Imagine Googling your business name, and just beneath your company’s #1 ranking is another result, but this one isn’t something you want people to see. Maybe it’s a lawsuit that was brought against your company, maybe it’s the insane rantings of a blogger who happens to hate your company. Maybe the story being told is true, or maybe it’s not. But it doesn’t really matter…you need
that result off the first page, and quickly. That could be difficult, but what if you could have prevented it in the first place? I’m gonna show you how…
Reactive Versus Proactive Reputation Management
The truth is, many businesses have heard about reputation management, but few of them are doing it proactively. In most cases, they’re probably reacting to situations like the one I described above. This is a bad situation to be in. If the negative result is already out there and being propagated, responding to it in a reactive way is like damage control. The damage has already been done, and all you can hope for is to limit the amount of damage done. And depending on who you’re battling against, it could cost you.
But what if you were to handle your reputation management proactively? What I mean by that is actually agressively pursuing specific keywords, like your company name or the name of the owner, and dominate the search results for that particular term. Now, please understand, you CANNOT do this for a generic search term, but you can do this for a very unique search term (again, like your company’s name).
The Reputation Management Method
The method consists of utilizing social media to create multiple opportunities for top 10 rankings from a multiplicity of websites, all for one specific keyword. Let’s take "Vertical Measures" as an example. If you Google our company’s name, these are the results you’ll get on the first page:
Now, just take that in for a minute. You’ll see that we dominate 8 out of 10 positions for our business name, and that’s as it should be; I mean, it is OUR business name, and not someone else’s, right? But look, 6 of the results are from social media websites. They include big players like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. But they also include a social profile on a website specific to our niche: SEOmoz. Now, this should tell you something. If you’re trying to be proactive about your company’s reputation management, you need to make sure you have profiles on these types of websites.
16 Opportunities to Dominate the Search Results for Your Business Name
Here’s a list of the top social media and local listing sites to join based on the research we’ve done. Factors include obvious things like PageRank, traffic, and cost, but also how well each site ranks in search results for business name searches. I.e. LinkedIn and Merchant Circle profiles have a tendency to rank well in the search engine results pages. This list is not exhaustive, so if you’ve got more you think should be included, post them in a comment below.
| Website | PageRank | Traffic | Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 12.8M U.S.; 25.2M global | Free; Business $25/mo, Business Plus $50/mo, Pro $500/mo | Professional network for individuals and businesses | |
| Merchant Circle | 8 | 6.3M U.S. | Free; Advanced marketing for a fee | Local business social network |
| 9 | 94.6M U.S. | Free, supports paid ads | Social networking king | |
| 9 | 27.6M U.S. | Free | Social media in 140 characters or less | |
| Yelp | 6 | 7.4M U.S. | Free, supports paid advertising | Local review website |
| Plaxo | 7 | 1.1M U.S. | Free | Social network to connect to family, friends and coworkers, share photos, and create your own profile |
| Fast Company | 7 | 941.3K U.S.; 2M global | Free, supports advertising | Business magazine for owners and entreprenuers |
| MyWikiBiz | 4 | 6.5K U.S.; 13.5K global | Free | Wiki for business listings |
| Ecademy | 6 | 49.4K U.S.; 232.6K global | Free, $5/mo basic, $140/mo pro | Social networking site for businesses |
| Spoke | 6 | 2.6M U.S.; 3.4M global | Free, $25/mo, $50/mo, $100/mo | Business networking website |
| 123People | 6 | 76.0K U.S. | Free; $15/mo reputation manager | People search tool to help monitor online reputation |
| BxBusinessWeek | 7 | 650.4K U.S.; 903.3K global | Free | Networking website for business professionals |
| Fast Pitch Networking | 4 | 6.8K U.S. | Free, $9 premium, $27 platinum | A professional social network for businesses |
| ZoomInfo | 6 | 3.7M U.S.; 5.8M global | Free, fee for recruiters and sales pros | People and company search; also offers products to sales people and recruiters |
| Google Profile | 10 | 141.7M | Free | Create a Google profile |
| Naymz | 6 | 400K U.S. ; 860K global | Free, $8/mo | Build professional relationships with this social network for businesses |
What to Include in Your Business Profile
If you are trying to dominate the company’s name in the search engines, then each profile should include as much information about your business as possible, including the following:
- Company name as the username whenever possible
- Company name used as the vanity URL whenever possible
- Company name within the profile page description
- Keywords used within the profile page description
- Company contact information, including address and phone number
- A link to your company website
If you are trying to rank for some term other than the company’s name, then just subsitute it into the information above. For example, you could substitute a company executive’s name for the company name.
