Online Reputation Management - It Pays to Keep a Good Reputation

Online reputation management begins with solid proactive crisis management and reverse SEO strategies.  A recent LinkedIn online survey about Online PR by Rostin Ventures brought a number of solid, insightful responses from respected professionals in our industry. The question: How important is SEO to Online Reputation and Brand Management for a company's Public Relations?

The survey responses were best expressed by Sarah Skerik, Vice President of Social Media at PR Newswire: "The role [search engines] play in influencing opinion is undeniable. [They] are the starting point for most Internet users, and surveys tell us that most journalists start story research with search. The results at the top of the search results page play a powerful role in shaping behavior and surfacing commentary from the social layer."

Author Victoria Ipri added: "The real breaking news is what people are talking about right now, today. This is the same information you’ll find at the top of today’s search engine rankings. And this is precisely where SEO, combined with online reputation management, plays a vital role."

Actions speak louder than words. When faced with a negative article or comment on the web, the best approach is an objective, tactful response to the situation. Remember, Internet content possesses longevity, and your company's positive and ongoing engagement in the worldwide community is a surefire safety net should any negative publicity knock on your door.

The strongest strategy behind online reputation management begins with proactive public relations before a negative event occurs.  How is your company proactively managing its public relations and brand strategy within search engine results pages? That's where Rostin Ventures comes in, providing professional, well-written, insightful content for Online PR, Reputation Management and Crisis Management strategies.

 

Best Practices in Reverse SEO Consulting for Brand Management

Why do companies need online reputation management? Julie Ross, President of Rostin Ventures notes recent SEO industry news,"After the New York Times story about black-hat SEO tactics for JCPenney broke on February 12th, more attention than ever has been directed toward SEO companies' practices in helping their clients' websites climb to the top of the search engines. The Times asked an SEO expert to research why JCPenney held ultra-high online rankings for nearly every category, who later revealed that literally hundreds of unrelated backlinks to irrelevant sites had been deployed to pull JCPenney.com to the top.

Google responded to the Times story by severely penalizing JCPenney's site, and subsequently changed their search engine algorithm. Although the improved Google algorithm initially affected 11.8% of the queries, its changes reward websites with high-quality, original content and links to related content -- and reduce the rankings of poor-quality sites with unrelated backlinks generated by link farms. This is great news for Rostin Ventures' clients, because that's precisely what we do: As part of our White-Hat strategy for bringing relevance and high online visibility for our clients, we produce quality online content and blogs with industry-related content that links to other industry-relevant sites."

Twenty years ago, negative press rarely gained traction. If a disgruntled customer or an irritated employee wanted to vent their frustrations, they were limited to writing letters to newspapers and magazines. Both were forgotten by the time new editions hit the store shelves. The Internet changed everything.

Today, social media profiles, blog and forum posts, and entire websites devoted to publishing negative commentary about others, remain online. They gain traction in Google, YouTube, Yahoo, and Bing, Facebook, Wordpress, Blogger and thousands of other social platforms and online sites. Once they do, they can gain momentum in your market. This is the core reason to maintain an online reputation management strategy.

By vigilantly monitoring every mention of your company’s name, you can identify issues that threaten to tarnish your reputation. If you discover a public relations disaster in the making, you can immediately respond. You might decide to open a dialogue to present the facts. Or, you might launch a reverse SEO campaign to remove bad press from the search engines. The goal of online reputation management is to prevent negative commentary from gaining momentum.

There has never been a greater need for using best practices in SEO for online reputation management. Angry customers, annoyed employees, and even disingenuous competitors can spread damaging rumors about you and your company with a few clicks. If the bad publicity gains traction in the search engines, it can spread quickly. Online reputation management is the most effective solution for controlling the message.

The question is, are you using online reputation management through effective SEO consulting practices? Others on Linked In answered the question. 

How important is SEO to Online Reputation and Brand Management in Public Relations Online?

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Reverse SEO for Mobile Apple Leads Smartphone Race, while Android Attracts Most Recent Customers | Nielsen Wire

Taking Mobile use and mobile search results into consideration in Reverse SEO strategy, research of current mobile platform trends are a must.

Apple Leads Smartphone Race, while Android Attracts Most Recent Customers

The race for the lead in U.S. smartphone operating system (OS) consumer market share is tighter than it has ever been. According to November data from The Nielsen Company, the popularity of the Android OS among those who purchased a smartphone in the last six months (40%) makes it the leading OS among recent acquirers.

Apple Leads Smartphone Race, while Android Attracts Most Recent Customers | Nielsen Wire

Your Social Media Outreach Gift

Social Media Outreach programs and ideas to increase ranking of positive content through social outreach programs. Social Media Outreach : Paying It Forward with Reverse SEO Strategy.


Social Media Outreach brings American children home through a powerful platform from which to promote causes of interest to consumers and organizations who are communicating within social media.

85,000 homeless families and 770,000 homeless children: All of this, right here in America.

More than a mere outlet for philanthropy, Social Media Outreach is an attention-grabbing platform that helps causes raise awareness to consumers and businesses everywhere. Since Rostin Ventures’ launch of Social Media Outreach, the online reach has grown wider than organizations, particularly local groups, ever thought possible. The program lives on social media community pages such as Social Media Community Pages on Facebook, Linked In, Wordpress Blogs and Twitter and it continues to raise awareness for worthy causes.

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Social Media: What Do You Want Them to See?

