What happens when someone searches for your name? Do they find you? Do they find other people by the same name?

There are obvious benefits to showing up when someone searches for you. Especially if the results on the page have nice things to say about you.

Here is a shot of the top-10 results on Google for my name as of today:

Currently, I'm 10 for 10, meaning the Ed Kohler that shows up for each of the top-10 results is me. In fact, it looks like I'm the Ed Kohler that shows up in 89 of the first 100 results.

I spend more time than average on the web, and have a somewhat unique (but not entirely unique) name, so I tend to have a strong representation in search results.

But even if you don't spend a ton of time online, there are some relatively simple things you can do to improve the percentage of top-10 search results you control for your own name.

1. Have a blog. And use your name on it.

2. Sign up and occasionally use social networking sites that have strong rankings like Twitter, Blip.tv, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Flickr.

3. Have a bio page on your company's website.

4. Contribute comments to blogs that interest you.

5. Create a public profile on Amazon.

6. Create a video of yourself and distribute it to lots of video sites using TubeMogul.com.

7. Do things worth writing about.

If none of that works, just set a new record for Olympic gold medals.