately says this guy is an expert in SEO. There is no doubt that I am an expert in SEO.
Jason’s Brand SERP Contains Twitter Boxes, Digital Marketing Content From Well-Known SEO Sites, and Videos
[00:14:21] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Then we have the Twitter boxes, which are actually updated. Literally, if I post something on Twitter now, it will be updated within 17 seconds. So, as a brand, I’m very interested in that realtime communication with my user base. And if you think, well, people hardly ever search my brand name, think about your existing clients. They search your brand name potentially multiple times a day. So, the fact that your Twitter profile, your Twitter boxes are updating and that they see during one individual day that they’re updating, that’s a very strong signal that you are active and that you are interested and that you are a real alive brand.
[00:15:03] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Then if we go down, we’ve got Search Engine Journal. That immediately indicates that I’m an expert within the SEO digital marketing world. And we’ve got videos, which shows that I actually make videos. The names here, James Mulvaney. This is Semrush, TYPO3. That’s all very digital marketing based. So, it immediately supports my expertise and my authority within my industry.
What Else Can You See on Jason’s Brand SERP: His Site, LinkedIn Profile, More Digital Marketing Sites, and None of the Other Jason Barnards Around the World
[00:15:33] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Then we go down. This is my site, so I obviously control that. I can say what I want to say about my own podcast. Then we have the LinkedIn profile. Then we have Semrush. And if you look here, I get right down to the bottom. This is a friend of mine, Milosz, with an interview. And then WordLift, who are friends of mine, an Italian company, who do an amazing semantic tool for WordPress.
[00:16:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You haven’t seen any other Jason Barnards in this page, and yet there are at least 300 other Jason Barnards vying for a place on this page. Google considers not only am I the most important Jason Barnard in the world, the most probable Jason Barnard in the world that somebody might search for, but that this is information that people would be interested in. And it’s basically my career.
Using an Incognito Search to Not Override the Search Results and Changing the Location of the Google Search Using a Tool
[00:16:30] Eric Schwartzman: And we know that because you did an incognito search, right?
[00:16:34] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yes. I did an incognito search to make sure that it wasn’t my personal results that would override what anybody else might see. And as we can see here, I’m actually pretending to be in London. And if I then switch this to say, this is a tool that I use a lot, and it’s absolutely beautiful and lovely and fun.
[00:16:57] Eric Schwartzman: What is the tool?
[00:16:58] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s called GS Location Changer.
[00:17:03] Eric Schwartzman: Okay.
[00:17:03] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And it allows you to change the location that Google thinks you have on a search by search basis. So if I now reload this page, I was in the UK and London. There we go.
How Did Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) Optimise His Brand SERP to Be Positive, Accurate, and Convincing?
[00:17:18] Eric Schwartzman: How do you do that? It seems like magic. How do you get your Twitter to come up and your YouTube to get up? What’s the secret?
[00:17:30] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Well, the thing is I spent the last seven years looking at this and trying to figure out how I can make this result interesting and convincing and positive and accurate. And one of the things that struck me is seven or eight years ago, some guy called Jason Barnard in the UK drove 157 miles an hour down the motorway. And he kept ranking on my Brand SERP. And I thought, how can I get rid of that? Because I don’t want to be associated with this guy who drives like a maniac.
[00:18:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And so, I started to think how can I affect a) these blue link results? That would be a blue link result. This is a blue link result. This is a blue link result. How can I affect those? And then also, how can I create the Twitter boxes, which you just mentioned, the video boxes, and the image boxes? As you can see, my Brand SERP, what appears when people search my personal name, is very impressive, very visual, very convincing.
Jason Spent Months Testing Twitter, Videos, and Images; The Secret Is Gaining Engagement, Having Importance, and Being Relevant
[00:18:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And how did I do that? I just spent a year literally testing Twitter. Then I spent five months testing videos. Then I spent three or four months testing images to learn how I can make this happen, how I can get Google to think. And this is the fundamentally most important question. How do I get Google to think a) I’m the most important person, sorry, not so much the most important, the most likely person that somebody is searching for, the most probable person, and b) that that person who’s searching for me is interested in these images, these videos, and this Twitter feed?
[00:19:27] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And the answer is engagement. The answer is it thinks that this is important. It thinks that this is relevant. It thinks that this is helpful. And that’s the secret of everything. And I’ve actually created a series of courses, where I teach people to trigger these Twitter boxes, to trigger these video boxes, to trigger these image boxes, and to control these blue links to make sure that this Brand SERP, what appears when somebody searches my name, is positive, accurate, and convincing.
Critiquing and Trying to Improve the Current State of Eric Schwartzman’s Personal Brand SERP
[00:20:04] Eric Schwartzman: So, for Twitter, for example, how many followers do you have on Twitter?
