Should you include yourself in your website, or use an alias?

[MinstrelJunkie]

I feel like I know the answer to this question already, but want to ask anyway:

Should you include yourself on your website? As in, use your own name and profile picture, etc. I'm setting up new sites and plan to write a bunch of articles for them - so naturally I want to create an author bio for myself.

In this case I'd just be listed as the site operator, mixed in with several writer profiles.

Here's my thoughts:

Pros to including yourself:

• Natural, don't need to overthink anything
• Good for EAT if you're known elsewhere
• Can use own socials for links/EAT
• No need to pretend you're someone different in outreach
• No overthinking of "does this appear real" and so on
• More authentic

Cons of including yourself:

• Slightly harder to sell (key man risk). (Mitigated by not being heavily involved)
• If sharing metrics on socials, it could attract competitors or alert big sites who could demolish you
• You need to basically 'create' a person in terms of background / socials / EAT signals
• Remembering to 'be' that persona in outreach and communications

Wondering if anyone has any experience of any positives/negatives from either case. Hope it's okay to tag you both - @secretagentdad & @MrMedia I believe you've weighed in on using aliases before. Appreciate any and all thoughts.

 

[bernard]

Include yourself if you don't have people stalking you.

You can also create personas of yourself. Like use your full name instead of your shortname or use a middle name instead of surname and so on.

 

[MrMedia]

Always a persona. Easier to sell onwards and less BS to deal with overall.

 

[JOoa0ky]

• If sharing metrics on socials, it could attract competitors or alert big sites who could demolish you

LOL.

You know what is one of the things that have left the deepest impression on me? It was that scene from American Gangster, where the main character's wife convinced him to wear a flashy fur coat to the boxing match. He had seats that were closer to the ring than some of the well known big shots. That was how the police finally ID'd him.

Prior to that, he kept a super low profile and NO ONE knew who the hell he was but grew his drug empire to astronomical size...

After that point, it all went downhill for him...

But I digress, unfortunately for me since I'm in the healthcare niche I must use my real profile which actually helps my EAT. You could even say that it is required if you're in YMYL.

 

[secretagentdad]

It’s a heck of a lot easier to build platform traction with a real person.

I don’t really do it. Whoring your identity out to power your business is for desperate posers.

 

[Darth]

Whoring your identity out to power your business is for desperate posers.

I couldn't disagree more with this.

That said, for privacy reasons I use fake personas. But I use the same fake persona and have fake social media setup for it too etc.

 

[Ryuzaki]

My vote is in perfect alignment with @Darth. Having a real persona behind your site is a GIGANTIC strength. Some examples (some are made up):

• Mark Cuban's Discount Drugs
• Jenn's Kitchen Content
• Martha's Mom Blog
• Brenda's Fitness Journey
• Tony Robbins' Everything
• Grand Cardone's Stuff

and so forth. But for those that aren't looking naive and surface level in terms of who's a player in the industry, privacy matters way more, especially when SEO is a sole driver of your economic health.

And to be fair, if you make up "Ryan Zakee" and give him a face and do everything you normally would, but just call yourself Ryan, it's essentially the exact same thing. Nobody knows the difference.

It's like when Twitch Thots don't tell all their simps that they're married... They're using their real identity and maintaining some basic privacy. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. But SEO is quite fragile and you don't even have to make enemies to become a target. So privacy is fairly important. But so is having an author box and all that for basic trust signals. So a persona it is for me.

 

[bernard]

And to be fair, if you make up "Ryan Zakee" and give him a face and do everything you normally would, but just call yourself Ryan, it's essentially the exact same thing. Nobody knows the difference.

Yeah, I like this method.

That's what I did when starting out. Used my first name and pictures of myself, but not my last name and made sure I couldn't be easily googled. I also created Facebook, LinkedIn etc of that persona.

The benefit of actually having such a persona though was to be able to participate in Facebook groups and the like and you can contact people using that persona, but then if more real negotiation or phone calls whatever, you can just use your real name. Most people won't think twice about you using a "nickname" online.

 

[motocross123]

I only have one site that matters so I use my real information. Once I have a portfolio I will start using personas as I don't want a footprint competitors can use to find all of my sites.

 

[shaikatray]

That said, for privacy reasons I use fake personas. But I use the same fake persona and have fake social media setup for it too etc.

How do you put the same persona on all of your websites? As the Editor, Owner, or something else?

 

[milkandhoney]

You can sort of do both: Use your first name and middle name. Normally these two are more generic when combined, as opposed to using your first and last name. I do this and feel it's a comfortable in-between. My two cents

 

[AlexR]

What about if you're in the health or financial niche?

You can build up E-A-T but would a regulator require a real person's name being shown or what's the implication of a persona?

 

[breedingsuccess]

To add to @AlexR's question. What's the legality behind creating a "persona" that's not your name on a non-YMYL site? Does it get more dicey if you use an AI generated photo? Or does all this work, the same way a pseudonym works like Ayn Rand?

 

[CCarter]

legality behind creating a "persona"

The same thinking behind why porn stars, they're called adult actresses now, use stage names. Perhaps down the road you don't want to personally be associated with that organization.