Your online reputation for your business or personal brand has a powerful impact on your overall success. One wrong move and your reputation could be ruined. The best course of action is to take steps to keep your reputation protected before a disaster happens. One of the most powerful tools you can use for a strong online reputation is search engine optimization. Here are 10 SEO principles that could help you maintain a positive online reputation.
1. Start With What’s Out There
First, start by searching for your business or name using the most common search engines. See what kind of websites, articles, and other links pop up. Review what content is associated with your business or name, and carefully read over everything to see if there are any inaccuracies or negative content. Once you see what could possibly pop up whenever someone searches for your business or brand, you can begin to address any issues that could damage your reputation.
2. Create Search Alerts for the Future
Next, you should also make a plan to address any new content that is added to the internet about you or your business. The easiest and most effective method of keeping up with new content specifically about your brand or your business is to create a search alert. Setting up a search alert through Google can help you keep close tabs on any content that gets written about you or your business. You’ll get all of your alerts sent to you through your email address, so you don’t have to worry about running searches every day.
3. Get Your Own Domain
Another idea that could help keep you ahead of your business and its reputation is to create your own domain. If you have your own business, you probably have one for your company, but it may be a good idea to register additional domain names related to key search terms about you or your organization. With your own registered domain, you’ll be able to control your reputation much more easily.
4. Create Positive Content
With your domain and any other related sites you own, you should then take the time to create positive content about you or your business. Positive content doesn’t necessarily have to be articles or links bragging about how great you are; you can simply focus on upbeat content that is relevant to your business or helpful to potential customers. This way, you can build your brand and position yourself as an expert.
5. Link Back to Your Website
With your content, you can also try another effective strategy that is rooted in a typical SEO practice, linking back to your website. SEO strategists aim to create shareable content that links back to your homepage. This is another great way you can control the narrative more about your brand or your business.
6. Post New Updates Often
It’s essential to keep your content fresh and updated so your voice will always be heard above the others on the search engine results list. That means you’ll need to invest some time in posting new content regularly.
7. Interact With the Online Community
SEO specialists also recommend that businesses interact as much as possible online. Posting to message boards, blogging, responding to inquiries, and more can help you keep the information about your company accurate and positive. You can also mold the public’s opinion about your online identity.
8. Partner With Professionals
Doing all of these specialized tasks related to your personal brand can be time-consuming, so it may also be a smart idea to team up with a professional, such as ReputationDefender, to manage your online presence and develop a strategy to fix things. If you already own and operate a business or have a successful career in your field, it may be challenging to juggle these additional steps.
9. Use Social Media Effectively
You’ll also need to be more strategic with your use of social media. Staying away from Twitter, Facebook, or other social media sites may do more harm than good. You should make sure you post only positive or neutral updates on your accounts and avoid any controversial issues or negativity to keep your reputation pristine. Social media can also give you more opportunities to be more personable with the online community.
10. Research Keywords
Above all, it’s essential to know what kind of keywords are associated with you or your business. This is one of the guiding principles of effective SEO management, so you’ll need to do some research in this department. Knowing the right terms or phrasing can help you harness the power of the major search engines and redirect it to a more positive light about you or your organization. This is a vital piece of keeping your online reputation strong.
If your online reputation isn’t what it should be, it’s time to take it back and put yourself in a better light again. Try thinking like an SEO specialist to use the power of the search engine to keep your reputation strong or improve it.
Last Updated on October 1, 2019.
