*
As a part of my digital marketing studies at George Brown, we have a seminar class where marketing professionals share their insights and experiences in their work with us. It’s been a great way to learn more about different roles in marketing. It’s definitely helped me get a better feel for what would be a good fit for me.
A few weeks ago, SEO professional, Daniela Furtado, shared her expertise on SEO and personal branding: “SEO is not just how you optimize your website, it’s how you optimize your online presence across the web.” Daniela is the founder of Findable, a marketing agency that specializes in making businesses easy to find online. She built her business from the ground up and has been very successful in her work, so I’m taking any advice she has to share!
With the rise of AI, Google has made it easier for actual people to stand out online—with their addition of “Experience” to their original E-A-T algorithm (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness). Daniela sees this as an opportunity, and emphasized the importance of optimizing one’s personal brand to achieve a competitive ranking that is rich in snippets, known as the Knowledge Panel.
The Knowledge Panel is, essentially, what a personal brand looks like. And Daniela shared the steps to work our way to Knowledge Panel status:
1. Have a website domain with your name in it
2. Have digital assets with your name on them, i.e. podcast, show, YouTube channel
3. Streamline your brand by including your name in your social media handles
4. Develop expertise by speaking/writing regularly on the same topic, using the same keywords and language—be consistent
5. Gain authority by talking about your topic on other high authority sites or shows/channels, beyond your own
6. Use keyword research tools to gauge your progress, what’s working and what isn’t
Daniela reminded us that marketing leads to financial growth, and personal branding is a part of that. A strong personal brand can increase the perceived value of your service and attract potential clients and other career opportunities. The power of your personal brand should not be underestimated.
What stood out to me most was Daniela's journey in getting to where she is now as an entrepreneur. She taught herself how to build websites in her teens, and eventually made it a source of income for herself. To expand her skillset, she pursued a master’s degree in digital marketing. And upon graduation, she started her own marketing agency. Beyond the great technical expertise that Daniela shared, what stuck with me the most was how industrious and ambitious she is, and how that’s clearly what got her so far. Creating your own opportunities and carving out a space for yourself is such an important skill, and seems almost essential to succeed in an industry that is so competitive. Finding work in the creative industries has been very difficult for me, and personal branding is something that I’ve been giving more thought to since going on year three post-grad without creative work. I’d say this presentation and discussion has impacted my career path in further motivating me to invest more time and energy in creating a portfolio that has more than just credentials. Steps 1 to 3, I’ve got down. Steps 4 to 6, I’ve got a ways to go. So, let this be an official declaration of my new goal to create more consistent content with more authority!
*