Social Media Marketing Services are growing at exponential rates. Business and consumer use of Google Search, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogger, Wordpress, YouTube, Bing, Yahoo, and thousands of other social media sites are in high demand. The platforms give you, and your online brand, new media applications to communicate directly with your consumer.

The days of one way marketing are over and marketers are now able to enter into two way conversations with buyers about their products and services. These 3 steps help you along the road to social media marketing success. Paint the world a beautiful picture of exactly who you want to be.

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Online Reputation Management Tips To Help With Your Job Search

Online Reputation Management lands jobs. For good or bad, what you say, do and write can and will affect your reputation. That is why it is so important to make sure you manage your online reputation. It is a direct reflection of your personal brand. Just like a corporate brand, this is how and what people think of you. Reverse SEO for online reputation management, essentially online brand management of your name, can help emphasize your positive and hide away the negative.

We all make mistakes. Maybe you posted a photo you wished you hadn’t, or had a heated disagreement about politics on Facebook that, in the light of morning, was over the top. Unfortunately, the Internet never forgets, and while you can try to delete that information, it is often stored in a search engine's cache, and can be found later through basic searches.

This is really important for job seekers. Over 75% of HR professionals have reported hiring decisions being positively influenced by a candidate’s online reputation; conversely, 60% of human resource professionals have rejected a candidate for negative online information. Silly Facebook pictures, an offensive comment, or even someone else who posted negative or incorrect information about you are not worth losing your dream job. Reverse SEO will help you hide the negative and accentuate the positive.

Online reputation management is becoming so important that some universities are even providing seniors with a six-month subscription to an online reputation management service, and helping them overcome their negative online content. By using reverse SEO we can produce more content that will distract away from any negative online slip up’s.

Here are three reverse SEO tips to help with your job search:

1. Buy your name as a domain name, and post a single page that serves almost as a resume. Use it to point to your other positive content, like a blog, your LinkedIn profile, or a YouTube channel. If you share a name with someone else more famous, or have more than a few negative content problems, you need to make sure you buy the name you want to be known by professionally. — maybe your full name (William Smith, not Bill Smith), or first, middle, and last (William Henry Smith).
2. Sign up for several social networks with your "professional" name. Get your vanity URL (a URL that includes your name) on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networks, as well as blogging platforms like WordPress.com and Blogger.com.
3. Make sure you're putting positive content on your networks. It's not enough to just create the networks. You have to give the search engines something to index. The more content you create, the more the search engines have to index. As you create more new stuff, the search engines will push down the old stuff off the front pages, and out of sight of the hiring managers and HR professionals.

Reverse SEO is not a miracle maker, but it can definitely help. Negative search engine results will not completely be deleted, but they will most definitely be hidden. 89% of search engine activity is proven to derive from the first page of a search engine anyways. If you can push bad information further down on a search engine, you can eliminate any bad online reputation that may damage perception of your personal brand.

Five Questions to Ask Your SEO Consulting Firm

Hiring a SEO consulting firm can be tricky, especially if you don't understand the business. A lot of firms will promise certain things that may be impossible to achieve. Do some homework and ask around to ensure you are getting the best services, not just the cheapest. You want to make sure that your price matches your results and your desires match the value the SEO consulting firm promises.

Here are five questions to ask a potential SEO consulting firm before you hire them.

1) What has your success rate been with other clients? Reputation is one of the most reliable factors in regards to service. If an SEO consulting firm has done a great job for 10 clients, they will usually do well for 20, 50, or 100. It is better to trust results from previous clients and their successes. If an SEO consulting firm is willing to offer testimonials from previous clients, they are confident in their abilities.

2) Where does your own website rank? When looking for the answer to this question beware of their tactics. If an SEO consulting firm cannot rank high with their own site, how can they raise your rankings? That is not to say they do not know their own business, but you have to wonder why "the shoe maker's children don't have their own shoes."

3) What guarantees can you make? This will be a large factor in your decision. We all love guarantees, especially when we are spending hard earned money. However, there are no guarantees in this particular business. There are too many variables that can guarantee a top ranking for your company. So a good SEO consulting firm should answer with "none," a bad one will tell you whatever you want to hear.

That's because organic rankings take time to achieve, because they are constantly changing. Not only are there other companies and competitors who are trying to achieve a top ranking, but Google is constantly changing its search algorithm. So even if you did everything right this week, it could all change next week, through no fault of the SEO consulting firm. So make sure your firm doesn't promise a top page ranking, or you'll be left with broken promises and no money.

4) How will you measure our success? Success is the driving force, right? So we must know how to measure it. How will you even define success? Is it sales? Visits to the page? Time on the page? For a business site, the answer should always be sales and ROI. But even that has to be decided on. How much is not enough versus just right? It is important that your SEO consulting firm measures success the same way you do. You don’t want to be left disappointed, so make sure this is something you discuss early in conversation. It is also important that your goals and expectations are even achievable for your SEO consulting firm. Remember that these things take time — months, usually — and you're not going to see a positive ROI after a few weeks.

5) Do I need to make changes to my website? The answer is yes, yes, yes. How do you expect results if you keep trying the same tactics that never work? If your search engine optimization was perfect, you would have top page rankings and big sales already, and you wouldn't be talking to an SEO consulting firm. But since you're reading this article, I'm guessing that's not the case. Remember, Google even changes things from week to week, so what worked last year won't work this year. So, be prepared to change your website. If your SEO consulting firm says no, you don't, you might want to reconsider your choice.