A company’s reputation is its most important asset. A person’s individual reputation is his or her most important possession. Yet, most people and companies are entirely unaware of their online reputation. While ignorance may be bliss in some things, it is incredibly risky to be ignorant of one’s online reputation. Attention all business owners, managers and professionals: what you don’t know about what others think of you can hurt you! That is why there are now professionals – reputation management experts — who make a living helping people and companies monitor, protect, and (if necessary) redeem their online reputation.
It is important to be aware of and stay on top of one’s personal reputation. Likewise, entrepreneurs and business execs should know what their company’s digital reputation is. According to top reputation management experts, the key to protecting a reputation or brand is to be aware and proactive. There are a number of things that can be done to protect a good reputation and/or redeem a damaged reputation, whether it is of a company or individual. Here are some sound reputation management tips.
Be Proactive
It is important not to wait until it is damaged to become aware of and act on an individual or company’s reputation. It is better to be proactive, instead of reactive. Showcase the positive. There are definitely things individuals and/or companies can do to control and improve their digital reputation.
1. Optimize a website with the person or company’s name.
Use the person or company’s name in the URL and in the HTML title tags of the website’s pages, especially if it doesn’t include the name.
For example, an individual with a website could use their own name in the domain address, such as tech guru Bruce Schneier’s website Schneier on Security (a real blog) is at www.Schneier.com. In that case, every web page will include his name. But if the person’s website domain refers to a hobby, occupation or talent instead of his/her name, such as “101Cookbooks.com” (also a real blog), then the person who actually writes that blog – Heidi Swanson – could include her own name in the URL and HTML title tags, such as:
www.101cookbooks.com/heidiswanson/contactus
www.101cookbooks.com/heidiswanson/about
Let’s look at a fictional example involving a company name., What if the company name was Blue Star Management, but the domain was www.BSM.com. Companies often use acronyms for their domain. To optimize the company’s name, the URLs of the company’s website might read:
www.BSM.com/bluestarmanagement/history
www.BSM.com/bluestarmanagement/aboutus
www.BSM.com/bluestarmanagement/services
www.BSM.com/bluestarmanagement/contactus
Search engines, such as Google, see such pages as the ultimate authority on that company. Authoritativeness on a topic is one of many important signals the search engine considers when matching content to a search query and then ranking that content among other results. By properly optimizing more than one page using the person or company’s name, it helps keep those pages at or near the top of search results. Not only does this give those pages greater visibility in search results, it also helps push down not-so-positive content about the person or company, should there be any.
2. Publish content regularly
Having an optimized personal or company website is not enough. Publishing fresh content under that individual or company name regularly helps too. Google rewards new content by ranking it higher. Publishing a blog or online newsletter regularly rises to the top of searches, and pushes down bad results. The more content that is published under that name, the easier it is to ‘sink’ negative results beyond page 3.
3. Publish optimized press releases
Search-optimized press releases can rank highly in Google for relevant keyword searches, which can include a person or company name. This provides another opportunity to own a top Google slot. For instance, when the International Counsel for the Shopping Centers posted a press release optimized for the phrase Retail – releasing their Specialty Retail Report — even though posted in May, it still ranks at the top of Google results for that phrase as well as for the organization’s name.
4. Control the Google 10 or 20
The goal is to proactively control as many slots in the Google top 10 search results for keywords that the person or company cares about or is related. In addition to showing the company’s dominance in that topic, it also increases the chances of keeping negative content about the person or company out of the top 10. While it is virtually impossible to get ride of negative online information, such as bad reviews or negative newspaper articles, the negative can be balanced, or overrun and buried, by positive posts under one’s control.
To control the top 10 Google listings (or top 20 is even better), the person or company’s web presence must expand beyond the company or person’s website and related blogs. Say hello to social media networks such as LinkedIn, Google+, etc.. Google’s search engine technology views these social network sites as authoritative and trustworthy. Those are important factors in how highly content on those sites is ranked. At a company, every employee should be encouraged to have a LinkedIn profile listing the company.
5. Get Inbound Site Links
It is good to get other websites to link to a company or individual’s website. Those are inbound links made using anchor text. Anchor text is a hyperlinked word or phrase, that when clicked, takes the person to another page. Search engines use anchor text to determine the relevancy of the page to which is being linked. If several pages on authoritative, trustworthy sites link to the person or company’s website using an anchor text link, that helps it rise in search result rankings for that phrase.
Of course, the challenge is in getting quality keyword-rich anchor text links from other sites. Inbound links are beyond one’s control, but perhaps not beyond one’s influence.
The best way is to simply ask for inbound links using keyword-rich anchor text relevant to the business or individual, such as a mortgage lender’s website linking through anchor text to a property inspector’s website or a Realtor’s website linking through anchor text to an attorney’s website. However, it is wise not to ask everyone to link to a company or individual’s website using the same anchor text. Google is wise to all the different ways people try to game the system and may punish overly aggressive inbound link practices.
6. Check if there is a personal or company Wikipedia listing.
Wikipedia entries about companies nearly always rank within the top five results for that company’s name. To see how it works, Google the names of well-known companies such as Visa, Yahoo and eBay. In most cases, you won’t have to look further than the first three or four search results to find its Wikipedia entry.
Wikipedia entries are controlled by others. No individual or company should try to directly modify its own Wikipedia article, either. That is a conflict of interest according to Wikipedia community guidelines. However, if there is negative or incorrect information on a person or company’s Wikipedia page, there are steps to get it changed.
7. Monitor Search Results Regularly
It is important to be alert and aware. It is a good idea to Google one’s own name and/or one’s company name at least once a month. More frequently is recommended for large companies that are in the news often or are involved in controversial issues. One easy way to stay abreast of one’s reputation is to set up Google Alerts for important keywords. This will notify as soon as possible when new content about the person or company hits the Web. This includes positive and negative news.
Don’t just look at the first page of Google results. Keep an eye out for any content on pages two, three or four that might be negative, because it can work its way to page one. Even though the vast majority of search engine users don’t ever go any further than page one of a Google search, given how frequently search rankings change, that content could end up on page one overnight.
8. Be Prepared to Spring into Action
Should something negative appear, it is important to quickly act to either quash it, get it removed if possible (by kindly asking the person or company to remove it) or bury it. The sooner that action is taken, the sooner the negative information sinks in the search results. It’s important to proactively own or at least influence top Google search results because it’s extremely difficult to push down negative content once it surfaces. Indeed, it takes time for negative results to sink. It could take a proactive person with seven negative results on page one of Google as much as 12-18 months for negative items to sink and nothing but positive content to populate page one. So be patient, proactive and vigilant. And perhaps the best advice of all… avoid doing anything that could damage reputation in the first place!
Quote of the Week
“The way to gain good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.” Socrates
© 2014, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.
