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Personal SEO – Getting to 1st on Google – Week 104

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Personal SEO - Getting to 1st on Google - Week 104 - Google image resultsWelcome back to my journey to being 1st on Google.  This is the 104th update (2 years…) for my attempt to rank first for my name, Alan Reeves.  If you missed any of the posts, you can find the first one here, 103rd Week update here (last week), and the ones in between on my Project page. Below are the results as of Sunday, 1-19-14 (click here to do your own search for Alan Reeves on Google):

This week I’m at #2.  Overall, my top 5 results increased 1 places with 5 of the top 5 results occurring in the first 25 places.  As a whole, I showed up 14 times in the top 100 search results.

A check at Google Images showed my picture at #7 and a total of 16 occurrences in the top 100 images.  The image at the top of the post is a collage of those images

Cornering the market – from Google to Bing

In addition to searching Google, I have been checking Bing results for my name, Alan Reeves (click here to do your own Bing search for Alan Reeves).  Here are the top 5 Bing results:

This week I’m at #5 on Bing.  Overall, my top 5 results decreased 2 places with 5 of the top 5 results occurring in the first 25 places.  As a whole, I showed up 14 times in the top 100 search results.

A check at Bing Images showed my picture at #23 and a total of 8 occurrences in the top 100 images.

A Look Back…

Way back on 1/26/2012, I started this little experiment.  Now, 24 months later, I’m much closer but not there yet.  I always expected to be writing these posts for 12 or so weeks before reaching 1st on Google.  That was not in the cards it appears.  So, let’s look at some data.

The First 24 Months on Google

Looking at the Google results for the past 24 months, we can see how each result compares to the others in this graph

Personal SEO - Getting to 1st on Google - Week 104 - Google results graph

Of the total results, 25% were this site, while 15% were Vimeo, 12% were Twitter, etc.  Overall, there were 525 Google results, give or take a few.  Of those 525 results, 14 were from today and are listed at the top of the post.

Let’s turn our attention to Bing.

The First 24 Months on Bing

Personal SEO - Getting to 1st on Google - Week 104 - Bing results graph

As you can see, LinkedIn takes 20% of the results, followed by Quora at 18% and Twitter at 17%.  Overall, there were 457 Bing results.  Of those, 14 are listed previously in this post.

Strangely enough, Bing shows my Google+ profile 32 times while Google only displayed it 5 times.  So much for the benefit of a Social Media site owned by a search engine…

Combining some of the data yields:

  • Twitter showed up in about 14% of the search results
  • This site, BlueCapra, showed up in about 17% of the search results
  • LinkedIn showed up in about 14% of the search results
  • Quora showed up in about 8.5% of the search results

Results By Week

Now, let’s take a look at the top results of each search engine by the week.

Personal SEO - Getting to 1st on Google - Week 104 - Google and Bing top results by week

The Google results are in blue and Bing is in orange.  You can see how the results went up and down and all crazy at times.  Around the middle of July 2013, my Vizify profile hit #1 for several weeks.  Still working to get this site up there (current best is #3).

A few interesting observations:

  • Google was drastically up and down at the beginning before evening out and eventually dropping
  • Google was also drastically up and down recently before, what looks like, evening out for the time
  • Bing has been a bit more consistent but is trending down recently

Now that we have looked at the data, why not look at a few other keywords and top 25 results

Random Searches And Results

  • Alan Reeves Mobile: 1,3,4,5,6,8,9,10,11,12,13,18,19,21,22
  • Alan Reeves Alabama: 4,16,21,23
  • Alan Reeves blue: 1,2,13
  • Alan Reeves google: 1,3,4,8,10,11,14,15,16,17
  • first on google: {no results…}
  • 1st on Google: 14,15

As you can see from the first search term and results, I’ve pretty much nailed that one.  If you are trying to get noticed for a job, it helps to show up first when someone searches your name.  If that is not possible, showing up often when your name and city or state is searched is helpful.

Associating your name with bits of your brand, such as blue, or keywords in your writing, such as Google, is helpful when someone has heard of you in context but can’t remember exactly what they heard.

Finally, showing up at the top of Google for a subject that you have written about 104 times is great, although 14th and 15th is sort of a let down.  Too many people out in the world are trying for those keywords I guess.

Overall, this has been a successful experiment even though it is not finished.  The data I’ve collected over the past 24 months have been very insightful.  Although I’d hoped this would only last a few months, sticking with something this long has been an interesting adventure itself.

Summary – The Search for Alan Reeves

Going from #91 on 1-25-12 to #1 on 7-14-13 and to #2 today has been no small feat. I have learned a lot about improving search ranking and I have made a lot of mistakes, but it’s a learning process. Stay tuned to see what next week holds for Google and Bing.

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