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Discussion on: I'm SEO Consultant, Ask Me Anything!

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rahulchowdhury profile image
Rahul Chowdhury 🕶

Hey Aymen,

Thanks for this opportunity. :-) Here's my question:

  • How can I get my personal website or my product page to rank as the 1st result for my name or my brand keyword?

For example, my name is Rahul Chowdhury which is a fairly common name. How do I get my personal website which is rahulchowdhury.co to rank first among the search results?

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loukilaymen profile image
Aymen Loukil

Hi Rahul,

Ahah good question. Here are 2 things for that :

  • Having your content optimized with "Rahul Chowdhury" #content
  • Having other contents citing "Rahul Chowdhury" and linking to your website #links
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radicalbee profile image
Abdu

Thank you very much for the efforts you are putting here to make developers SEO aware.

Here is my question: What if a username or domain name doesn't reflect the real name? What should be the strategy for the personal website/brand?

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vuild profile image
Vuild

Look at the SERPs for your name, just add more content & get a few decent links with good anchor text from authority sites. Some guests posts would do it pretty much. You'll mostly just get a bunch of low engagement off-topic traffic (the other RCs) but it won't take long. "Developer Bangalore" & similar is more worthwhile long term.

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vuild profile image
Vuild

The value you will get from ranking #1 for your name will be very little as 99.99% of traffic will be for other Rahuls as well. It is called "fools gold" unless you want to be a famous (at which point your rankings will mostly take care of themselves with a bit of basic work).

The simple workaround is to adopt a rarer pseudonym for your work.

Or you can target slightly smaller terms like "Rahul Chowdhury Bangalore" or "Rahul Chowdhury Greatest Developer" or Rahul Chowdhury CompSci" initially.

If you really want the #1 for your name, then make a content engine & do a lot of unique things that attract attention (rather than trying to an SEO play specifically).

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loukilaymen profile image
Aymen Loukil

Control your name / brand 1st page of Google is very valuable. Many brands are loosing traffic because competitors are ranking on branded queries.

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vuild profile image
Vuild

Agree. Many lose highly targeted traffic by not controlling their vanity serps.

If you have no real brand type in traffic it doesn't matter much (like most devs/personal brands). For any kind of company with a range of products or a strong brand then yes, they are missing out. They should even be running ads for their brand terms, using secondary sites, filling the whole SERPs, sideboxes, news, typos, competitors etc. Basically any on-page real estate you can get.

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rahulchowdhury profile image
Rahul Chowdhury 🕶

Thanks for the detailed insight. :-) I'll try this out.