The Importance Of Google

Since my book came out, people often ask me how I managed to get my book published and how I managed to get into the Dummies brand. In fact I've just given a talk this morning to my local Chamber on the whole book publishing process.

Well, it was pretty much down to Google. A few years ago, I attended a PR course and there are two things that have stuck with me from that course:

1) Journalists like to take the easy option and when up against a deadline to produce an article or do research, where do they go? Google.

2) If they contact you - get back to them immediately.

I'm often contacted by journalists - for the last couple of years I probably get half a dozen calls each year. How do they find me? They search for time management expert/coach and my name comes up on Google - either my website or my Ecademy profile. So they contact me and of course, I get back to them as soon as I receive their email or pick up their phone message, if I'm not able to answer it at the time.

When Wiley publishing were looking to commission the UK Edition of their Time Management book they googled and found me, read my articles and sent me an email to see if I might be interested in writing the book. The result of that initial contact is now up on Amazon and hopefully hitting the bookshelves soon.

Now, I'm no SEO expert and I've learnt an awful lot from many of the SEO experts I have in my network. My website is not necessarily going to win any prizes and there's always room for improvement but it's been enough to get me noticed and after all that's what's important.

I had a call yesterday morning from another journalist - she's calling me back on Monday for input into an article she's writing for December.

I was called in July by a journalist writing an article for BT Upload magazine - I'm in October's edition.

If you have an area of expertise - write articles, be seen, get noticed and Google is definitely going to help.

Ecademy Celebrates 10 Years

Last night I made one of my rare visits to London to meet up with people at the Ecademy 10th Birthday Celebrations at the Selfridges Hotel. Over 500 people were crammed into a pretty small area. Trying to match names to faces and faces to names. Most people were wandering round the room glass or bottle in hand glancing at about chest height to read people's name badges before then connecting with the face and seeing if they recognised them.

It was a great opportunity to meet up with people I've been connected with online but never actually met in person as well as some familiar faces who I have met before. Not only do people not necessarily look like their photos but you forget about the height thing. You have no idea of a person's height, so it's surprising when someone you thought was short turns out to be tall and someone who you'd got in your mind as being tall is actually quite short.

Even when you have a photo - you still form a picture in your mind of what the person actually looks like and sounds like. When you meet them in real life the reality is different. After all, you're talking to a real life person and not a 2D snapshot of them.

If you spend time networking online - exchanging messages or even talking on the phone isn't the same make sure you meet up with people in real life too. It makes a big difference.