5 Tips To Get Yourself a Personal Wikipedia Page Wikipedia ranks higher than LinkedIn on Google search rankings and has more credibility because of the challenge of creating and maintaining a profile

Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites in the world. It generates around 18 billion views every month. In the age where most professionals are trying to build their personal brand on LinkedIn, Wikipedia is too powerful a tool to be ignored. Having a personal profile on Wikipedia increases the credibility of a professional and also makes them rank better worldwide. Since, Wikipedia is a high ranking website, it often pops up first on Google search pages. Moreover, personal Wikipedia pages are highly sought after by professionals because they are useful to create a first impression. Not everyone can have them because they are expensive and time consuming to create. However, having them improves your future career prospects, credibility and connection with your audience.

It can be a challenging task to create a personal Wikipedia profile. There may be many guidelines to follow. However, once you get started and get an idea of how the platform works, it will be fairly easy for you. Wikipedia is a very strong personal branding tool. Even in the age of LinkedIn personal branding, Wikipedia branding should not be ignored. Wikipedia ranks higher than LinkedIn on Google search rankings and has more credibility because of the challenge of creating and maintaining a profile.

Here are five tips on how you can get your own Wikipedia page.

Go through community guidelines before creating a page

When you create a Wikipedia page, you need to be a registered user. Wikipedia doesn't trust unidentified intruders. So, if you start making edits without signing up you wouldn't gain credibility. You would need to be at least 4-days-old as a user and edit 10 other articles before you start thinking about starting your own page. Edit an ample number of existing articles in order to build credibility. Once your credibility is established, other editors would find it worth their time to visit your page. Otherwise, whatever you choose to write might be discarded. There are many references and citations which are required on the page to increase credibility references include other Wikipedia articles and journal-based articles. Press-releases, or corporate and personal profile content would not count as proper citation. Citations are needed to convince the community of readers and editors that the information you have put has been derived from reliable sources.

Get many people involved to build your page

Whether you really need to be on Wikipedia is a decision only you can make, for Wikipedia itself discourages people from making their personal profiles. It is run by a string of editors who have the liberty to delete your article if it is not adequately referenced, or visited and edited by other users. If the only person putting updates on the page is you, there is a probable chance that an editor might erase your existence from the platform. Hence, it is important that you have multiple people who keep updating information about you on the platform. You can ask your colleagues, other Wikipedia writers to edit your page once in a while. You can find some Wikipedia writers on LinkedIn, build a network and edit each other's pages. The most authentic way to do this is by working on building an audience which will edit the page on their own with your information. Pages which are viewed frequently on Wikipedia tend to last on the platform longer.

Create content which resonates with a large audience

A larger community of editors and readers would have to verify your content in order for it to last. Think clearly about what you want to write. If you are writing about yourself, what exactly have you done that deserves a Wikipedia page to communicate it to the world? You can't pick up a topic from scratch. It would have to be something that has already been talked about in peer-review journals or by academic scholars. There should be sufficient number of credible sources that ensure that the topic is one of widespread social interest. What you consider to be a matter of social significance may not seem to be exactly the same to Wikipedia editors. So, make sure that you gather enough credible sources to make your story convincing.

Make the readers feel more involved

The people who are visiting your personal Wikipedia page are almost like a part of your story. They are there because they are fascinated by you and want to know more. You can make the readers feel more involved in your journey by posting images of you and updating the profile regularly. It is essential in order to build faith in the readers in your integrity. Any developments in your career or achievements should be updated on the page. You could add some bits about your personal life too because the readers will want to know more about your background and schooling. This will make them feel more involved and they will visit your page more often or share it with their colleagues.

Hire a marketing agency to create and maintain your page

There are many marketing agencies which create and maintain Wikipedia profiles. It is likely that you will not have the time to make a Wikipedia page for yourself given the constant updates required. A marketing agency will handle your page for you. It is beneficial to get an agency on board because handling your own Wikipedia can be a challenging task with work and other commitments. Posting a personal Wikipedia page can be tricky, for unlike any other platform, there is no specific authority that is regulating the content. As much liberty as you have to put up anything you want, the content is up for public usage and any other user can make additions, deletes or removal of your content. Your marketing agency will take care of all these requirements and will be able to set the page up for you. They will even take care of the regular updates and visits that are required to build your profile.