Sticking your toe in the Water of Reputation Management

Staying on top of what is being said about your company online is now a necessity requiring some monitoring and proactive measures. A great way to get started is to Google the name of your business to see what is out there on page one. What you’ll see is pretty much what others are going to see when they type in the name of your business. This may occur for a variety of reasons including trying to find your location, checking for reviews, or to visit your website. All of these activities indicate interest and would generally be considered a good thing.

The reason you’re checking now is to make sure that when someone is doing a casual search they don’t come across content that damages your company’s reputation. These negative entries carry a lot of weight with searchers, especially if they are new to your business.

If your Google search doesn’t turn up anything damaging, you should still take these actions to ensure that you’re in touch with the online dialog regarding your business.

Do the same Google search you just did on a periodic basis. This will alert you to changes in your rankings and keep you abreast of any changes on the first few pages relating to your company’s name.

Do a little SEO work. If your company isn’t in the top five spots when you Google it by name, it’s time to do some SEO work. Moving up in the rankings will help you get found by people searching for you and add a layer of reputation protection by staking out the high page rankings for your company site.

Set up a Google Alert for your company name. Google Alerts is a free service that emails you when your specified keywords, in this case your company name, appear on newly published web pages. By enclosing your company name in quotations, you’ll ensure that that the alert will only trigger for your company name in its exact form.

Monitor your company name on social media sites. If people are talking about you on Facebook, Twitter, or any of the other social media sites it’s good to know what they’re saying. Monitoring can be done with free tools from sites like socialmention.

As the saying goes “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. This statement couldn’t be truer regarding reputation management whether you do it on your own or outsource the work. A growing number of companies are employing the services of firms which specialize in online reputation management services. For a free initial consultation on protecting your company’s reputation, visit http://www.reputationmanagementllc.com/