When it comes to the online reputation of your personal name, business or brand — nothing else comes close! What people find out about you or your brand online will instantly leave a lasting impression in their mind and a first impression is not something that you can take back or do again.
With that being said, most “first impressions” online are through the search results. When someone searches for your personal name or business, what are they going to find?
The good news is that cleaning up the search results isn’t impossible and there are also many other ways that you can improve your online reputation in the process… such as creating your own content, getting active on social networks and knowing how to address any negative press, reviews or comments you might already have out there.
InternetReputation.com has some experience in this space and they’ve actually released a new infographic that covers three of their most recommended methods for protecting, improving and managing your reputation online.
Their three recommended steps are:
- Monitor any personal or brand name mentions across the internet
- Creating active social profiles across all the major networks
- Build a blog around your name or brand to create valuable content
In addition to their infographic (which can be seen below), I’ve also broken down each of these methods in detail as well.
InternetReputation.com Reviews Best Online Reputation Tips
As mentioned earlier, the success of your online reputation is a lot more than just what appears in the search results — it’s also about knowing where you or your brand is being talked about, how your content is portrayed online, your reviews on other sites and of course your social media activity.
Follow the advice and steps below to make the most of your online reputation and how other’s see you and your brand.
1.) Monitor Personal and Brand Name Mentions
If you Google your name, what appears in the search results? Mostly likely a lot of content… but how many of these rankings are actually specific to you and your brand, and even more important, how are you going to make your way through all of this content? Manually is not the answer!
Through powerful tools like Google Alerts, you can setup free keyword monitoring to track your personal name, brand name, products, services and even your competition. Whenever Google ranks a new site or places a piece of content in their search results and it has the triggered keyword you are monitoring, Google will send an Alert right to your email with the title and link to the site.
Not only is this an effective way for you to monitor personal and brand name mentions, it’s also free. This is a great tool for any businesses or services that has to constantly monitor online reviews for the products, services or businesses.
Knowing when and where your name and brand is being mentioned is extremely important when trying to manage your online reputation!
2.) Utilize Social Networks to Improve Rankings
With over 2 billion users spread across the major social networks, it’s no wonder why so many brands are rushing in to build a social audience.
In addition to tapping into potentially thousands if not millions of new online fans, brands are using social media to improve their search engine rankings while also protecting their brand identity at the same time.
The good news is that it isn’t just brands that can benefit from social networks, but also every day individuals as well. Let’s face it… there’s probably a bunch of other people in the world with your exact name, which means ranking at that number one position or even on the first page might be quite a task. However, with an nicely put together social profile network this could be a lot easier.
Let’s take a look at “Katy Perry” in the search results for example…
While there might not be a lot of competition out there for other well known individuals with the name “katy perry” — there are millions of sites who are writing about her and trying to rank for her name on a daily basis.
When you look at the search results for her name, you will notice that her main site ranks number one, wikipedia ranks number 2 and three through five are all her social profile pages. This is almost acting like a protective wall around her brand, and they are all social properties that Katy posts to directly.
Take these same principles and apply them to your name by joining all of the major social networks with accounts for both your personal name and your brand name.
3.) Blogs are a Brands Best Friend
There are currently well over 100 million blogs in the world today… if anything, this should tell you how powerful WordPress and blogging. In addition to the many individuals throughout the world who are building out their own content, over 60% of brands now have a blog to grow their reach as well.
Nearly 40% of US companies use blogs for marketing purposes. (eMarketer, August 2010)
Blogs are a great way to provide original and quality content to your audience and customers, while also building your own platform online. Many businesses such as The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, PerezHiltonand others are generating millions of dollars per year, but the start of their sites were based off the simple format of blogging. (source: list of 40+ big brands using wordpress)
BBC, The New Yorker and TechCrunch are all running off WordPress
In terms of protecting your online reputation, blogs can do wonders for that as well.
Google loves blogs because they are usually created with original and compelling content on a daily or weekly basis, which is something Google is always looking for. Blogs also rank well in the search results because of their formatting and setup. It’s also very easy for users to visit your blog and leave comments or share your content with their social audience and friends.
In short, blogs are one of the best ways to grow and protect your brand online.
Best Ways to Protect Your Online Reputation: A Visual
No matter the size or interest of your business or brand, it’s extremely crucial to monitor how you are perceived online. The same holds true for your personal name as well. The next time you apply for a job or are up for a new position within a company, there is a very good chance they are going to search for your name and see what they can find.
We covered a lot of different ways to monitor, improve and protect your brand online and these apply for both businesses and your personal name.
On extra tip that was covered in the infographic below, would be to register the exact match domain for your personal name (or business name) if you haven’t already (ie: JohnSmith.com). There are 7 billion people in the world today and it’s very likely a bunch of people share your same name… protect your name by securing your domain name while you still can!
Follow these simple tips and the next time someone searches for your name online, they’ll find exactly what you want them to find!
Infographic source: http://internetreputation.com
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