Can you help with my online identity problem?
My name is Bill Bennett. I live in New Zealand where I work as publisher of Reseller News at Fairfax Business Media.
The rest of my time I run a business-to-business communications consultancy. I have a web site and a blog, but pretty much zero visibility because my name is:
a) commonplace and
b) shared with people who are more famous than me.
How bad is it?
Last time I checked, I didn't show on the first ten pages of "Bill Bennett" on Google. Strangely I come in on page five with Yahoo! Perhaps the most annoying aspect is the other Bill Bennett's even rate higher than me when I restrict my Google searches to New Zealand-only results.
The biggest problem is the American politician cum radio host. I get his hate mail.
There's also an Australian film director, which was especially tricky when we both lived in Sydney, Australia. Though I did get a couple of interesting nsfw emails from out-of-work actresses looking for a big break into movies.
There's also a country and western singer, a brace of Canadian politicians and an ancient British comedian.
Using William instead of Bill doesn't help . Nor does changing everything to Billy.
It doesn't help me to brand myself as Bill Bennett the writer (that applies to at least two other Bill Bennetts on the famous list). I do some radio broadcasting, but that's also useless.
Sadly, my new disambiguation page seems to get more traffic than my homepage.
I'd like to know from readers what I practical steps I can take to raise my online profile or at least rise up the list.
Try taking your wife’s name.
mpt520
11 Aug 08 at 3:44 pm
That’s not a bad idea. But it wouldn’t work for me.
She changed her name to mine (because she doesn’t like her one). Let’s just say changing mine would cause a lot more problems than it would solve.
billbennettnz
17 Aug 08 at 6:52 pm