[00:20:07] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It doesn’t matter. The question isn’t how many followers you have. I actually have very few, relatively. I’ve got 4,600. It’s not a big number.
[00:20:18] Eric Schwartzman: So, I’ve got 11,000. Let me show you mine for a second. I want to workshop mine with you and get your thoughts on it. And then I want to invite anyone who’s on the call, who wants to bring up their Brand SERP and have Jason critique it to do that as well. So, let me bring up mine.
[00:20:37] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Critiquing Brand SERPs is one of my specialist topics. You show me a Brand SERP. I’m the Brand SERP reader, tea leave reader or whisperer. And I can manage and affect it. You have a delightful Knowledge Panel on the right hand side.
[00:20:55] Eric Schwartzman: I cannot take credit for it. I wrote a book that was published by John Wiley & Sons. And I suspect that’s why I have the Knowledge Panel.
You Have to First Claim the Knowledge Panel Before You Can Be Able to Control It
[00:21:06] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Number one thing you should do, sorry, I don’t want to tell you what you should do because that’s obviously…
[00:21:11] Eric Schwartzman: No, no, no. Hey, tell me what I should do. I’m all ears.
[00:21:15] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): At the bottom, you can see you’ve got claim this Knowledge Panel. You should claim it because you can affect it.
[00:21:20] Eric Schwartzman: I did claim the Knowledge Panel, and nothing happened.
[00:21:24] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Okay.
[00:21:25] Eric Schwartzman: I claimed it months ago, and that still says claim it.
[00:21:28] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Did you claim it using the domain name that’s shown next to the little world symbol?
[00:21:35] Eric Schwartzman: I believe I did. And I had to take a picture of my driver’s license and everything. And I did all that.
The Knowledge Panel Should Be Claimed Through Google Search Console
[00:21:41] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Okay. No. Okay. Sorry, excuse me to interrupt. If you had to take a picture of your driver’s license and show your social media profiles, then you didn’t claim it through Search Console.
[00:21:52] Eric Schwartzman: I wanted to claim it through Search Console.
[00:21:55] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): If you have that little world symbol with a domain name next to it, then you can claim it through Search Console.
[00:22:02] Eric Schwartzman: Oh, awesome.
[00:22:02] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Which means you simply have to be the owner of Search Console for that domain to claim it.
[00:22:08] Eric Schwartzman: So, should I go into Search Console and do that?
[00:22:12] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Theoretically, you can now click on claim this Knowledge Panel if you’re not in incognito mode. There you go. You’ve been verified. I just solved your problem.
Google Will Take Several Hours Before It Can Catch up and Update Your Knowledge Panel
[00:22:22] Eric Schwartzman: So, what’s going to happen now?
[00:22:25] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): If you now go back, if you go back and reload the page, I’m not sure if it’s realtime or not.
[00:22:33] Eric Schwartzman: Should I review info or anything?
[00:22:35] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, go for that. Let’s have a look at that. That’s interesting.
[00:22:37] Eric Schwartzman: What is that?
[00:22:39] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. Okay.
[00:22:40] Eric Schwartzman: It still says claim.
[00:22:42] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It’s going to take several hours for Google to catch up.
What Will Happen Once You’ve Claimed Your Knowledge Panel: You Can Edit and Ask Google to Change Information About You
[00:22:45] Eric Schwartzman: And then what happens once I’ve claimed it?
[00:22:48] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You get an edit button, where you can edit information, where you can ask Google to change information in that Knowledge Panel.
[00:22:56] Eric Schwartzman: Because you’ve got your parents in there. You’ve got your child in there.
[00:23:01] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yep.
[00:23:01] Eric Schwartzman: Can you add all that manually?
[00:23:04] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You can, but, and this is the big but, it’s really, really important to understand. I can ask people at Google and when you click edit, please edit this listing. I can ask somebody at Google to add my mother, add my daughter, add my wife, add my photo, add my shoe size. I have a friend who got them to put that his shoe size is 9 in the UK.
[00:23:30] Eric Schwartzman: So, that’s because you have a personal contact at Google. Not everybody can do this.
[00:23:34] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No, no, everyone can do that. Once that claim the Knowledge Panel, perhaps if you reload the page, it will do so. But, sorry, and that’s the really big, yeah, it takes a little bit of time apparently. But that’s the really big important thing to know is that you can ask.
You Can’t Force the Knowledge Panel and Knowledge Graph to Understand Information That Is Not Corroborated on the Web
[00:23:53] Eric Schwartzman: If it doesn’t work, I’m having you back on the show so that we can redo it, okay?
[00:23:58] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Brilliant. Absolutely perfect.
[00:24:00] Eric Schwartzman: I want to invite anyone who’s on the call and wants us to look at maybe for a client that you’re working with or brand.
[00:24:08] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I just really wanted to finish that one point because it’s really important.
[00:24:11] Eric Schwartzman: Please, please, what else?
