Personality Search: An SEO Strategy When You’re the Face of Your Brand

Several years ago, I was approached by a well-known cybersecurity company looking for help with SEO. There was a catch. The company was already generating hundreds of thousands of Google visits per month. So, what’s the problem? 

Most of their Google traffic was driven by branded search. People were just Googling the name of the company or its core products. They wanted to expand, turning organic into a stronger marketing channel, to reach new people, not just people who already recognize the brand. I was hired to do exactly that. 

Branded search is a common term in SEO. It helps you segment site traffic into useful categories: people looking for your brand versus people who stumble upon your site through organic search marketing. 

For years, SEOs have called this distinction: Branded versus non-branded search traffic.

But in the age of influencer CEOs, celebrity entrepreneurs, and public-facing founders, there now exists a gray area between these categories. 

Imagine the cybersecurity company had a celebrity CEO. How would you categorize search traffic related to people intent on following and learning about the CEO? People wouldn’t be searching for the company, per se. They also wouldn’t be the result of traditional SEO content marketing, either.

I’ve started referring to this gray area as “Personality search.” It’s the third category of SEO analytics.

Personality search defined

Let’s define this thing.

Personality search is any earned Google traffic that stems from people searching the names and personal IP (like books, YouTube channels, and newsletters) of public-facing executives. 

Personality search is like a cousin of branded search. 

Instead of people Googling the exact name(s) of your company and products, they're searching for your chief executive, founder, or one of their products.

It’s not branded search because the searcher isn’t looking specifically for your company. It’s also not traditional search because the user is intent on finding someone core to your company.

This is an important form of SEO that has been largely ignored by most companies. But as executive-led marketing gains more of a foothold, companies must learn to pay attention to the subtle ways executives drive traffic to their websites.

Personality search example: Rand Fishkin

Rand Fishkin is the co-founder of the marketing research software, SparkToro.

Before SparkToro, Fishkin built a name for himself as the face of a company called Moz. People followed his videos and social posts to learn about SEO. Over time, Fishkin built a large following, wrote a book, gave keynotes, and ultimately became the face of his brand and industry.

Today, he's on the same path, but this time on the audience research side. Much of SparkToro's growth relies on Rand Fishkin and Amanda Natividad, who are the dual public faces of the brand. They publish blogs, videos, and social content to drive awareness for the software service.

Fishkin is leaning into a superpower of modern personal branding: Many people trust SparkToro because they first trusted Fishkin himself. 

Rand Fishkin’s name is larger than the name of his company. And he takes full advantage of this by using his personal brand, name, and IP to rank SparkToro on Google for each of these topics.

When you Google information about Rand Fishkin, the first two search results are Fishkin’s LinkedIn profile and his company, SparkToro. 

The same happens when you Google Fishkin’s book, “Lost and Founder.” The first non-Amazon search result is SparkToro. 

This is personality SEO in full force: Fishkin knows people are Googling his name. And he uses that to his SEO advantage. He’s trying to convert Fishkin-related search traffic to SparkToro (as opposed to a personal site or a particular social media platform). 

Personality search in the age of influence

The big point here is that some business leaders are famous independent of their companies. They lean into what I call executive-led marketing to build a personal brand.

Michael Bloomberg described being the face of the company as the hardest job for a business leader to outsource. Even if you have a PR team or a ghostwriter, the success of an executive-led marketing strategy still relies on the involvement of said executive.

That's the marketing environment we're in today. People prefer to follow people. People are more likely to remember, share, and cheer for a person than a brand.

The opportunity exists for you must position your company to take advantage of that person-to-person influence.

You do that by optimizing pages on your business site to rank for executive names and IP (like books and newsletters). Then, you track traffic over time, seeing a mix of search console and your preferred analytics.

The advantages of tracking personality search

If someone finds your brand by Googling the name of your founder, chief executive, or other senior leaders, you want to know about it. Personality search is the way to track and discuss the growing influence of your executive team.

• See how viral marketing moments translate into long-term sales

• Work backwards to find non-backlinked executive press and media mentions

• Distinguish company branding from executive-led marketing efforts to know what’s working 

• Track influence from hard-to-measure marketing efforts like keynotes, book tours, podcast appearances, and print publicity

• Track executive brand awareness more closely over time

When an executive generates personal IP in the form of books and articles, or makes appearances on podcasts and conference keynotes, often there’s an uptick in company search traffic related to the public-facing executive. 

People want to follow, meet, subscribe to, or learn more about the person behind your brand. They turn to Google. Google takes them to your company website.

For years, this side of SEO has been lumped into branded search. But as more brands adopt executive-led marketing, I suggest adding one more to the conversation: Personality search.