This story originally appeared on the Office Prep blog.

Privacy is dead. The internet gives us the power to find out who someone is in a matter of seconds. We cannot control this. What we can control though, are the results that turn up for your name. Many prospective employers will Google you in order to see what’s beyond your résumé. Why not try to turn the results in your favor? Point them to your impressive LinkedIn page or a local news article listing an accomplishment. Marketing teams are frequently hired by companies to turn web results in their favor. For instance, Deloitte wants to appear at the top of Google when you search, “Consulting Firms.” The good news is that improving SEO for your personal name is a bit easier because you’re working with one keyword.

8 Tips On Building Personal Brand Equity

1. SEO is awarded to those with a history on the web. LinkedIn is largest online professional network, If you do not have a LinkedIn account get one today. If you’ve had a LinkedIn account for years, you’re ahead of the game because your name has a deeper web history.
2. Twitter is the best way to spread your name fast. With every tweet you send out, your name is attached to it. If you’re retweeted it spreads further and further, improving your SEO. Be sure to keep your tweets clean and professional.
3. Consider starting a personal blog. Writing about your passion about doesn’t feel like work and it will help tailor your name’s SEO. Travel blogs are great and employers will be happy to see the out-of-the-office side you. There are plenty of blogging platforms out there. Medium is very simple and linked with your Twitter account. There is also Wordpress, Blogger, and Squarespace.
4. Sign Up for Brandyourself.com. This service is pretty awesome; it allows you to control the results that appear for your name, as well as hide the results you don’t want anyone to immediately see.
5. Get some press! Try to get written up in your local newspaper or by your college magazine. Volunteering at charity events usually get some easy press. Work hard and stand out to make sure your name get’s published.
6. Comment on news articles and blogs. This is one of the easiest tactics out there. Last month over 5% of traffic to Office Prep’s site was driven from one comment on Neville Medhora’s Personal Finance Blog. This is because it’s a high traffic blog with over 1.5 million page views. The comment took under 20 seconds to write!
7. Launch a personal website. This can be done in under an hour. Many people just have an expanded version of their résumé on their sites. It also looks quite professional to have one listed on the header or footer of your paper résumé. You can go so far as to make your own custom email address, i.e. firstname@lastname.com.
8. Make an Academia Account. If you have some research papers you’re proud of and wish to share them then, www.academia.edu is the place for you. There are about 8.5 million researchers on this site. This also further expands your professional image. Plus you should get some extra kudos from writing all of those long research papers in college.

If you covet your privacy that’s understandable. The web is the wild west. But wouldn’t you rather be in control of what results turn up for your name? You are in control of your online professional image just as much as you are off the web. We need to love having our name out there, unlike Ron Swanson…

— —

P.S. If you’re on the job hunt and want to become a better networker go check out the Office Prep Journal.

P.P.S. If you enjoyed this article there are plenty more on the Office Prep Blog.