[00:24:13] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Even when you do get control of that Knowledge Panel, what you will then do is say to a human being at Google, can you add my shoe size? Can you add my mother? Can you change my mother’s name? And they can do that. They can do that for many things, for many aspects, for many attributes within this Knowledge Panel, not all of them. But even if they change it, if the machine, if Google’s machine thinks they’re wrong, it will switch it back.
[00:24:41] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, you cannot force the Knowledge Panel and force the Knowledge Graph to understand something about yourself that is not corroborated and supported by the majority of information on the web. So if you wanted to say that your website was something else, you couldn’t do that. If you wanted to say your Facebook account was something else, you couldn’t do that. The machine would switch it back, even if you got somebody at Google to change that.
What Else Can Be Improved in Eric’s Brand SERP: Getting Video Boxes by Linking His YouTube Account to His Site
[00:25:08] Eric Schwartzman: What else about my SERP could I improve?
[00:25:13] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You could definitely get some videos. You have videos, so I would expect to see video boxes.
[00:25:19] Eric Schwartzman: How do I do that? I’ve got a YouTube account. I put all my videos there. How do I get my videos to show up here?
[00:25:25] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, number one there is on your profiles on the right hand side, you can see LinkedIn and Facebook. You don’t see YouTube. So, it hasn’t understood which YouTube channel is linked to yourself. So, it can’t accurately and with confidence show the videos from your channel. That’s the first thing.
[00:25:44] Eric Schwartzman: It doesn’t have my Twitter either.
[00:25:47] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And you could help it with that.
Adding Schema Markup to Confirm What Is Said on the Page and to Point to Your Social Media Accounts
[00:25:49] Eric Schwartzman: How?
[00:25:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): If you could help it, you have your site. If you click on the link now for the site, click on the link for your own site, yeah. Here you can add Schema Markup. You can add Schema Markup that confirms what is said in the page, who you are, what you do. And you can point to your social channels, your social media accounts.
[00:26:16] Eric Schwartzman: So, these need to be expressed in Schema Markup.
[00:26:19] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yes. Without that, Google will not be sure. And if I take this, we take a step back and we say, okay, we can see those links. And it seems terribly obvious to us as human beings. Google is looking at that and saying, okay, I’m 40% sure that that’s true. If you add Schema Markup, it’s 80% sure because Schema Markup is…
[00:26:44] Eric Schwartzman: So, in WordPress, that’s one of those Gutenberg tools. There’s an FAQ and then there’s another one that Yoast makes.
[00:26:56] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. Yoast is a really great solution for this. Yoast actually bundles all this in incredibly easily within your SEO. I know the people at Yoast…
Through Yoast and WordPress, Schema Markup Can Be Added in Your User and You Can Identify Your Social Media Accounts
[00:27:06] Eric Schwartzman: So, I have Yoast, I have WordPress. How do I add Schema Markup for this page?
[00:27:10] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Within your user, you should be able to identify what the Twitter accounts and the Facebook and the YouTube accounts are.
[00:27:21] Eric Schwartzman: So, I go to my user.
[00:27:24] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah.
[00:27:25] Eric Schwartzman: Here’s my user. And I just edit.
[00:27:28] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yep. And you should be able to add them all. There you go.
[00:27:32] Eric Schwartzman: Oh my god.
[00:27:34] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I love that.
[00:27:34] Eric Schwartzman: I haven’t even done it.
[00:27:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You’re so naive.
[00:27:37] Eric Schwartzman: It’s so funny. Oh my god. That’s so helpful. Okay. I don’t want to monopolise because I think Cheryl wants to ask a question. So, I’m going to…
Yoast and WordPress Are a Large Part of the Internet; The More Specific Schema Markup Is, the More Search Engines Understand Information
[00:27:45] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): If you just do that and you have Yoast installed, now just a really quick word on Yoast and WordPress, which I think is very important.
[00:27:52] Eric Schwartzman: Then while you’re telling me that, I’m actually going to do it. Go ahead.
[00:27:55] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Brilliant. Right. Okay. Two words, one of which is WordPress is 30% of the internet and Yoast is…
[00:28:03] Eric Schwartzman: Say that again because I think I didn’t get what you were saying. It dropped out.
[00:28:10] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): WordPress is 30% of the internet. Yoast is 50% of WordPress. Yoast is actually 14-15% of the entire internet. And one thing that Google and Bingbot, I talked to Fabrice Canel from Bingbot, who is an absolutely delightful chap, who explains exactly how he programs. This is the guy who programs Bingbot. And Bingbot works exactly the same way that Googlebot functions. And he talks about the fact that the more they see a structure of page or specific Schema Markup in a given structure, the more they are confident they have understood, the easier it is for these bots to understand.
