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The order is the method
In-house attempts rarely fail for lack of effort. They fail because the steps were done out of order: profiles rewritten before anyone decided what they should say, code added before the pages it describes existed, outreach sent before there was anything to point at. The table is the order. Do not jump it.
| Step | Founder | Company | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Search both names signed out | Yes | Yes | 1 |
| 2. Decide the names and the identity sentences | Yes | Yes | 3 |
| 3. Pick the Google account that will own the claim | Yes | Yes | 0.5 |
| 4. Build the founder's own page | Yes | 8 | |
| 5. Fix the company About page | Yes | 5 | |
| 6. Add the code that ties them together | Yes | Yes | 4 |
| 7. Bring every profile into line | Yes | Yes | 9 |
| 8. Company listings and directories | Yes | 6 | |
| 9. First round of outside mentions | Yes | Yes | 12 |
| 10. Baseline, then the weekly check | Yes | Yes | 1.5 |
About 50 hours in total. Steps 1 to 3 fit in one afternoon.
Put in the hours your team can give each week, across whoever is doing it.
Steps one to three: one afternoon of decisions
Search the founder's name and the company name in a private window. Save page one of each. Then decide, in writing, the exact name strings and one plain sentence for each: who the founder is, and what the company does for whom. These two sentences get pasted into every profile, page and pitch from now on, so argue about them now rather than later.
Last, choose the Google account that will own the founder's claim. It must be one the founder will still control in five years. Not an agency login, not a shared marketing inbox. Google needs the same account for the claim and every edit after it.
A quick checklist of personal branding basics. Useful as a sense check before the founder's page goes up.
Steps four to six: two homes, one link
The founder's page lives on their own domain, separate from the company site and linked both ways. First paragraph: the identity sentence, as text. Photo above the fold. Links to the company, LinkedIn, YouTube and any talks or interviews. The company About page names the founder in plain text and links to that page.
Then the code. It is the part of the record you fully control, and it does one job here: it tells Google, in its own format, that this person works at this company and this company was founded by this person. Copy the pair below, replace the placeholders, and put each block on the right page.
One block on the founder's page, one on the company site. Every value must match what the page says in plain text.
<!-- On the founder's own page -->
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Founder Name",
"jobTitle": "Founder and CEO",
"url": "https://foundername.com/",
"worksFor": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Company Name", "url": "https://company.com/" },
"sameAs": ["https://www.linkedin.com/in/foundername/", "https://www.youtube.com/@foundername"]
}
</script>
<!-- On the company website -->
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Company Name",
"url": "https://company.com/",
"founder": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Founder Name", "url": "https://foundername.com/" },
"sameAs": ["https://www.linkedin.com/company/companyname/"]
}
</script>It describes the record. Agreement across independent sites is what convinces Google. Teams that stop at the code are usually still waiting a year later.
Steps seven to ten: alignment and mentions
Bring every profile into line: the founder's LinkedIn, the company page, YouTube, X, Crunchbase, industry directories and review sites. Same names, same photo files, same opening words. The company page audit covers the company side in thirty minutes.
Then the outside mentions, which carry the most weight and take the most time. Podcasts and talks for the founder. Partner pages, client case studies and trade listings for the company. The best pieces name both together. Your employee advocacy programme can help here, because colleagues mentioning the founder and the company correctly on their own profiles is free corroboration.
The pair checklist
Saved in this browser. Share the page with whoever owns each line.
0 of 12 done
- Decisions
- Founder
- Company
- Both
Personal branding on LinkedIn in plain terms. A good one to send the founder if they are unsure why any of this matters.
When to hand it over
- Someone owns it, with six hours a week protected for a quarter
- The founder's name is uncommon
- You already have partners and hosts who will mention you
- It has been on the roadmap for two quarters already
- The founder shares a name with someone well known
- Nobody on the team can get the founder's time for the decisions
Our service page shows exactly what we take on and the panels we have built. Related reading from The Signal:
Questions people ask next
How long does a DIY Knowledge Panel take for a founder and a company?
Do we need Wikipedia or Wikidata?
Who should own the Google account for the claim?
Is the code enough on its own?
Can marketing run this without the founder?
Want a second pair of eyes?
Email the founder's name and the company website. We send back a written read of both records, free, with the first three things to fix.
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