I started this blog, in part, to dethrone a Hall of Fame NFL kicker.

George Blanda played the longest of any player in NFL history and had the most points in the history of the league until Gary Anderson broke both records. This distant relation was fine for anecdotal reasons and good for a story when I met anyone over the age of 60, but bad for Google rankings.

Every time anyone ever typed “Blanda” into Google, I would be buried under a mountain of stats and game recaps. That is, until I launched this site. Nearly a year later, I am creeping ahead.

I’m sure you have your own George Blanda, a person that is crowding a term you would like to rank high for. My personal favorite is my friend Chris Wink, who has the misfortune of sharing his name with one of the founding members of The Blue Man Group. However, he was able to quickly usurp his azure menace. How? He started a blog.

While starting a blog is certainly the biggest step, here are some tips to further help you quash your own personal George Blanda. These may seem obvious if you already maintain a blog, but to any student contemplating what to do try these four steps:

1. If possible, buy the domain name of the term you would like to rank high for. If you have a common name, this may not work, but you can get creative. Take advantage of subdomains and subfolders. For example I could buy isawesome.com and host the site in a subdomain that reads seanblanda.isawesome.com in the URL bar. The example is a little cheesy, but you get the idea. Search engines place a lot of weight on what is in the URL.
2. The currency of search engines is links. Frequently update your content, and make it compelling. Easier said than done, but good content equals links. If you primarily write under the “brand” of your own name, then most links to your site will be embedded in text that contains your name. For example a fellow blogger may write: I enjoyed this post by Sean Blanda about X.
3. Share the love. Don’t be like the mainstream media, give out links. When you link to someone you are essentially raising your hand and saying “hey, I’m over here”. They in turn, should have you on their radar.
4. When you launch your blog be sure to put the URL on your resume, business cards, and email signature. You may even want to warm your contact book and let everyone know you have started a Web site.

I’m aware that articles about search engines are often a little skeevy, but nothing I advised above is radical or illegal. Have any other basic ideas for overcoming your own Google nemesis?

As you can tell, my posting has become very light as I head into the home stretch of my collegiate career.  However there are a few bits of info that I have been meaning to blog about:

• The Philadelphia Inquirer has become using Twitter.   They are doing more than just regurgitating headlines, but *gasp* actually responding to followers.  Although this may be labor intensive I think they are doing it right.  Follow them at: http://twitter.com/PhillyInquirer.  Follow me at http://twitter.com/blandanomics
  
• 37 signals has released a case study about a small Chicago volunteer news organization using Basecamp for collaboration.  Stories like this make me think that newspapers are too bloated.
• Mr Greg Linch, does a great job at musing over the equipment options for a newspaper.

Good luck to all of you students out there!