[00:29:01] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So if you are WordPress and you are using Yoast, you are already within 14-15% of the entire internet. And they’ve already understood, let’s say, 30% of everything you have in every single page. And I think that’s worth thinking about. It’s that because these machines see both WordPress and Yoast over and over and over and over again, they learn to understand how the information is presented and they learn to understand how to extract that information, understand that information, make sense of that information, and provide it to their users as a potential solution or a potential answer to that question.
After Linking Your Social Profiles Using Schema Markup, Make Sure to Save Your Progress
[00:29:49] Eric Schwartzman: Okay. So, check this out. Did I get this right?
[00:29:53] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yep.
[00:29:55] Eric Schwartzman: That’s the way to do it?
[00:29:57] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): As long as the YouTube URL, I can’t actually see it. It’s very small on my screen. You add your YouTube URL, you add your Twitter profile, and you make sure… Thank you very much. Yes.
[00:30:09] Eric Schwartzman: Like that?
[00:30:09] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Perfect. Absolutely.
[00:30:12] Eric Schwartzman: So, I did it right?
[00:30:13] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yep. And then you save it.
[00:30:15] Eric Schwartzman: Okay.
[00:30:17] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Make sure you save these things because we don’t want to lose them.
You Have to Be Patient in Waiting for Google to Update; But If You Are a Trusted Entity, It Can Change Within Minutes
[00:30:20] Eric Schwartzman: All right. So, that should be it. That should come into the Knowledge Panel now.
[00:30:28] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): It will take time. Don’t expect.
[00:30:30] Eric Schwartzman: But eventually, in a week or so, that type of thing.
[00:30:33] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. Let’s say a couple of months.
[00:30:35] Eric Schwartzman: A couple of months.
[00:30:37] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You have to be patient. The thing about it is with search, we’ve become very used to the fact that Google is real time. And with the Knowledge Panel and with knowledge and understanding, Google’s a little bit reticent. It wants to be sure. So if you are a trusted authoritative entity, things will change within minutes. And I’ve had that in my case.
[00:31:07] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I can get things into the Knowledge Graph. I can get things to change within 10 minutes because I’m a trusted authority on the topics, and that’s very important, on the topics I’m talking about. Which is why you want to be the home of your own entity, because you are the authority about yourself. If it isn’t sure, it will take months. It’s still very slow.
Promoting a Digital Reputation Platform That Helps in Updating Websites of Businesses
[00:31:30] Eric Schwartzman: So, every company has a website, which means every company is in the media business, because a website is digital media. And the experience people have on your website directly impacts your reputation. I’d say it actually shapes your perception of that company or brand. I know when I go to a company that has a bad website, my impression is they’re dinosaurs. They’re going to be difficult to work with because they’re still on the dark ages, but it’s tough to keep a website current. I get it, particularly if you’re reliant on IT to update your site.
[00:32:07] Eric Schwartzman: So if you’re in PR or marketing and you’re a non-technical person and you need an easy way to keep your site current, check out iPR Software. They’ve got a super easy digital reputation management platform that you can use without writing a single line of code. And this is really cool. It’s a special offer for Earned Media Podcast listeners. If you go to ericschwartzman.com/ipsoftware and tell them you heard about them on the Earned Media Hour, they’ll give you your first month free. So, go to ericschwartzman.com/ipsoftware, check it out, and see how much easier your life can be.
In Brand SERPs, Featured Snippets Are Not Necessary; Your Homepage, Knowledge Panel, and Rich Sitelinks Are More Important
[00:32:49] Eric Schwartzman: Now in terms of something like featured snippets, first off, tell us, show us what featured snippets are, and then tell us if it’s possible to get them to show up on Brand SERPs.
[00:33:03] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, in fact, you don’t want a featured snippet on a Brand SERP, which is an interesting…
[00:33:09] Eric Schwartzman: Interesting, makes perfect sense.
[00:33:11] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Point, is that I’m not interested in Google telling me the answer to who I am. I’m interested, and I’m showing my screen again, in Google showing my homepage, my Twitter feed, and my Knowledge Panel. But if I ask, for example, I haven’t tried this today, who is Jason Barnard? There I get a featured snippet because I’m asking a specific question. So, beyond the exact match Brand SERP, questions are always going to be interesting for a featured snippet.
[00:33:46] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And if we look at this, and this is a really nice example, Jason Barnard, I can’t spell, profession. There we go. This isn’t, I couldn’t spell it, I do apologise, this isn’t a featured snippet. This is part of the Knowledge Graph. It’s saying that Google has understood that I have been in the past a screenwriter, a singer-songwriter, and a voice actor. So, we’re looking at, in this case, searches around the brand name on the brand name itself, the exact match brand name. We don’t want a featured snippet. We want the site, the Rich Sitelinks.
