Ever since Google released the news about the importance of Authorship I have been getting a lot of questions about how people should be using the Pen Name feature inside Ping Kaching.
(If you haven’t heard the new’s about Google’s latest changes you can read it here:
Authorship and Markup)
Here is my advice on how I handle the Pen Name feature inside PK.
How I look at Pen Names In My SEO Campaigns
There are still a rare few niches that I use a random Pen Name. Niche’s which are way off the wall and are easy to rank for….such as some video games, came corders, etc.
However, for the most part I have focused my SEO efforts on High Traffic, High Competition Markets.
For these more competitive markets I absolutely use my real name in everything I do.
It’s all about building a following! In the SEO industry people know my name as Michael Roberts
and recognize I am in the SEO field. It’s vital to my business that I build name recognition not just for my brand, Ping Kaching, but for my self as well.
This way as I develop multiple products, softwares, etc….I can use my personal brand name as the platform to launch each new website and product.
Where I Use Pen Names Often
However, there is still room for Pen Names. In high competition markets I always have 3-4 different websites that link back to my money site. These other websites sit on their own IP’s, own Server and have their own Pen Name. Google has No Way in tracking that I own this network of sites. This allows me to dominate not just position 1 with my main money site…but often times I will also own position 2,3 and maybe even position 4 as well with review type sites.
How To Use The Pen Name Inside Ping Kaching
At this stage I haven’t seen a connection between your bookmarks, rss submissions, etc to link back or connect to your authorship in anyway. You very well could be using an authorship markup on your blog and using Ping Kaching with a completely different pen name all together.
Through any of my tests I haven’t seen this to effect a sites SEO rankings in any way. However, this authorship markup is still relatively new, and since Ping Kaching submits to the top sites on the internet not just unkown sites…I suspect more and more of the sites Ping Kaching supports will get on board with Google’s changes. In the future I believe our whole network of sites we submit and publish content on will all link together seamlessly in Google’s eyes.
Since I believe this is the trend I find it HIGHLY important that you have consistency in your brand name. If your blog goes by a particular name then I would make sure your using that same pen name inside Ping Kaching.
Why You Shouldn’t Wait To Have a Consistent Brand
The longer you have an account the more powerful that account becomes. I have four year old bookmarking accounts which actually cary nice page rank and authority on their own. These older accounts carry a lot more power than a bran new account.
So if you continue moving forward using un-matching brand named social sites they will continue to grow in power. However, once the authorship markup has reached social sites then these older accounts will loose some of their power.
I recommend you start this very day in creating accounts that all match in pen name and brand. Stop using single social bookmarking sites for multiple niches and stop having un-matching brand named and pen names for each account.
If you make this switch today…You will be a bit behind. These will be new accounts and won’t carry as much power. However, moving forward they will be branded correctly and you can feel confident your moving in the correct direction and that the authority they build won’t be lost in the future changes of Google.
-Michael R Roberts
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I left a comment but it didn’t seem to post.. Hmm?
Here goes again…
If a pen name is not as branded or recognized as yours, like with SEO, would it still be the correct way to go? I never thought to use anything else
At first, I thought you were meaning that each project needed it’s own pen name. Made me a bit frazzled..lol
@Shane
I didn’t see your previous comment either. But this one posted!
Usually most of my different projects DO use the same Pen Name. It’s just important you keep consistency within your accounts which are added to a project. So your Digg account and Stumble Upon account, for the same project, should try to stay consistent.
Basic rule of thumb. Keep your pen name for your account profiles the same pen name you use on the blog you submit to those accounts. So if you had your Comeback Marketing website with a pen name of Shane Schimpf, then all the social sites you submit that website too should have the same names. I would create user names with Comeback-Marketing and use the pen name Shane Schimpf.
I hope that clears it up!
Buzz me if you have additional questions!
-Michael R Roberts
Thanks Michael this is really helpful.