Businesses & Individuals are Finding Reputation Management Increasingly More Important
The majority of people use the internet on a daily basis, many of us frequently use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to share our thoughts with friends online. Social networking profiles can be seen by people other than friends and family and can affect our online image. Often many of us do not realise the affect that this could have upon our job prospects, personal life and business relationships as we unknowingly share our personal information online
Prior to the increased use of the internet communication was often done through other mediums than the internet. The internet has made communication much easier and although this has helped make businesses more global and made advertising much easier this can have negative consequences too. Businesses now need to constantly portray a positive image online as containing negative press is much more difficult. Several new Reputation Management companies are growing to meet the needs of companies, brands and individuals seeking help with managing their online reputation. Lots of companies deservedly have a positive online reputation however some businesses have a negative online image which is mis-representative or the result of a malicious customer or ex-employee. These negative results can linger on the first page of Google for years and affect business sales.
Online reputation management is increasingly been considered by individuals as well as big brands and businesses. A negative online reputation can affect individuals’ job prospects, personal relationships and financial applications as negative court cases, malicious comments by ex-girlfriends and search terms associated with people with similar names can tarnish individuals’ online reputation. An example of how many individuals looked to manage their online reputation is after the financial crisis, when many city bankers who had negative online reputations some top bankers were paying over $10 000 a month to repair their negative online reputation and to maintain positive Google search results for their name. Erich Schmidt the executive chairman of Google predicts that in the future influential people such as celebrities will employ somebody to manage their online reputation.
Making sure that individuals’ and businesses first page of Google one search results is positive is very important, as 94% of all people who click on a Google search result click on a result from the first page. The majority of these clicks also come from a link within the first few search results making it also important not only to have no negative links on the first page of Google but to ensure that the first few results returned are positive. Online reputation management companies often use reverse SEO techniques to push negative pages to the bottom of search results and push positive and neutral results higher up the search results. Improving a business’s online reputation is usually easier than improving an individual’s reputation as businesses can improve their reputation by using lots of social media profiles, blogs and partner sites. It can often be difficult to shift content posted on on influential sites down the search results, however it is possible to get some Content removed when the content is defamatory or violates a websites terms and conditions.
Companies such as Igniyte specialise in cleaning up negative Google search results as negative blog posts, reviews or pages can have a devastating affect for businesses, brands and individuals. For more information on managing your online reputation contact Simon at Igniyte on simon@igniyte.co.uk
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Charon QC 