Person Engine Optimization
When a client searches your name, they get whatever the internet says about you most often.
- Verified Google Knowledge Panel
- Author of 21+ books
- Featured in The New York Times, Forbes and Fast Company
What I want a search for my name to return
The formula
Two skills that are usually taught apart.
Personal branding
What you want to be known for, said the same way everywhere. Your one line, your proof, your face.
Search engine optimization
How Google and AI tools find a page, read it and repeat it. Until now, mostly done for company websites.
I put the two together and call it Person Engine Optimization. For solopreneurs and solo founders it matters more than for anyone, because in a one-person business the name is the company. People look you up before they reply to your email.
How it works
Where Google and AI get their answer about you.
- Your own websiteThe one page you fully control. It should open with your line.
- Your LinkedIn profileOften the first result for a name. The headline and About should match your line.
- Articles about youPress, interviews and guest posts. Each one that repeats your line makes it stronger.
- Books and bylinesAn author page or a byline gives Google a fact it can check.
- Podcasts and videosTitles and show notes are read too. Ask the host to introduce you with your line.
- Old profilesA bio you wrote years ago still counts. Update it or take it down.
When these pages agree, the answer about you is clear. When they disagree or say nothing, the answer is thin, or it's about someone else with your name.
Try it now
The 15-minute check of your own name.
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Tap each step when it's doneNow compare that line with the one you want people to say. The gap between the two is the work, and it's the same work whether you're a consultant, a freelancer or a small business owner.
What to fix first
Start with one line and one home.
- One line, everywhere.Write the sentence people repeat about you, and use the same one on every profile.
- One home on the web.A page you own, with the same name, title and description everywhere people look you up.
- One thing you're known for.Say it again from a new angle. That is what Google and AI tools pick up.
Nobody can guarantee a Google Knowledge Panel. Google decides that. You control everything Google reads before it decides. Google shows a verified panel for my name, and I built mine with these steps.
0:28Twenty-eight seconds on why great work stays hidden.
Questions
Before you search yourself.
What is Person Engine Optimization?
Personal branding plus search engine optimization. Personal branding is what you want to be known for. Search engine optimization is how Google and AI tools find it and repeat it. Together, a search for your name returns the right answer.
How is it different from SEO?
SEO usually works on a company website and its keywords. Person Engine Optimization works on a person: your name, your one line, and every page that describes you.
Do I have to post every day?
Pick one thing you want to be known for and say it again from a new angle. Ten posts about one thing do more than a hundred posts about everything.
Can you get me a Google Knowledge Panel?
Nobody can guarantee one, because Google decides. What you control is everything Google reads before it decides: one home on the web, and the same name, title and description everywhere.
Is this part of Solo, Not Small?
Yes. Two of the systems are about this: writing the one line people repeat about you, and making Google and ChatGPT get your story right.
I give this as a 45 to 60 minute talk: the Person Engine Optimization keynote. Leadership teams take it as a workshop, and my speaker page lists everything I speak about.