[00:34:31] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): If I search for my own company, Kalicube, we want this. We want the homepage, the Rich Sitelinks, so that people can get easily to the part of the site that they’re interested in. We want the videos because I’ve got a great video strategy. You asked me about that earlier on. Basically, if you want the videos, you need to make sure that Google understands which is your channel and that you are active in video. Then we want Crunchbase maybe, this is my site, talking about my own company, then some images. And as you can see, once again, I control everything on this page. I control my brand message.
Jason’s Experiment in Moving His Podcast From His Personal Site to His Company Site
[00:35:16] Eric Schwartzman: It’s interesting. I see that you’ve got a podcast and you include your name in the name of the podcast. And I imagine that’s intentional to come up in your Brand SERP.
[00:35:28] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. Well, in fact, once again, I’ve done these experiments. My podcast used to be hosted on my own site, Jason Barnard. I switched it to Kalicube to see if I can move Google’s understanding of that podcast from me as an entity to my company as an entity. And so far, it’s taken six months, and I’m almost there. Google has now understood that the owner, the publisher of this podcast is no longer Jason Barnard, the individual. It’s Kalicube, the company.
Critiquing and Improving Another Brand SERP, Which Belongs to Cheryl Procter-Rogers
[00:36:06] Eric Schwartzman: Hey, Cheryl, do you have a question you want to ask? Cheryl Procter-Rogers is on, and I think she has a question she wants to ask. Do you want to just ask it via voice?
[00:36:16] Cheryl Procter-Rogers: Yes, please.
[00:36:18] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Hi, Cheryl.
[00:36:20] Cheryl Procter-Rogers: Hi, Jason. Eric, I just want to thank you again for a fabulous topic. I’m always frustrated when my schedule conflicts. And Jason, seriously, this is just worth gold nuggets for those of us who are struggling with just understanding where to start.
[00:36:46] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Brilliant.
[00:36:47] Cheryl Procter-Rogers: So, Eric, do you mind googling Cheryl Procter-Rogers and having Jason probably totally embarrass me, but I’m open for it. I can take it.
Brand SERPs and personal Brand SERPs are a brilliant way to know where to start because it’s focused, it’s controlled.
jason barnard (the brand serp guy)
[00:37:04] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): You’re a brave lady. And one thing you said, while Eric looks at that, is where to start. And I think that’s a really fundamentally interesting question because we don’t know where to start. And Brand SERPs and personal Brand SERPs are a brilliant way to know where to start because it’s focused, it’s controlled. So, you can look at that and you say, okay, let’s forget about the rest of my SEO strategy. Let’s forget the rest of my digital strategy. Let’s just look at what Google thinks the world thinks about me. And if you can make that larger, Eric, because I’ve got terribly bad eyesight.
[00:37:43] Eric Schwartzman: Yeah. And just to tee it up for a second, for those people who don’t know Cheryl, Cheryl was the president of the Public Relations Society of America. She’s like a heavy hitter in the PR space.
[00:37:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Wow.
Hyphens on Names Don’t Make Much Difference, But Accents on Letters Do
[00:37:55] Eric Schwartzman: Huge achievements, amazing career. And so, I didn’t put the dash in there because I don’t think most people would in the Procter-Rogers. So, I just went Cheryl Procter Rogers. And I’m in an incognito search, which means my personal search preferences are not altering the algorithm here. This is just a raw look into what Google’s going to show someone from my geography searching this, searching your name, Cheryl.
[00:38:23] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, the hyphen doesn’t make very much difference. But what is interesting, if anybody’s watching for an international audience, accents on letters do. Accents on letters change phenomenally, but hyphens don’t. So, my daughter is called Leonor-Jo, and that’s an L, E with an accent on it. And as soon as you take the accent away, it changes Google’s entire understanding of who she is and what she does.
An Individual Needs to Have a Personal Site Apart From His/Her Company Site, Even If It’s Only One Page
[00:38:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And your example, Cheryl, is interesting in the sense that that top site, is that your company?
[00:39:00] Cheryl Procter-Rogers: Yes, that’s my site. That’s my website.
[00:39:03] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): But that’s your company.
[00:39:05] Cheryl Procter-Rogers: Yes. Yes it is.
[00:39:06] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And there’s a very interesting and important question is that your entity, yourself needs a home. And your home is currently your company, but you and your company are not the same thing. You could sell that company. Somebody else could take over that company. You, I would suggest, as an individual need to have a personal site, even if it’s only one page. That is the home for you as an entity. And then you allow your company to talk about you, as opposed to the way around.
Why Can’t It Just Be a Bio Page on the Company Site: An Individual Is a Separate Entity From His/Her Company
[00:39:43] Eric Schwartzman: Why couldn’t it just be a bio page on her company site?
[00:39:47] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Because your company and yourself are not the same thing. I’m sure we’ve all had the case or a lot of us had the case where we have worked for a company or we have owned a company, but that company is not our existence. We are our, and this is philosophical, we are ourselves, an entity that is separate from the company. I’m finding this quite difficult to explain, but I would not allow my company to dominate my personal Brand SERP because I, as a person, should be dominating my own personal Brand SERP with my own message, not my company.
