Reputation Armor Industry BlogPosts RSS Comments RSS

Archive for April, 2010

Reputation Management and Using Social Networks

Reputation Armor notes that using social networks as a Reputation Management tool or technique is a must! The fact is social networks like FaceBook, Twitter, Linkedin, MySpace, and hundreds of others rank very well on Google and other search engines when developed and utilized properly. If you have twenty or so social networking sites about you that rank high on Google, you control 20 spots about yourself and own those positions.

Creating social networking accounts is easy, fast, and in some cases actually fun. Reputation Armor uses TONS of social networks on the web for individuals and businesses. Reputation Armor recommends picking a few for yourself and actually using them to your advantage.

One extremely important tip that Reputation Armor would like to share is remember to log-in to your social network accounts frequently (At Least Weekly) and update your status, or add new content to your public profiles. By adding something new or showing Google that you are actively using these accounts, Reputation Armor has found that Google will in most cases perceive that this “account” is very relevant about your name thus ranking higher and stronger.

Here are a few social networks that Reputation Armor recommends:

Facebook can be a great place to network, just make certain you keep your profile free from things you wouldn’t want spread about you online. Example: Facebook.com/ReputationArmor

MySpace has millions of visitors; this popular social networking site can be a great place to get your and your business’ name out there. Example: MySpace.com/ReputationArmor

LinkedIn Here you can create a professional profile that will allow you to interact with others in your profession in a safe and positive manner. Example: LinkedIn.com/ReputationArmor

Twitter is great whether you want to communicate with others or follow the noise about you on the net, Twitter is an essential tool. Example: Twitter.com/ReputationArmor

Reputation Armor recommends that after creating these social networks it is a good idea to find like minded people, and industry partners to link up with you and network. You should also promote your social networks by linking to them when possible from your blog, website, or other social sites.

Reputation Armor Social Profile Creation

Reputation Armor creates over 125 social network accounts for our clients and optimizes them using the latest cutting edge social networking SEO techniques. This method ensures that the profiles rank highly in search engine results, therefore giving control of the top spots back to clients.

Social Networking Profile creation is only a minor portion of the Reputation Armor Online Reputation Management process.

For more information, contact Reputation Armor 888-358-ARMOR

2 responses so far

Reputation Management | Tools, Tips, and Techniques

These days it seems to Reputation Armor that the harder that individuals try to be transparent online, the bigger target they become.

Reputation Armor sees it all the time, at first you receive out of this world reviews, you add yourselves to more sites and directories, set up google Alerts to receive emails whenever you’re referred to online, and all is good with the world, then comes the day that you receive a bad review. Reputation Armor finds that some reviews and complaints are warranted, while most are anonymous and false, and posted by competitors and/or ex-employees. In some cases reputation armor is able to have these complaints removed if they are unfounded. Most review sites allow anonymous reviews, and although it’s unfair, it’s not illegal.

Reputation Armor answers…how to avoid potential customers and clients seeing bad reviews of your service?

If you can’t fix it or refute it, and getting it removed isn’t an option, then reputation armor advises that you may want to consider burying it. Basically, this means you need to push the bad reviews off  at least the first two pages of Google, Bing, Yahoo etc. - so potential customers looking for you on the Internet find the real you before they find false reviews.

Here are few elements that reputation armor finds important:

Your company website, for example “ReputationArmor.com” Ideally, reputation armor finds that this will rank in the number one position, and have prominent links showing to the main areas of your website, including testimonials.

Your website is more than likely the first thing a client will look for, make sure it contains some great testimonials / reviews. Case studies, examples of work and quotes from happy clients are great for showing you in a good light.

Reputation Armor can’t say enough about the importance of blogs. Whether your blog is attached to your website, or a sub domain, it gives any potential client the opportunity to find company updates and news. A corporate blog (ex. blog.ReputationArmor.com) can often tell as much, if not more, than a company website, as a blog tends to be more informal and have more of a ‘personality’

Twitter profiles are also an important aspect of any Reputation Armor online reputation management operation. Of course, this is only a positive element if you want people to find it, and your company image and brand is well represented while posting tweets  If your Twitter profile is full of ‘Was out late have a hangover this morning’ then reputation armor advises that it’s probably not for you. However, if you use your Twitter profile as part of your companies brand then having it show up on the first page for your company’s key words is excellent.

