Importance of Managing Your Virtual Reputation

Judgement and controversary are things that we all experience throughout our lives. Sometimes it’s good & other times it’s bad. Whether you’re an avid Internet marketer; a small town blogger or a huge brand there is something you’ll always want to consider, your virtual reputation.

People Will Google You!

We’ve all done it, Googled ourselves. Don’t say you haven’t because you have. Since the introduction of search engines people began trying to find ways to stump them, whether by searching for the most random thing of existence or individual people. At first, no one thought they’d find anything for their own name but a decade later it is merely impossible to stump the SERPs.

Even though you may not see the importance of how you look virtually, others will. You don’t have to have any affiliation with marketing or other Internet practices to have people looking you up either. Job interviews lead to the classic Google search & in many cases the social media creep. People everywhere use the Internet to find out everything they can about anything, especially people they encounter.

Don’t Give Them Something to Judge

Did you ever think you’d have control over what people see when they search your name, business name or brand? You’d be amazed at how many people do not look at this information ever. Taking the time to know what is coming up when people are searching you is important. Who really wants that photo from 10 years ago of you & your then young friends being dingbats out having some fun? I know I wouldn’t.

Taking control of how people see you instantly can be easy with a little effort. Give them something you want them to see, whether it’s a feature about how amazing you are wrote by someone else or having all your social media appear right away.

Manipulating the Search Engines

There are steps you can take to put the good things at the top and the bad things no where in sight when it comes to reputation management. If the bad outweighs the good, I think it’s time you reconsider your processes and attempt being a nicer person/business.

This isn’t really manipulating versus encouraging higher placement of the quality, want people to see stuff. Some ways you can increase your rankings for reputation management include:

• Link building 
• Social media shares
• Content updates
• Get updated cache dates

You want to do these things on the lower ranked items to give them a push closer to the top.

For example, when you search WOOTMarketing in Google, you’ll instantly see our social media profiles. Usually this happens very easily but as your popularity builds this could change drastically.

Now, do a search for WOOT Marketing Scam. You’ll be pleasantly surprised that the results showing are quality results. The first 5 results relate to us including a previous article we wrote, Avoiding the Internet Marketing Scam.

Businesses should continuously monitor their reputation on the Internet, just as much as individuals. People can post anything on the Internet to destroy another individual or business, so monitor it. Don’t let yourself give a bad impression right away and manage how you look online.

Are you in need of reputation management or learning how to manage your own reputation online? Simply contact us for more information on how we can help you with your virtual reputation today.