25 Free Online Reputation Management Tips and Tools
Steven W Giovinco
Boutique Online and AI Reputation Management/Repair for CEOs, Professionals, Companies, PR Firms, those in Law, Finance, Arts.
ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT: 25 FREE TIPS
Here are some of the top 25 free online reputation management tips from Recover Reputation available to help build, boost or repair a web presence for professionals such as lawyers, financial advisors, or those in the art world.
The tips range from content creation, social media, search engine optimization (SEO), monitoring, and off-site suggestions.
Most can be accomplished by dedicating time and a varying degree of effort, but some might require a little help or research such as defining effective key search terms and adding them to the Title meta data of your web site.
Remember, however, that online reputation management is usually a long term process, and could take about six months or more to complete, requiring about two or four hundred hours of consistent work or two to three hours per day.
CONTENT
WRITE A WHITEPAPER
You are an expert in your field—whether it be mortgage backed securities, rental properties in the Hamptons, or contemporary emerging art galleries in Chelsea. Create a detailed whitepaper or thoroughly written informative document on a topic of your choosing, and then post it to a well regarded site.CREATE INFOGRAPHICS
An Infographic is a clear, graphic representation of an idea, and is a very popular way to share information. Generate an infographic based on a blog post using a tool such as Visual.ly.RELEVANT BLOGS, ONLINE COMMUNITIES, FORUMS
Follow and good, interesting and useful blogs, online sites, forums and communities specific for your industry. Check them frequently and commit to making one comment daily to show that you are a “thought leader.” Also be engaging. Don’t just say, “Good article,” which sounds “spamy,” but put some thought into the comment.WRITE A GUEST BLOG
Writing an article or blog post as a guest can be a very helpful but not as much as in the past—be sure to work only with blogs and ones focused on your industry . Start by following blogs and topics that are appealing or relate to your business and eventually pitch them an idea for a blog topic. This is a great way to get links back to your site.WRITE A PRESS RELEASE AND ADD IT TO PR.COM
Write a press release—an art in itself—about something newsworthy and publish it to a free site such as PR.com. Be sure to stick to a genuine news-related event, such as a new service offering. If there is a budget to spend additional money, try PRweb instead. Note that these could have less and less influence as Google continues to fine-tune their search algorithm, however.
SOCIAL MEDIA
LINKEDIN
For business connections, nothing beats LinkedIn. As with any social media site, completely fill out the profile and make sure you include web site links in your contact information. An additional online reputation management tip: customize your URL with your name or business.
Image courtesy of Coletivo Mambembe
GET ACTIVE ON FACEBOOK
Be very active on social media sites such as Facebook by posting good content. These should not be purely promotional but should be geared to engage with your friends. Add images, ask questions, and comment on other’s post at least once a day.
Image courtesy SalFalko
GOOGLE+
Create a Google+ account if you don’t already have one and post and comment daily. Follow influencers in your field and engage with them. Since it’s a Google platform, it will be indexed very quickly making it a great online reputation management tip.TWEET DAILY
Google is using cues from social media engagement more and more so after Facebook, Twitter is an excellent online reputation management tip. Gain good followers, put out helpful information, and link back to your site. Tweet consistently several times a day.
PINTEREST
Adding visual information to Pinterest can also be very powerful. Comment on others, “like” and “Pin” compelling images. The best times to post images are after 8pm or the weekends. Look to gain Followers too and develop Boards that are clear, colorful and have a specific niche.CREATE A YOUTUBE VIDEO
YouTube and videos are extremely powerful ways to repair an online reputation. Create one that focuses on you and the positive things you do. Keep it brief and as professional as possible, and offer useful information.CREATE A REDDIT ACCOUNT AND BE ACTIVE
Reddit is an extremely popular site that aggregates news and comments on various topics. It can sometimes be hard to add a comment or link because it is geared to block spam or frequent additions.
Image courtesy of SalFalko
CREATE YELP REVIEWS
Yelp is a very popular review site, and having a presence there is a way to boost your online reputation. Create some legitimate reviews for places you genuinely like, and avoid the temptation to write a glowing review for yourself posing as someone else—it’s illegal and if you get caught, this could damage things further.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
FIND EFFECTIVE KEY SEARCH TERMS
This could be one of the more difficult online reputation management tip to mange on your own, but based on your readers or clients, come up with a handful of good search terms. An art in itself, the main focus is to find a specific phrase that is attainable based on site traffic. These terms will then become the basis for ongoing content strategy and will be used in social media profiles as well as used occasionally in blog titles or headings.
Image courtesy Direct Annuaires Stephan Comelli
UPDATE YOUR WEB SITE WITH META TAGS TITLE AND DESCRIPTIONS
Be sure your web site is optimized, ideally for the negative term. This could be complicated and might involve an SEO or ORM expert but make sure your name or your company is included in the title metatags of some of your pages. The page’s Title is the link that Google displays when searching for you, and without it set up properly, the good information about you won’t be found.
Image courtesy Trevor Owens
BUILD LINKS TO YOUR SITE
Links pointing to your web site help drive traffic and shows search engines such as Google that you are a noteworthy, good site, thus helping your ranking. Developing a good linking strategy can be extremely time consuming but is worth it. Never buy links: as Google continues to weed out bad links, you’ll quickly get blacklisted and ruin your reputation further.
Image courtesy nikagnew
SIGNUP FOR GOOGLE AUTHORSHIP
This can be a bit complicated and time consuming too but is a way to show Google that you are a legitimate, trustworthy and knowledgeable author. Some requirements are a good, clear headshot type photograph of yourself and a Google account.
Image courtesy Margaret Ornsby
COMPLETE IMAGE INFORMATION
As mentioned above, images are more important than ever to Google, and having a properly named image file is crucial. Be sure when adding images to blogs to make sure all additional fields are completed.
MONITOR
GOOGLE ALERTS
Monitor your online reputation by signing up for free Google Alerts. Note that you need a Google account, but you should have one already—if you don’t, get one immediately. Here you simply enter the word or phrase you want to monitor and when it shows up online, you’ll get an email notification. Usually, enter your name or your business name. If it’s a common name, you can include an attribute about your name, such as, “Jane Smith Finance”. You can also select how often you want alerts (select immediately) as well as other options.
OFF-SITE
GIVE A TALK OR SPEAK AT CONFERENCES
Being visible in public is a way to generate positive news about you and build an excellent reputation, so pick some topics that you are an expert in and contact a local library, club or business organization and offer to give a talk.
Image courtesy altemark
BE ACTIVE IN MEETUPS
A Meetup is a great online and “offline” reputation management tip. It is free to participate in a Meetup group, so join several in your area and post comments after attending a meeting. If you’d like to create a Meetup, it costs about $79 to start a group for six months. Managing a group can be time consuming to create frequent group meetings but focus them around your expertise. Remember to announce the Meetups on your social media platforms.
Image courtesy BTO
There is 1 comment
Some great solutions, so thanks for that. I’ve found best luck with the blog as a way to push down the negative stuff.
September 22, 2014 at 5:01 pm(Edit)Reply
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