LinkedIn and other professional online networking profiles are also recommended by reputation armor. These profiles, especially if very active and up to date, show that you’re not just a fly by night, and go a long way in representing your company’s online brand.

We also like to take advantage of articles that clients have written. Whether they are articles on your own site, or articles on somewhere authoritative, reputation armor notes that having your content easily indexable shows you spend time promoting yourself, and those articles could be the difference in standing out among competitors.

Reputation Armor finds that the single most over looked aspect of online reputation management is Video Search engine optimization. Whether it’s own YouTube channel, or videos on your site, having videos show up in the search results for your company name is great. Not everyone likes reading tons of text about how great you are. Reputation Armor has observed that video about your brand can be one of the most convincing aspects of online reputation management.

Facebook profiles and / or Fan Pages are another important characteristic of reputation armor. Example, www.facebook.com/ReputationArmor. Again, this is only a good thing if you’re aware that your Facebook profile could be seen as part of a ‘fact finding’ mission by potential customers.

In summation, Reputation Armor wants clients to understand that search results for your company or individual name should provide a well rounded promotion of your company and services. When people see your website, your blog, your Twitter profile and Facebook Fan Page, several articles written by you, and videos, they see that you’ve been around a while, that you’re not going anywhere and that you’re the who they want to deal with.

For the above reasons Reputation Armor always recommends having up to date profiles in as many places as possible, and regularly updated blogs. The down side to this is that it can take up a great deal of time.

When it comes to burying bad reviews, the above methods alone are usually not enough, although a good start. Review sites and blogs, by their very nature, do well in search engines such as Google, and a more aggressive approach may be needed inured to ensure that positive results out rank the negative ones.

For more information about removing bad reviews online and managing your online reputation, contact ReputationArmor.com.

888-358-ARMOR

One response so far

faceBook’s Website Is Down?

At 6PM EST our team at ReputationArmor.com noticed that facebook was down! We received several calls and emails from clients asking if we knew why their facebook pages were down. faceBook rarely goes down, although their website sometimes has minor short-term glitches.

I am certain that facebook will be back up within a few minutes or at the worst hours.

www.ReputationArmor.com

One response so far

Reputation Management | Social Media | Social Networks

Online Reputation Management

Reputation Armor knows that the success of an online business depends on how potential customers perceive it and in a day and age when so much information is available; reputation armor notes that online reputation is that much more important. Potential customers look for companies that have a strong online reputation.

Reputation Armor also sees the other side of reputation management. The net is often used by competitors to post untrue information about their counterparts. These sorts of posts, as reputation armor sees it, always directly impact the bottom line. The more information posted the higher the link will rank on Google and other search engine results therefore amplifying the issue.

Fortunately, qualified reputation management firms, such as Reputation Armor, can resolve such issues by way of activating an aggressive campaign.

When Reputation Armor takes on a new client our reputation management consultants revise a personalized strategy that end the end will tackle even the worst case reputation problems

What does Reputation Armor Do?

Reputation Armor uses a method that is sometimes referred to as ‘Reverse Search Engine Optimization’, or ‘Inoculation’ in which we guarantee that the first few pages of search engine results will be clear of negative links; doing so by ‘insulating’ them with positive content.

Reputation Armor makes use of positive news gathered through earlier press releases or that given by our clients. The reputation armor process also encompasses the use of “Social Media” and other micro sites and blogs so that the same content gets reflected. The use of social media/networking sites is actually the first step that reputation armor takes. Within hours of becoming a reputation armor client, over 150 such profiles are created. A portion of these profiles will become a working faction of the ‘Google Insulation’ that while burying the negative, shines a bright light on the positive.

Reputation Armor combines effective, cutting edge reputation management techniques that no other so called “Reputation Management” companies can enact. We also constantly monitor search engine rankings so that the positive impact is long term and our client’s online reputation is well protected over many years.

