Start by counting, not by doing
Before changing anything, search your name signed out and write down which of the first ten results are actually you. You need the before figure, or you will not know whether anything you do afterwards worked.
Half an hour of looking also tends to change the plan. People arrive wanting coverage and leave realising their job title says three different things in three places.
One. Make your title identical everywhere
Not similar. The same words in the same order, on your own site, on every profile you own and on any register you appear on.
This is free, it takes an evening, and it is the single input we have seen move most often. It is also the step people skip, because it feels too small to matter.
A promotion breaks it everywhere at once, which is why it is worth a note in the calendar rather than a one-off afternoon.
Two. List your own profiles on your own site
If you have a website, it should name the profiles you own and link to them. This is the cheapest thing on the list and it is missing more often than anything else.
One person we audited in October 2026 had three results on her first page that were all hers and all described her correctly. Her own website listed none of them, so from the outside she looked like several unconnected accounts that happened to share a name, exactly like the four other women above her on the same page.
She had the pieces and nothing joined them. The fix was an evening's work on her own website and cost nothing.
Three. Have one page that is plainly about you
A page that states your name, your role and your company together, in a form a machine can read as being about a person rather than being a page that mentions one.
A profile on somebody else's platform is not this, however good it is. You do not control it, you cannot change how it is built, and it can be taken away. It is worth having as support, not as the foundation.
Four. Then, and only then, something published
Coverage works when it has something unambiguous to point at. Published before the first three steps, it adds pages carrying your name to a page that already cannot tell you apart from somebody else.
That ordering is the single most common mistake we see and it is an expensive one, because coverage is the part people pay for.
What this does not do
It does not remove anybody. It does not guarantee a position, and we will not quote you one.
What it does is make it obvious which rows are you, and on the evidence we hold that is what changes the page. If you want the before figure measured properly, the free audit does exactly that.
A fertility instructor audited in October 2026 held three results on her own first page, all three describing her correctly, while her own website listed none of them. The connections were there to be stated and nothing stated them.