In the present age of the internet, managing your online reputation the right way is critically important. It is said that the internet can be ‘your best friend or your worst enemy’ depending on how efficiently you manage your online reputation.
Successful online reputation management is a reflection of your ability to suppress all negative information and adverse comments that come up on Google searches about you or about someone else with your same name.
You must make your preferred online profile appear in the top of search results in order to boost your personal or corporate brand. To achieve this, you will have to hire a well-trained full-time dedicated employee or use the services of professional ORM (Online Reputation Management) agencies.
Most of these agencies charge affordable fees that and for companies, celebrities or high-level executives who don’t have in-house staff managing their online reputations, it may truly be worth the cost.
There are also an easy-to-use do-it-yourself online reputation management tutorial that will put you through the basic steps of reputation management for free. For people with more serious ORM problems, rest assured these agencies will wipe your slate clean.
For most of us, ORM is not very complex, and there is a lot we can do ourselves without the help of outsiders. You must learn to create your content and optimized profiles, to drive away offensive content down to that proverbial third or fourth page in Google search results.
To ascertain the status of your online reputation search your name/company name yourself. Set up a Google alert on your name to keep track of any new content. You can have notifications mailed to you at right intervals so that your inbox does not overflow.
It is suggested that you buy your domain name which is easily affordable. It is advisable to select one domain name and put some effort into creating content that will live on the site. You can write a short bio of yourself, an incident from your life, and include your CV. This is also a place to post informative articles and your commentary about them.
Make it a point to put all your content in one place. There are a number of sites that let you do this now, including Tumblr, WordPress and About.me. You can also “apply” your domain name to these sites.
Join the right social networks and proactively participate in them. The idea is to optimize your presence on these sites.