For more information contact, Reputation Armor @ 888-358-ARMOR

No responses yet

Tips For Safe Social Networking

Reputation Armor knows good name can be worth millions, and we all know by now what happens when a first-class name gets into bad trouble. Tiger Woods is only one example of how imperative your reputation is, and how effortless it is to damage it.

The online world has fashioned a new area of law in this age of Web 2.0. It’s called Online Reputation Management Law, as reputation armor sees it, it hovers right around the law of defamation, freedom of speech, privacy law, copyright law, and trademark law. It also involves the non-legal (but equally as important) fields of public relations and crisis management. Many of the legal issues in this area involve Facebook, which has over 350,000,000 users, (including about 90% of all the middle school and secondary school students you and your colleagues teach every day. You might be a Facebook user as well.)

If someone says or publishes something about another person that is untrue, not otherwise privileged, and this damages the other person’s reputation, this may well amount to defamation and legal consequences may follow. “online” publication of defamatory statements on Facebook, Twitter, or on blogs is still publication. Reputation Armor asks this question, what if the damaged reputation is self-inflicted? Although there are things that older adults may share with others in more private ways, there has never been a generation so willing to share their innermost feelings, their outrageous opinions and their inappropriate photographs than the under-25 age group who make up the mainstay of Facebook. Reputation armor hears stories about the things 15- to 18-year-olds post on Facebook. Many of these people don’t seem to understand how the comments and photos they post can be publicly accessible, profoundly inappropriate, and, in the future, career-limiting.

Reputation Armor continuously tells clients: “Clean up your Social Networking Sites”

So here are a few legal and practical things that Reputation Armor thinks might interest you.

Reputation Armor Tips and Thoughts

1. Social networking sites can retain cached archives of everything everyone posts, even if it’s deleted 60 seconds after being posted.

2. Any posting can be saved to another’s computer by an easy screen shot. And any photograph on can be dragged to another’s desktop and circulated to others by e-mail, even though it may have been removed from the original poster’s page. Digital pictures pulled can be Photoshopped and otherwise manipulated in very bad ways.

3. Reputation Armor has noted before that Insurance company investigators frequently check pages of those they are investigating, sometimes posing as an old high school friends, or friends of friends so they can surreptitiously see the page and confirm or deny the claim4. Social Networking pages can be evidence and can be the subject of cross examination, even though a defendant had made his page as private as possible.

4. A court in New York City forced Google (as owner of a particular blogging website), to disclose the name of an anonymous blogger who arguably defamed a prominent model; the moral of the story being that no one is anonymous anymore. The defamed can always find the defamer.

5. Tweets on Twitter are searchable on Google, (so that tweets about how much an employee hates his/her boss can be found by that math teacher). Of course we don’t have that problem at Reputation Armor (because out boss is awesome….haha)

6. Users should limit the number of friends on such sites to real friends. If someone has 800 friends, one of them may be an insurance investigator, and another could be someone far, far worse.

7. This is actually viewed by reputation armor as the most important aspect: Privacy Privacy Privacy. Users should adjust their privacy settings so that only friends (and not “everyone”) can see what they have posted. And never allow “friends of friends” access. Although Facebook changed its privacy settings in December 2009, Reputation Armor have observed reports that show that 70% of users still have their settings set to “everyone can see everything,” possibly because they don’t know how the privacy settings work. And of course, Google sees it all.

8. Parents might want to monitor the social networking activities of their teens, but teens (understandably) don’t want to allow parent access as “friends.” Reputation Armor recommends a “designated driver”; a young adult the teen and the parent both trust, and who won’t contact parents about questionable postings or photos (but will call up the teen).

9. Finally, you shouldn’t post pictures or comments you wouldn’t want your mother, grandmother, or future employer to see, because one day soon, they will.

One response so far

The Reputation Management ROI

Reputation Management services don’t normally come cheap, particularly ones that get results. When a company realizes they need the help of a reputation management firm, they are sometimes surprised by how much a true reputation management campaign/service costs.