[00:40:31] Cheryl Procter-Rogers: Wow. That’s huge.
[00:40:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, I’m sorry.
[00:40:37] Cheryl Procter-Rogers: No, I’m thanking you.
Your Personal Website Should Be at the Top of Your Brand SERP Followed Potentially by Your LinkedIn Profile
[00:40:42] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Right. Okay. So, you should have a personal website at the top that is you, where you identify who you are, what you do, and what’s important to you, because what’s important to your company or what’s important to you are not necessarily the same thing. So, you should be ranking number one with your own site. Number two, potentially your site, potentially LinkedIn, which ranks incredibly well for individuals all the time.
Going Through Cheryl’s Brand SERP: It Needs More Twitter Activity, Needs to Dominate the Image Boxes, and Needs to Look Professional
[00:41:10] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Then we go down. We’ve got Twitter. Now we can see that it said one day ago. That makes me think that you are active on Twitter. You’re not quite active enough. If you were more active on Twitter and you got more engagement from your audience or the people that Google understands to be your audience, you would trigger the Twitter boxes.
[00:41:29] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And if we scroll down a little bit more, those images are amazing because you have that same blue shirt on all the time. Now, I do this with the red shirt. And you’ve done an amazingly good job of having multiple photos that look very similar. And you’ve dominated the image boxes, which allows Google to say, okay, I can recognise. It recognises that blue shirt. So, it can recognise that that is the same person over and over and over again. So, you’ve done something very smart, which is to take the same photo and reframe it. And Google is fooled by that, which is beautiful.
[00:42:18] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And if we then scroll down, we’ve got the Forbes. That makes you look very professional. We have the Facebook, which is I hope your account. Then we have business woman and yes, beautiful with the same photo. And I think that’s very important. We were talking about that earlier on is having the same photo and the same bio on all these different sites isn’t negative.
The More Google Sees the Same Photo and Explanation, the More It Is Confident It Has Understood Who You Are and What You Do
[00:42:48] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): We have this idea within Google or with the SEO community that you should not have duplicate content. And this is a case where duplicate content is actually very helpful. The more Google sees the same photo, the same text, the same explanation, the more it is confident it has understood who you are and what you do.
[00:43:11] Eric Schwartzman: So, you’re saying if you update your bio on Pinterest, you better update it on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter as well.
[00:43:18] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah, exactly.
[00:43:19] Eric Schwartzman: And use the same photo for all of them.
You Can Take Multiple Photos Which Are Slightly Different, Then Upload and Spread Them to Different Sites
[00:43:22] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, that’s the thing. If you scroll up a little bit, we see those photos. Now don’t use the same photo because you get stuck with one photo and then all the others will be other people with the same name. What I did was take multiple photos and upload different ones to each site. So, I would spread them out, make sure that different sites. Google will not show the same images from the same site across that entire six pack. What it will do is show the same photo from multiple sites. Apparently, thanks to Cheryl, we now understand, if it’s presented slightly differently on each site. So, take a photo you love.
[00:44:08] Eric Schwartzman: Cropping the model differently is enough.
[00:44:10] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Apparently. Yeah. And this is news to me, and I love that. Thank you, Cheryl. I actually took several photos and made lots of effort. So, the text needs to be the same so that Google understands that you’re talking about the same person, who does the same thing, but the photos need to be slightly different.
[00:44:32] Cheryl Procter-Rogers: And this was totally by accident. I promise you.
[00:44:36] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, I’m happy to say you’re a genius. That’s absolutely not a problem. The thing as well is if you have a different photo on every single site, it won’t work. You need to have three or four sites with the same photo, then three or four other sites with the same photo, and so on and so forth. So, there has to be some consistency. So, the photos need consistency. But if you have too much consistency, you end up with just the one photo and therefore no domination. Whereas with the text, you have to have absolute consistency because that is what Google will understand. And that’s where you dominate.
How to Get a Knowledge Panel: Create a Home for the Entity, Add Schema Markup, and Point to Different Sources on the Web
[00:45:19] Eric Schwartzman: What could she do to get a Knowledge Panel going up here?
[00:45:25] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Well, number one is we come back to create her own website that represents herself. It’s a home for her entity where she can start to say who she is and what she does. And then using that page, she can add Schema Markup. And we come back to that. It’s a little bit technical, but it’s worth doing. And that’s saying in Google’s native language, if we like, which is what Schema Markup is, who I am, what I do, and then pointing to all the different sources on the web, like the Bloomberg thing we saw earlier on or the Forbes thing we saw earlier on, that confirms who we are and what we do.