Finding Niche Opportunities
Checking up on your competitors is an age-old strategy. So this situation is no different. If you’re looking for niche networks and websites to create profiles for your business, simply do a search for the name of your competitor’s business and see what comes up in the top 30 search results. If they have profiles on websites that you don’t, add them to your list!
Tags: facebook, Merchant Circle, reputation management, twitter
This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
This is an interesting post, full of useful advice.
We professionals are sometimes called to ‘repair’ reputations ‘after the event’, something that is always time-consuming and rather costly.
Implementing some of the measures recommended in this post before any potential reputation attack can save a business or individual time and money in the long run.
September 18th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
This is an interesting post, full of useful advice.
We professionals are sometimes called to ‘repair’ reputations ‘after the event’, something that is always time-consuming and rather costly.
Implementing some of the measures recommended in this post before any potential reputation attack can save a business or individual time and money in the long run.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:01 am
Ralph, thanks for including MyWikiBiz as one of the best 16 spots to build a proactive reputation. Many of the small businesses who post a directory page on MyWikiBiz are amazed when it shoots onto page one of Google results for keywords flagged semantically in their directory listing.
We’ll need to get Vertical Measures going on MyWikiBiz, don’t you think?
September 20th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Ralph, thanks for including MyWikiBiz as one of the best 16 spots to build a proactive reputation. Many of the small businesses who post a directory page on MyWikiBiz are amazed when it shoots onto page one of Google results for keywords flagged semantically in their directory listing.
We’ll need to get Vertical Measures going on MyWikiBiz, don’t you think?
September 21st, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Hey… for tech-related companies, CrunchBase cannot be overlooked. Perhaps this falls into the niche category but I wanted to make sure that site is at least mentioned here.
Also, if you work for a startup, I would highly suggest a social media business profile on YouNoodle.
And, for all you link builders out there, profiles on these websites also allow for different forms of anchor text-friendly link opportunities. Only catch is that YouNoodle redirects their anchor text links.
September 21st, 2009 at 6:53 am
Hey… for tech-related companies, CrunchBase cannot be overlooked. Perhaps this falls into the niche category but I wanted to make sure that site is at least mentioned here.
Also, if you work for a startup, I would highly suggest a social media business profile on YouNoodle.
And, for all you link builders out there, profiles on these websites also allow for different forms of anchor text-friendly link opportunities. Only catch is that YouNoodle redirects their anchor text links.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:28 pm
I’ve heard good things about Business.com. But when I’ve tried it, the profile hasn’t ranked well. Have you had any experience with them?
Will definitely be trying this list, plus those sites listed in the comments. Thanks!
September 21st, 2009 at 1:28 pm
I’ve heard good things about Business.com. But when I’ve tried it, the profile hasn’t ranked well. Have you had any experience with them?
Will definitely be trying this list, plus those sites listed in the comments. Thanks!
September 21st, 2009 at 9:29 pm
@Gregory Kohs – Done! Thanks for the suggestion
@Jonathan Bentz – I was going to include CrunchBase, but they are in private Beta right now.
@eBoost SEO – I don’t have any experience with Business.com, but SEObook has a great conversation about it in the comments on this page.
September 21st, 2009 at 2:29 pm
@Gregory Kohs – Done! Thanks for the suggestion
@Jonathan Bentz – I was going to include CrunchBase, but they are in private Beta right now.
@eBoost SEO – I don’t have any experience with Business.com, but SEObook has a great conversation about it in the comments on this page.
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Thanks… I love the little tidbit at the end about getting the free link through Work.com.
Added to the tool belt!
September 22nd, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Thanks… I love the little tidbit at the end about getting the free link through Work.com.
Added to the tool belt!
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
@Ralphm – not sure why CrunchBase is still in “private beta” unless they forgot to take it publicly out of private (does that make sense?). I have been using that site for my tech related clients for weeks.