 

What some business and professionals do not realize is that Reputation management should not be viewed as an expense but as an investment. As with most smart investments you will see a positive return on investment (ROI). When using a reputation management company or reputation management tools you should expect a fair “Reputation ROI”.

 

How do you get a return on investment from a reputation management campaign?

 

There are many benefits to using a reputation management firm. The most obvious is that your potential clients will see more positive information about your company and less negative information. This alone is enough to save lost sales and retain customer loyalty.

 

A well planned and executed reputation management campaign will also generate you new clients, leads and sales. You will get more exposure, more web traffic, more brand recognition, and more business.

 

Most reputation management campaigns involve search engine optimization and social network utilization. These types of marketing tactics are designed to get you more business and to help your company reach more potential prospects, at the same time repairing or building your online reputation (When used for that purpose).

 

Online reputation management will not only save you lost sales and money, it will increase your business. In many cases we have seen some reputation management campaigns act as a search engine optimization campaign for company websites. The SEO factor is a very valuable addition to all of the other benefits that reputation management has.

 

Consider using reputation management as a marketing technique and you will see good results.

 

This article is provided by ReputationArmor.com - For more information on their services please visitthem online.

One response so far

Rip Off Reports & Reputation Management

 

Having a rip off report removed completely from the internet is not possible. It is possible however to bury (Hide) Rip Off Reports on search engines. If you have a rip off report filed against you, the link most likely ranks on the first page of Google when someone searches your name.

 

Rip Off Report has been online for over 10 years and has never removed a “report”. No one can force rip off report to remove a link, or content about you from their website. No one has ever succeeded as suing them in court, and a lawyer will simply fail at any attempt to bully rip off report in to removing the complaints against you.

 

RipOffReport.com even state on their website that they never remove complaints even if the original author requests them be removed. There are over 500,000 complaints on rip off report and this number grows daily.

 

When internet users search your name and find a rip off report, it will obviously make them wonder if you are a scam or not. The fact is people believe what they read and rip off report looks pretty official. It is very important to fight a rip off report and try to bury the link on Google so people do not find it. Having Rip Off Reports that rank high on search engines will slow or stop your sales.

 

To date we have helped hundreds of clients remove rip off reports from the top pages of Google. We can help you remove rip off reports with our reputation management services. We use aggressive search engine optimization and content creation to bury rip off reports on Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

 Call us for a consultation: 1-888-358-2766

One response so far

Six Do It Yourself (DIY) Online Reputation Management Tips

Reputation Armor suggests that to Google your company and view the top 10 results. Are they comprised of you or your brand? Are they positive or negative? Do they line up with your brand? If the answer to any of these questions is no, then you have some work to do. Luckily there are some pretty easy Do It Yourself Reputation Management tactics that can stack the deck in your favor. Here are 6 quick tips that will get you started building your digital empire.

Create a company profile on bunch social networks. This is a method that Reputation Armor employs. This should be consumer benefit oriented and clearly spell out what your company stands for as well as some high-level features, advantages and benefits of working with your company. Reputation Armor also recommends that you don’t make them too sales oriented with your profile, instead give those researching you an overture of what you stand for and why they should trust you and your product or service.

Grabbing your brand name in as many social networks as you can is also a tactic that the Reputation Armor staff suggests. Securing your company’s brand across major social networks is a huge digital asset-one that you probably don’t fully realize yet. Since having these profiles is akin to leasing space in a prime location, you need to make sure that you are leveraging the power of these social networks over time to build a presence as far across the web as you can.

Own your .com and .net along with hyphenated versions of your brand. Example, Reputation Armor owns, ReputationArmor.com, Reputation-Armor.com, ReputationArmor.net, Reputation-Armor.net, ReputationAmror.org and many more Reputation Armor based domains. Search engines give a lot of weight to URLs that have an exact match to the search query. If someone is googling your company, then the surest way to end up at the top of the results is to grab your brand as a domain. Use .com and .net and skip the .info, .biz etc. We have found that these don’t carry the same search engine juice.

