@Elaine Young: Great take on OV! You said two words that really stand out to me as exactly what we are going for: “authentic” and “intentional”. You’re such an Avinash groupie!

In my mind Online Visibility is at its most simple, the practice of public relations online. Consider what it is that a PR professional engages in. Pre-internet they were responsible for working closely with the media (read there, news media) to get coverage of their organization/client. Today, the definition of “media” is much broader and includes many different channels.

When engaging in Online Visiblity, a person is utilizing online tools in an intentional and authentic way to increase the relevance and credibility of their brand.

These tools are any that are currently in use such as SEO, SEM, Blogging, Social Networking, Micro-blogging (Twitter) and…any of those tools we don’t quite know about yet.

For example, I blog. You blog. You sent me an email letting me know about this discussion and my Google Alert tipped me off, so I blogged about it, and then came over here and wrote this post. In my blog, I linked to your “linkedin profile” and refrenced your new gig AND your teaching for me.

That process just increased your online vis, my online vis AND both of our SEO rankings.

Hmm…it’s such a wonderful web we weave!

See you soon at Online Marketing Bootcamp here in Burlington! Looking forward to your presentation…but must be honest that I’m really looking forward to meeting Avinash!

Elaine Youngs last blog post..Dog and Pony Shows — it’s all about Social Media

Thanks for the props in the post! Following the thread from David and Naomi, I’d look to define if you are talking about Online Visibility for an individual or a company. For an individual it is important to have a consistent profile, message, etc. across all the social networks that are important to their visibility. For a company, I would agree that now search engine listings become important because they improve the company’s visibility.

One company taking the “extreme” approach is Modernista - http://modernista.com — they don’t have a true site but rather pull in all their online touch points to piece together an online presence. A bit extremist but they get the point across!

Dave
Epik

@David: Great observation! I am wondering if Online Appearance is more of what I had in mind when I originally wrote this. I think that search engine ranking should also play a part so back to the drawing boards I go.

As Naomi asks, I’m curious why your definition of online visibility doesn’t include search engine rankings. To me it seems a little more like ‘online appearance’ i.e. how you look to those who have found you.

That said, appearance is vital, and no matter what is said to the contrary, people judge a book by its cover.

Regarding your definition of Online Visibility, I do agree with a large portion of it. However you state that it is “…visual branding of a person or entity across multiple websites…”

I was wondering why you did not choose to define Online Visibility by search engine ranking. In today’s Internet world, it is the search engines that are defining the what we see and perceive at a certain time. Search engines (regardless of their tactics et cetera) are molding our culture and society to the knowledge it spews out and ranks as number one. Wouldn’t it make sense, that by creating a web presence on multiple websites, you can propel your online visibility higher on search engines or something of that sort, hence the “visibility” aspect of the term?

I would be keen to hear what you think : )

Thanks,
Naomi