[00:46:06] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And that’s where the interest of having that repetition is important. Because if you are saying on my site I’m a writer and a digital marketer in my case, and then I point to Search Engine Land and it says that I’m a musician and a blue dog, Google’s going to think, oh, that doesn’t actually confirm what he’s saying. I want to point to things that confirm exactly what I’m saying on my own site.
[00:46:31] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, that’s the interest of saying a) I need to have this text, which is standardised, and I need to have this Schema Markup that explains to Google who I am and what I do in its own native language, and then signpost it to corroborative sources that it trusts, authoritative sources, third party sources that confirm who I am and what I do in exactly the same way that I already expressed it.
Depending on the Format of the Site, Your Description Should Be a 10, 100, or 300 Word Summary of Who You Are
[00:47:04] Eric Schwartzman: Is there a…
[00:47:04] Cheryl Procter-Rogers: So, I have a question.
[00:47:05] Eric Schwartzman: Go ahead, Cheryl.
[00:47:06] Cheryl Procter-Rogers: I’m sorry.
[00:47:07] Eric Schwartzman: Go ahead.
[00:47:08] Cheryl Procter-Rogers: Jason, I just want make sure that I’m hearing you because I’ve been quoted by Forbes a lot and other. I’ve done, I guess, blogged on very credible and none of those are coming up, which suggests to me, I decided I’m going to focus on this thanks to Eric. What it suggests to me is that I’m not doing that properly. And I’m wondering the descriptors that follow every blog. Are you suggesting that all of those should be the same?
[00:47:48] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. You should have a 10 word summary of who you are, a 100 word summary of who you are, and a 300 word summary of who you are. And depending on the format of the site you are placing this information on, it should be one of the three and it should never change.
Changing Your Self Description Is Interesting for Human Beings But Confusing for Google; Google Doesn’t Have a Multifaceted Understanding of Us
[00:48:08] Cheryl Procter-Rogers: Thank you. Because I’ve been changing it because I’m thinking, well, let’s make it a little more interesting or let’s take this out and put that in.
[00:48:18] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I love it.
[00:48:18] Cheryl Procter-Rogers: And so, that’s not serving me.
[00:48:21] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): No. You’re making it more interesting for human beings, but you’re making it more confusing for Google. The reason I know this, and it’s basically I’m foolish and I did exactly the same thing. So, it’s not that I’m saying, ooh, you’re an idiot. I’m saying, actually, we all do this. I thought all this aspect of me is interesting, all this aspect, and I would present it differently.
[00:48:45] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And what I realised is the more I did that, the less Google understood. Google doesn’t have a multifaceted understanding of who we are and what we do. It likes this linear idea of you are an author or you are a speaker or you are a digital marketer. And it needs to understand that, and it needs to hook onto that, and it needs corroboration. And it’s very, very simplistic.
News Is Affected by Recency and the Authority of the News Site Not on the Popularity of the Site
[00:49:13] Eric Schwartzman: So, here we are looking at news search results for Cheryl.
[00:49:18] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Brilliant.
[00:49:19] Eric Schwartzman: And we can see that all her stuff is coming up in news. Why doesn’t it show up here too? What would she need to do to get some sort of a carousel going with news search results on universal search?
[00:49:34] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Brilliant. Yeah. A hundred percent. Two different algorithms, the news, basically all of those buttons across the top are different algorithms. They all use the same data set, i.e. they will all use the same crawled content from the web. So, you’re still relying on Bingbot and Googlebot to provide this information, but they have algorithms that function slightly differently that are adapted to the needs of that particular type of media. So if you look at news, it’s going to be recency. It’s going to be the authority of the news site, as opposed to the popularity of the site.
[00:50:15] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And a good example of that would be a site that talks about pop stars. That’s popularity. That’s not news. It’s not fact. So, you would have Forbes or you’d have the New York Times or The Guardian. That would get more visibility in news because the authority of the site in terms of the topic it’s talking about will have an enormous waiting. Whereas in the all one right on the left hand side, popularity plays a big role.
Images and Videos Are Affected by the Content Around Them; News About a Person Is Affected by the Regularity of News About Them
[00:50:50] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): If you look at images, it’s going to be a lot to do with the alt tags. It’s going to be a lot to do with the content around that image, specifically around that image. And the videos, it’s going to be a lot to do with how they crawl the videos, how well they’re marked up, what the content around those videos are. So, the algorithms of these are going to be very different.
[00:51:11] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And if you click back on all, the reason that you would get something like news, image, or videos, which is basically it’s going to take what it can find in those different tabs, the images here is a very good example, and say, that is useful to the person searching this person’s name. And so far, it hasn’t seen that that news is useful enough. And I would suggest without wishing to insult you, Cheryl, that it’s because there isn’t enough ongoing news. That news has too many days between each piece of news for that news to be interesting on a day-to-day basis on your Brand SERP.