Link to and bookmark results that you want to rise to the top. Reputation Armor want clients our readers to know that links are the currency of the internet, the more links that a particular result has pointed to it, the higher the results will rise. If you have favorable results below the top 10, then take some time to create links to this content to help it rise to the top. Social book marking can be a great tool to use as long as it is not abused..

Use Google liberally. Because of universal search, maps results, videos and images all show up in search queries now. Things like Google profiles and Google business local are great places to start.

This is a very important tip from reputation armor, DO NOT respond to negative results on opinion sites. Sites like epinions and ripoff report are places to allow anyone to post a review of your company and/or make claims of scams. True or not, these sites have a lot of weight and can really harm an online reputation.  The best thing to do is to refrain from posting a rebuttal to an old negative review. Reputation Armor has observed that this actually has the effect of re-indexing a negative review and pushing it to the top. Instead, focus your efforts on getting positive reviews and raising the positive information about your company above these results to push them down.

No responses yet

Remove Rip Off Reports in 90 days

Reputation Armor can remove most Rip Off Reports in 90 days. However there are a couple factors that go into our time quotes for removing them. Keyword popularity is one of the most prominent aspects, the more results; the more difficult it is for Reputation Armor technicians to remove the Rip Off Reports associated with them. Nevertheless, Reputation Armor uses cutting edge procedures and takes pride in working with the most difficult key word combinations for our clients. The Removal of a Rip Off Report alone can have an impressive impact on the Online Reputation of a business.

For more information on Removing Rip Off Reports contact Reputation Armor

@ 888-358-ARMOR

No responses yet

Online Reputation Management is Not Deceptive

Reputation Armor has received a few calls and inquires lately from people that seem to think that the Online Reputation Management business is deceitful. Their basic thought seems to be that our service buries viable reviews and/or complaints from consumers for no apparent reason. This couldn’t be further from reality.

“Reputation Management”, in a nutshell, helps individuals and businesses control what is seen about them online by creating positive content that can help outweigh the negative. This in no way means that the positive content created is false by nature.

Reputation Armor believes that individuals have a right to post true and authoritative reviews and complaints online, the problem lies in the fact that many of the sites that act as channels for these “reviews” allow users to post anonymously. As one Reputation Armor staffer has noted in the past, “False Complaints and Reviews” tend to be the majority not the minority.

Reputation Armor also believes that when a companies’ or individuals’ online reputation is tarnished by phony complaints, they have the right to implement a strategy to combat them. Recently the Reputation Armor staff has observed an epidemic of these complaints and reviews being posted by competitors, and disgruntled ex-employees. The fact is these are the main source of deception in the realm of online reputations.

Furthermore, Reputation Armor deems it a right of companies and individuals to rebut and/or remedy accurate complaints and/or reviews. Most, if not all complaint sites offer one way or another for rebuttals to be filed, but another problem lies in this method. When a rebuttal is made, normally by means of a comment added to the original post, it only adds to the “search engine juice” of the complaint, causing it to rank higher and for a longer amount of time in search results. This is a result of the search engine algorithms that give weight to user generated content.

One final item for thought from Reputation Armor is Online Defamation. Over the past 10 years the reputation armor staff has seen many examples of this. The most prominent being, pictures and videos posted by an individuals ex boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse.  Reputation Armor believes that no matter the indiscretion, an individual has the right to privacy in their personal life. We haven’t been able to uncover any reason that an individual shouldn’t have the right to have these post permanently squashed from internet existence.

We sense that the individuals who have contacted us with the thought that the reputation management services that Reputation Armor provides are in some way a deceitful scam would most certainly change their mind if they or their company had ran into any of the online reputation setbacks that our clients have.

In summation, Reputation Armor understands that to those who aren’t familiar with Online Reputation Management may find it shady at first glance. Reputation Armor and hundreds of satisfied clients choose to respectively disagree. There is an old saying that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Well Reputation Armor added a twist to that saying years ago; “Online Reputations may as well be glass houses, so really no one should be throwing stones”.

2 responses so far

Next »