Steps to Monitor and Manage Reputation
But you can do tremendous wonders for your online search engine reputation just by doing these 5 things today:
- Start a blog - A blog is the No. 1 reputation management tool. Every single blog post is potentially able to boost your positive reputation points and decrease the negative.
- Start Twittering- Twitter is fast overtaking Facebook as the most popular social network online. Soon, Twitter will be the primary mass communication tool for serious Internet marketers.
- Subscribe to Google Alerts - It’s free. Subscribe to Google Alerts for your name, company name, and important keywords, especially branding words. This will allow you to monitor what people are saying about you online.
- Go Social Media Crazy - Beyond a blog and Twitter, set up as many social media profiles as possible. Go to bookmarking sites, networking sites, and as many social media sites as you can find and set up a profile. Even if you don’t use them, open an account and write your bio. Many times, that alone will help boost your rankings in the search engines for key branding terms.
- Be a Good Net Citizen - An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Treat people the way you’d like to be treated. Don’t steal or injure others, employees, customers, or business partners. While you can do this perfectly and still fall victim to reputation damaging attacks, the more you focus on being a good customer, employee, employer, and relationship builder online the less likely you are to encounter search engine online reputation killers. And when you do occasionally meet with reputation damaging information online, if you do the other 4 things above, you’ll be better equipped to combat it.