Do you control your brand? What do people find when they search for you? Have you had legal/negative press and now it's front and center on search results? If so, you have to take control of your brand. 

This applies to businesses and individuals, there is absolutely no excuse for ignorance on this subject. You need to know all the top search results and how they got there. In these times the first thing a person does when they meet someone new is Google them. 

Be prepared. 

Do you know how to control it? If you don't then you need to learn the proper steps to take. 

I have outlined the most essential ones. These are a must. 

Step 1: Social Media Sites

• Sign up to Facebook
• Fill out your Google Profile
• Professional Info Sites: LinkedIn, Fast Pitch 

Social media sites will let you connect with many friends and business contacts. You are controlling the information and this information will be analyzed by search engines to push the most relevant content to the front of search results. 

Step 2: Blog, MicroBlog, and the Inbetween

• Start a Blog, use either WordPress, TypePad, or Blogger
• Sign up to either Tumblr or Posterous
• Join Twitter

These services allow you to have various levels of engagement with the online world. You can be as brief as 140 characters or write till your fingers bleed on a blog post. Blogs get high search results because the search spiders look for fresh content, so anything that is new will have a higher chance of appearing before the older content that was there before. 

Step 3: Be Social and Explore

• Interact with other bloggers
• Have guest authors
• Spread your name on the web 
• Go to tweetups or meetups in your area

By being active and positive you will soon have links going to your site. This makes your site look more important to the search spiders and will give you better search results. Besides the search result attributes, you get to know more people who now are interested by what you have to say and are able to promote or spread your brand further organically. 

The steps above are very general and can be applied by both individuals and businesses. To go more in-depth I will post something directly for each side for further optimization. 

Please leave a comment and let me know what I missed or questions you might have.