http://www.ReputationManagementAdvice.com
Step 1: What All Has Been Said About You Online?
“Keywords” and “key phrases” simply
represent how you are referred to, represented,
or identified online.
There are several smaller as well as enterprise-level
paid and free online tools out there to help
you monitor certain phrases being discussed
online. For example, Google Alerts.
Google and other search engines both directly
and indirectly allow others to attempt to
establish what is relevant regarding an individual
or a corporation.
It is very difficult for an individual or
a company to be the “judge, jury, and executioner”
of another individual or companies’ online
reputation.
If there is information out there online that
is relevant to you as an individual or information
relevant to your business, Google will likely
be the first to know about it and place it
in their search engine index (search results).
We all know controversy and drama doesn’t
necessarily have anything to do with the truth
about an issue, company, or individual.
Unfortunately, negative information spreads
a lot faster than positive information, regardless
of the validity of the information in question.
Do not let someone else out there in the world
have the final say on what is relevant about
you or about your business.
Take control of your online image to the best
of your abilities, as no individual, company,
or governing regulatory body is going to assist
you in this matter.
Before you setup Google Alerts for real-time
“key phrase” monitoring though, you can
perform some quick searches in Google using
their advanced search operators.
These types of “advanced” Google searches
will reveal a solid portion of the information
that others are creating, witnessing, and
discussing that is likely relevant to your
personal or business’ online reputation.
You can think of this process as a “Quick
Scan” for online reputation management problems
and potential issues.
How-to Perform A Quick Scan
First, you need to start with the obvious. Open
up Google.com
Type in your business name or your full name
and click the button labeled “Google Search”.
Before you do anything else, click on the
top right gear-looking icon and select “Search
settings”
Make sure you have “No filtering” selected
under “SafeSearch filters”
Continued…
Select “Never show Instant results” under
“Google Instant predictions”
Select “100” under “Results per page”
Select “Do not use personal results” under
“Personal results”
You will probably want to select “Open each
selected result in a new browser window”
as well.
Now you can click “Save” to go back to
the main Google search results screen.
With Google showing you 100 listings per page,
it makes it much easier to copy, print, analyze,
organize, and do other productive things in
my opinion.
Feel free to click “repeat the search with
the omitted results included” link to see
if any different search engine listing results
come up that are important to you or your
business.
It really does pay off in the long run to
be extra thorough when examining online reputation
management issues.
Select Google’s “Advanced Search” by
again clicking on the “gear-like” icon
located in the upper-right side of the main
Google search screen.
Some of the “Advanced Search” options
that Google provides on this page are very
helpful for analyzing online reputations.
For detailed explanations of these options
please refer to our Basic guide.
Let’s talk about the various types of websites
and media that one may typically encounter
when going through this whole process.
Business and Personal Information Gathering/Aggregation
Websites (Pipl, Spokeo, other general and
local public record websites etc)
Community-related Discussion Boards/Forums/Directories
(Topix, City-data, Local TV and Radio Station
websites, StreetAdviser, Ask.Metafilter, Patch,
etc)
Community-related Discussion Boards/Forums/Directories
(Topix, City-data, Local TV and Radio Station
websites, StreetAdviser, Ask.Metafilter, Patch,
etc)
Business Review Websites/Discussion Boards/Directories/Forums
(Yelp, RipOffReport, Insiderpages, Citysearch,
Local Directories, etc)
Individual and Corporate Social Media Pages
(Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, etc)
Individual and Corporate Blogs
Question and Answer Websites (Yahoo Answers,
Quora, etc)
Wikis (Wikipedia and other Community/Business-related
Wikis that people can add information to/edit
information easily)
Images (usually pulled directly into the search
result pages from image-sharing websites like
Flickr)
Videos (usually pulled directly into the search
result pages from video-sharing websites like
Youtube)
Google Places Results/Google Plus Profile
Results (Local business listings with map,
business description, and business reviews
that are posted directly on Google and reviews
pulled from other popular business review
websites)
The majority of these types of websites are
free and open. They allow a person to follow-up
and write their own feedback and responses
to the information that is being posted and/or
discussed.
OK, easy enough right?
The bad news is that often times search engines
LOVE ranking anything that looks like drama,
conflict, negative news, etc.
For now you just want to identify these types
of websites out there and the relevant information
that show up when searching Google for your
Personal or Business name and other related
searches.
We will discuss different methods of dealing
with these websites in other sections of our
Basic guide.
Going through the Quick Scan process to identify
ORM issues and potential issues can be a real
“eye-opener” for people.
Many people have no clue that these types
of websites are out there discussing their
personal or business identity, and very often
people are completely unaware of the relevant
ongoing conversation that is taking place
online.
So You Mean To Tell Me ANYONE Can Go On These
Websites And Write Anything They Want About
My Business or About Me Personally?
Yes they can, but more good news is that many
of these types of popular websites are heavily
moderated and have strict policies in place
that address and often remove outright slanderous
information and other outrageous, offensive
claims, general defamation, etc.
The Communications Decency Act
The CDA states that website owners cannot
be sued for posting defamatory content written
solely by their users. We often refer to this
as user-generated content.
The CDA is a VERY positive thing because it
protects webmasters from being sued for things
that are entirely out of their control.
Crazy or vulgar accusations regarding someone’s
business may not get through the moderation
process of some of these websites composed
primarily of user-generated content.
However, enough seemingly-genuine bad online
“reviews” can quickly ruin a businesses
reputation online and offline.
People often go to great lengths to make others
look bad on these types of service review
websites.
What about people looking for a new place
to eat? This demographic is going to be browsing
local business review websites like Yelp.
This is what makes online reputation management
crucial for service-based businesses.
