patrickambron

Yep. Basically if you're using Google behind the HTTPS (like you're logged into Google+) they'll send back a non referral header. There ARE ways around this, but it's tricky

Yea you can get a similar list from a few places. The problem will be that manytimes the IP will return the company's ISP, which isn't useful for the user

I'd honestly argue that this is the most important role in the company. As a startup--your company is your product and for or all intents and purposes the product design is the product. Yes, it needs to be supported by a strong, scalable, flexible foundation, but from a user standpoint--design is everything. It will make or break you.

When we first created the profiles, we wanted to optimize for your industry as well. We didn't want people putting in anything so at first we just used the industries used by the US Labor Dept (LinkedIn does the same). Now we allow you to manually add your profession too, but I just kept mine as "Internet" because it seemed the closest.

This is a really good idea (we encourage users to do it). If you have too common a name, use a middle initial. The trick is, you need to use that name in prof. setting (biz card, resume, etc) otherwise people will still Google the other name, and they won't find you

We should hire you ;)

See above

Do you have any experience with this at all?

What do you mean by regionally tiered pricing? Right now all pricing is in USD which could be another reason for the drop off. Does anybody have experience with this type of thing?

PS-certain countries are put on an invite list so they can't sign up right now. It tells them to sign up to get on the waiting list

Do you dislike the quote, or the fact that it's from Fox news?

I think I may do one

Just the first response (I created an account a while ago pcambron, forgot about it, created the patrick ambron account, and somehow logged into the old one)

Surprisingly, very few analytics companies do. I'd go as far as to say just us (at least in what I've seen)

The reason is, most analytics company's are meant for places that get a lot of traffic. It's not really appealing or useful to have such specific info on one visitor, Instead you want overarching information about all of them

A person on the other hand, probalby has one or two people finding them a month. That means each visitor is someone important. You want as much information as possible to figure out who they were (where did they come from, how did they find me, where did they work, etc) Our goal is to get as much information as possible to you

Right now we use braintree to process payments. They accept all major credit cards, in all countries. It keeps it simple on our end, but if someone in, say Brazil, doesn't use a major credit card, then we can't accept their payment.

It's quite possible that in many countries, it's a small percentage of people who use cc. Anybody know any specific info or data on this?

Awesome! Feel free to reach out if you want to make sure you're doing everything you can or if you have any questions pambron[at]brandyourself[dot]com

That's a really good idea. It could serve the purpose of giving you a badge, but it could also be a protective measure, because it means we won't let somebody else with your info use the service (since they aren't verified)

Thanks Eli. That's actually because I just created this blog about 2-3 days ago (this was my first post). It'll take a bit before it's picked up and starts ranking. That said, I should see it go up soon, since I use BrandYourself :)

Sometimes a name is just too competetive to realistically expect to own the first page. That said, using our service, you are very likely to get some stuff about you up there. That visibility is important. If your name is Brad Pitt, people know you aren't the actor, but at least they found what they were looking for on result 6.

You are thinking the right way by trying to add an initial or middle name to your name. I'd be very surprised if you're name was too competitive to get some results.

Shoot me an email, I'd be happy to take a look and give somem advice pambron [at] brandyourself [dot] com

Thanks Nickler. Glad we were able to convert you :) We've actually found that startup founders/entrepreneurs are great, great users for us. If you're interested I'd love to talk to you on the phone, and get an idea of how you approached the product, and what changed your mind.

If you're interested, just shoot me an email (pambron [at] brandyourself [dot] com)

Yea, we actually WANT to talk to to as many users as possible. We get at least half a dozen calls a day. Trevor, our "customer happiness officer" spends all day talking to customer, answering people's email, etc. It does a few things

1) People get so excited to talk to a real person, even if they've just experienced a bug. These people become huge fans

2) It's the best way to learn about who's using your product. It's much easier to design and develop when you're thinking of specific people

I'd recommend everybody do it

Hey everyone, just wanted to say I'm truly flattered my blog got posted to HN and made the front page (I'm the author). I hope people found it helpful

2 comments

1) Some of you wanted to know how HN compares to other sources for us, in terms of signups, conversions, etc. I'll post it in this thread at the end of the day (would you guys want a follow up post on this "Value of HN visits")

2) I've gotten some great feedback on the actual product from the HN crowd, which is awesome. Feel free to leave any feedback on this thread (you can try it at http://brandyourself.com)

Nothing in the direct roadmap, but that's a great idea. Right now we're focusing on being more directly integrated w sites so we can you improve them right from us. But again, that's a very good idea

Hey these are really good questions

1) In terms of duplicate names, the product also helps you optimize for specific relevant terms like "Patrick Ambron, developer" or "Patrick Ambron, BrandYourself" "patrick ambron, NYC" etc. So people looking for you will be able to find you. That said, if two people are competing for the first page of Patrick Ambron using our service, the person more actively updating and creating content will edge the other out (google loves new, relevant content). But, at least they'll be a leg up on all the other Patrick Ambron's of the world

2) This is definately a possibility--in the same way, I can go and create a wordpress site using your name. It's hard to detect, but there are warning flags we look for. If you create an account for Patrick Ambron, but don't have the authentication for any of the other profiles (FB, twitter, LI) it looks suspicious and we check it out. We also have a policy where if you email us because somebody is using your information in an account, we will suspend the account for you, until the user can verify that they are who they say they are.

Thanks. The trick is to figure out how a viral mechanism that aligns with your actual value prop. People want their links to show up higher in google, and sharing them on social networks will actually help in that process. It fits :)

Yea that's a good point. The nice part is, we don't create any profiles or links on behalf of the user. They need authenticate things like twitter, fb, etc on their own, so they actually need to have or create these profiles. They need to go through the work of creating all the relevant content, and linking it to eachother, we simply let you know if they are optimized/filled out enough, and track their ranking

Interestingly enough, one of the things we need to keep our eye on is people going through the trouble to create accounts--including social media profiles---about other people. Would not have guessed that would be a problem

Thanks for the kind words and for using the product.

Right now we are focused purely on individuals (it helps us keep the product simple). It stems from our mission, "a person shouldn't have to pay a lot of money to manage or improve their own search results." While small businesses are easier to monetize, we're happy to just help as many people out as possible, and as long as 2% want the premium features, we're in a good place

Yea, it should be your final step (it's 1% step that helps, but you don't need to do it). I can't recreate the bug either, but i have my eye on it. That would be annoying so thanks for the heads up

Yea, I think I'll post on this thread at the end of the day w some numbers, or maybe even do a quick follow up post tomw. Either way, I'll let everyone know

Getting yourname.com is always a Great move (we let you apply a custom domain to your BrandYourself profile), and you want to link all your social media profiles.

We basically walk you through a simple process

1) Make sure you have relevant content on the web (FB, LI, personal website, etc)

2) Make sure that's as search engine friendly as possible (are you using you're actual name, is there enough relevant content on it, can search engines index it correctly, etc)

3) Make sure all of your relevant content links to eachother (Your FB should link to your personal website, etc)

On average users find after going through our "boost process" for any given link, it rises a full 1-2 pages(10-20 results) in their google results.

Hey thanks man! I just happen to really enjoy data--and it's paid off.

I've also been getting some great feedback from the HN crowd, so these are great signups :)