Search Results: Owning Your Online Reputation | Online

About this class

Anyone can benefit from improving their online reputation — and if you’re an entrepreneur, business owner, student, or job hunter, your reputation can have a tremendous impact on your success. In this class, you’ll learn the best practices for improving your online reputation and find out how to put your best foot forward. You’ll also learn Search Engine Optimization (SEO) principles, how to create content that you want showing up about you, and how to ensure it will rank well. Plus, you’ll learn emergency tactics for burying a negative result.

Takeaways

• Be able to identify your current online reputation and learn specific steps to improve each scenario.
• Find out the basic principles of SEO and how to apply it to the personal content (websites/profiles) you create.
• Understand search result behavior and how to make specific results move in ranking based on a number of factors.
• Learn how to actively monitor and maintain a positive online reputation.

Prereqs & Preparation

Please bring a laptop or tablet. Students should also Google their name and any possible variations/misspellings prior to class with an incognito search and capture a screenshot of the first page of the search results. The screenshot will not be submitted to the instructor or shared in class, but rather used for personal evaluation during class activity.

Students who are looking to improve Google results for their own name are welcome to submit their results to the instructor prior to class to be considered for an in-class case study. For instance, if you don’t have an online presence and want to learn how to build one specifically for your name, have a negative result you want to bury, or have a common name and want to stand out.