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:39 am
@Ralphm – not sure why CrunchBase is still in “private beta” unless they forgot to take it publicly out of private (does that make sense?). I have been using that site for my tech related clients for weeks.
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:11 pm
That’s weird about Crunchbase. What page are you signing up on? You can see on the link I provided that it says they are still in beta and just provides an notification form.
September 23rd, 2009 at 10:11 am
That’s weird about Crunchbase. What page are you signing up on? You can see on the link I provided that it says they are still in beta and just provides an notification form.
September 24th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Waiting until negative press finds it’s way into the search results for your name or your business name is not the right time to start this. It is important to already have these in place prior.
September 24th, 2009 at 6:34 am
Waiting until negative press finds it’s way into the search results for your name or your business name is not the right time to start this. It is important to already have these in place prior.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:04 am
[...] Be Proactive With Your Reputation Management – This VerticalMeasures blog post shares tips and best practices for B2B marketers to proactively manage their corporate reputation by utilizing 16 different social media and listing sites. [...]
November 12th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
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December 9th, 2009 at 10:45 am
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January 5th, 2010 at 6:11 am
[...] Be Proactive With Your Reputation Management (Vertical Measures): My book talks about how maintaining social media profiles can help you with your reputation management issues. This post echoes that sentiment and provides specific social networks that you should establish your presence on. [...]
January 5th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
[...] Be Proactive With Your Reputation Management (Vertical Measures): My book talks about how maintaining social media profiles can help you with your reputation management issues. This post echoes that sentiment and provides specific social networks that you should establish your presence on. [...]
January 13th, 2010 at 10:10 am
[...] Be Proactive With Your Reputation Management Ralph Miller, Vertical Measures | 9/18/09 [...]
January 25th, 2010 at 10:42 am
[...] Be Proactive With Your Reputation Management Ralph Miller, Vertical Measures | 9/18/09 [...]
January 27th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Ralph,
Great article with some really good practical advice – so many little pieces can make a big difference. Thanks for writing it.
Mike
January 27th, 2010 at 11:26 am
Ralph,
Great article with some really good practical advice – so many little pieces can make a big difference. Thanks for writing it.
Mike
February 1st, 2010 at 10:41 am
[...] Be Proactive With Your Reputation Management Ralph Miller, Vertical Measures | 9/18/09 [...]
February 1st, 2010 at 1:16 pm
[...] Reputation Management: Be Proactive With Your Reputation Management [...]
February 1st, 2010 at 2:45 pm
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February 2nd, 2010 at 9:39 am
[...] I really like this post, simple list of places you need to really advertise your business and what to include. Simple and executable – http://www.verticalmeasures.com/social-media/be-proactive-with-your-reputation-management/. [...]
February 9th, 2010 at 8:15 am
As long as your domain name is your exact company name, you already have a huge leg up on your competition. You should now be sure to also have high PR internal pages, so that you can have multiple listings on the first page of Google in addition to your profile rankings. Thanks for the article.
February 9th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
As long as your domain name is your exact company name, you already have a huge leg up on your competition. You should now be sure to also have high PR internal pages, so that you can have multiple listings on the first page of Google in addition to your profile rankings. Thanks for the article.
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:43 pm
[...] Be Proactive With Your Reputation Management – This VerticalMeasures blog post shares tips and best practices for B2B marketers to proactively manage their corporate reputation by utilizing 16 different social media and listing sites. [...]
July 17th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Thank you for the advice! Very useful article!
August 10th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
your business online reputation is very important as customers nowadays don't just order but do more research about your products or services and your company before purchasing. and once they've read something bad about you they'll definitely think twice before ordering.
September 1st, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Good article with the basics put in a logical and understandable way. Especially to help MSE starting with their online rep. W.r.t. title would ' How to be proactive with your Reputation Management' be even better? This because 'How to..' attracks more readers. Thx!
February 7th, 2011 at 9:48 am
[...] Be Proactive With Your Reputation Management – This VerticalMeasures blog post shares tips and best practices for B2B marketers to proactively manage their corporate reputation by utilizing 16 different social media and listing sites. [...]
March 14th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
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