1. The Importance
of
Online Reputation Management

2. Have you ever Goggled the name of a potential
new client in order to learn more about them? If not,
you can bet that they do. People do Google searches
on everyone and every business, to find out more
about them. Whether it is due to business, or a
personal matter, it is possible to find out quite a lot
about someone or a business, via a simple Google
Search using the person's name or industry
keywords.

3. What is found out about you online may
be a true reflection of you and your
business, or it might not be. What's worse,
it could be a complete and utter fabrication
and lie about you and your business. Due to
the proliferation of review websites and the
relative lack of policing these sites, it's like
the wild-wild west out there. For this
reason, it is important to not only monitor
your online reputation, but to actually
manage your online reputation.

4. If your business were to become a target of an
online campaign to ruin your business and
reputation, it can greatly affect your bottom line if
not destroy you. It is important to monitor all
statements made on blogs, comments, forums,
articles, and social media all over the Internet. It's
easy to do it yourself free using Google Alerts, or you
can hire a virtual assistant or a specialized service to
do it for you. However you choose to manage your
online reputation, you must set up a system and do
it.

5. No business or person is perfect, but even one
bad complaint that goes viral can ruin a lifetime of
work. It doesn't even have to be a complaint that
ruins everything for you and your business, it could
simply be you that ruins your business by not being
cognizant of the consequences of your actions
online. Yes, you read that right! Make a rude
comment to someone, (or the wrong someone) post
an inappropriate picture, forward an off-color joke,
and before you know it, you might be the number
one trending topic on Twitter, and not in a good way.

6. In order to manage your online reputation, first
you must be aware that you have an online
reputation. Your online presence goes back as long
as you've been online. There are many archive
websites that maintain snap shots of activity on the
web, and you're likely in there, somewhere. You
can go to http://www.archive.org and use the "way
back machine" to see many websites and how they
looked years ago including how much traffic they
had and even some old comments and forum posts
if they exist.

7. Now that you're convinced that a
historical record exists of your online life,
know that it is not impossible to manage
what is being said about you and your
business. Follow the following tips:

8. Manage Yourself
Be cognizant of what you do and say
online whether it is personal or business.
If you wouldn't say it in public in mixed
company, reconsider if you should say it
or share it online.

9. Monitor the Buzz
Using Google Alerts or another
service monitor what is being said about
you and your business. Use your name,
the business name, keywords and
variations of each to try to cover
everything.

10. Build Your Brand
Put out enough good content about
your business that anything bad or not
perfect out there will be buried. Try
posting a keyword rich blog a day for 30
days in a row, and an article on article
marketing sites for 30 days straight and
watch your search results look better
fast.