This article is more than 7 years old.

Your first impression is more and more likely going to be formed online. That’s thanks to the new phenomenon, Digital First, a term that was coined by Mitch Joel in his book, Ctrl Alt Delete. Your Google results paint a picture of who you are and reveal how visible you are on the web; and visibility (at least among your target audience) is critical to successful personal branding. Your Google results also become useful data points for those who are looking to make decisions about you.

That means you need to know what Google says about you and proactively manage your digital brand if you want to expand your success.

Do you know what Google says about you?

Google yourself right now (using the format “William Arruda” with quote marks around the complete search term), then see if any of these statements rings true for you:

1. You don’t exist – your Google search yielded nothing, nada, zippo.

2. Your name shows up in an obituary.

3. Google reveals lots of results, but unfortunately they are about others who share your name.

4. Your profile is great – for the job you used to have. It doesn’t reflect what you are currently doing, and it doesn’t clearly identify your aspirations.

5. Your Google results reveal your grand prize in the fifth grade spelling bee or your honorable mention in a photography competition, but nothing recent or professionally relevant.

6. What shows up about you does not make a positive first impression (like the time you were embroiled in scandal and let go by your employer, or that posting you made years ago bragging about your drinking escapades).

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Don’t worry if your Google results fell into one or more of these categories; there are many options available to you that will take your personal brand from digitally doomed to digitally dazzling. All you need to do is build and act on your on-line personal branding plan.

Here are some things to consider and actions to take that will help you align your virtual world brand with your real world brand. First, some things to consider:

• Before building your digital brand, you must be clear in your own mind about what your personal brand traits are – who you are, what makes you compelling and differentiated, and who needs to know you. It needs to be consistent with who you really are, and it needs to make it clear why people should care.

• You need only be concerned with page one of your Google results. 87% of all clicks happen there. And 62% of all clicks go to the top three links.

• Your online content needs to link the personal with the professional – showing that you are accomplished, interested, and interesting. Strive for 70-80% professional text and 20-30% personal text.

Now with that in mind, here are some easy steps you can take to enhance or establish your digital brand:

1. Write your bio. You want people to get to know you. That means you need to be clear about who you are, and you need to be able to articulate it with the 26 letters of the alphabet. The process of writing your bio helps you distill your brand into an important tool that you will use in various places on the web. With your bio written, you’ll be able to easily create content for your profiles – like your LinkedIn summary, Twitter bio, etc.

2. Update your LinkedIn profile. If you don’t have one, create one. Your LinkedIn profile will likely show up in one of the top three spots in the Google results of a search on your name. When working on LinkedIn, start with the big three: Your headline, headshot, and summary. They are the most important elements. Then, work on your skills/endorsements, experience and education. This previous Forbes post about LinkedIn will help.

3. Buy your domain name: yourname.com. Even if you have no plans to create your own website, this is important real estate to own. You can point your domain name to your LinkedIn profile or to other relevant pages on the web.

4. Secure your vanity URLs on all the social media you think might be helpful to building your brand (even if you won’t be using them immediately). Namechk can help you determine the sites on which your name is available. If yours is not available, for SEO purposes, add something to the end of your name rather than putting something between your first and last name.

Digital branding is no longer a nice bonus to have. It is now an essential must-have for career minded professionals who seek to impress and engage with decision makers and influencers.

William Arruda is the CEO of Reach Personal Branding and host of the Reach Interview Series.