[00:51:54] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Whereas for somebody like Microsoft or Britney Spears, the news would probably appear because there is regularly, very regularly news about them. There you go, from Microsoft. There’s constantly new things about them. In your case, if there’s 30 days between each piece of news, I don’t know what the figure would be. It’s saying somebody coming back to this Brand SERP day after day after day after day is just going to see the same stale stuff day after day after day after day. That’s not interesting.
You Have to Register Any Domain Name That’s Unique to You for You to Have Control Over the Long Term
[00:52:33] Eric Schwartzman: I have a practical question for you. So, you’re saying that Cheryl should have a website for herself as well as for her business. I know there are a lot of these sites where you can set up a page like aboutme.com. Are any of those any good? Can you just go to one of those and set it up and will that work? Or do you need to actually get cherylprocterrogers.com and set up a site there and get the Schema going?
[00:53:08] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): I was talking to the guys at Wix. The fact that the site isn’t considered to be SEO friendly isn’t important at all. It really isn’t important. What is important if, for example, you said about.me/eric, your problem there wouldn’t be so much that your site wouldn’t be official enough for Google. Although it would lose a certain amount of respect or authority because it’s part of a bigger and rather simplistic system. Your problem would be control over the long term. You have every interest to register any domain that’s unique to you that you own a new control over the long term.
[00:53:58] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): So, about.me/eric is not a solution for giving your home an entity, your entity a home, excuse me, I’m getting confused. It would be by ericschwartzman.com, .org, .name, it doesn’t matter and making sure that you own it over the long term. So that in 10 years time when about.me has collapsed because there were no more investors, you don’t find yourself without a home.
You Also Have to Make Sure You Own the Address of Your Own Site
[00:54:32] Eric Schwartzman: What if I just got the ericschwartzman.com and redirected it over to about.me? Would the about.me fulfill the solution of launching a one page site with Schema to tell Google who I am and point to all these relevant?
[00:54:53] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Yeah. Which is an absolute brilliant question because it actually says something that I should have said, and I didn’t, which is yes, a hundred percent. What you need to do is only address. You don’t need to own the actual service space. About.me is a server. It’s a place where you can put stuff. So, what you need to do is own the address. Because then if you say today it’s pointing to this about.me.domain, Google doesn’t see that.
[00:55:25] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): And tomorrow you can point it to a different server with a different set of content with a different hosting provider on a different system. And Google will see exactly the same thing, i.e. ericschwartzman.com would be whether it’s on a aboutme.com or wix.com or wordpress.org, it doesn’t matter because it would see that it’s you still. So, make sure you own, and that’s the important thing, sorry, Eric. It’s what you are saying is make sure you own the address.
Contact Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) Through Twitter and LinkedIn and Take His Courses on Kalicube Pro
[00:55:58] Eric Schwartzman: Jason, you’ve been so generous. We could go on for hours. This is such a great topic. But if someone wanted to take some of your courses or maybe get a hold of you for consulting, what’s the best way for them to do that?
[00:56:13] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Oh, right, brilliant. Yeah. Kalicube.pro is my site, and it’s a whole research system. I’m tracking 75,000 brands and people and music groups. And I track their Brand SERPs and their Knowledge Panel and their Knowledge Graph integration. So, you can go along there and you can put it all in there for free, because I’m just interested in understanding. I really want to understand how this functions and how we can deal with it. If you actually want to contact me, it’s jasonmbarnard on Twitter, jasonmbarnard on LinkedIn. And for the courses, it’s courses.kalicube.pro. Kalicube is K A L I C U B E .pro.
[00:56:55] Eric Schwartzman: Thanks for joining us. If you’re in marketing, if you’re in PR, if you’re in social media, and you’re looking to grow your market share through earned, owned, and shared media, you definitely want to download the 2021 Social Media Trends Report from Talkwalker. It just came out yesterday. It’s at ericschwartzman.com/talkwalker because it’s going to help you generate more leads in less time. So, go to ericschwartzman.com/talkwalker and check out and read the 2021 Social Media Trends Report before your competitors do.
[00:57:30] Eric Schwartzman: Next week, we’ve got a killer guest and we’re going to do a clinic on packaging start-ups for shark tanks with angel investor, Jeff Saling. We’re going to talk to him about what it takes to build an effective pitch for early stage investors. He’s an angel investor that helps scale business ideas from minimum viable product to revenue producing businesses. So, bring your questions. He’s going to talk to us about what type of deals are getting funded now, post-COVID. He’s going to talk to us about what type of start-ups need the most help when they’re pitching investors and also how to formulate the perfect pitch to secure early round funding. So, I hope you’ll be able to join us for that.
[00:58:14] Eric Schwartzman: Jason, thanks again for joining us today and thanks, everyone, for attending.
[00:58:21] The Brand SERP Guy (Jason Barnard): Thank you very much. That was absolutely delightful.
