Reputation Armor

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

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Business Verified: In order for www.reputationarmor.com to be Trust Guard Business Verified, they must undergo a thorough identification process, including:

Address Verification - The company’s address is confirmed via fax or US Mail, using special verification processes - unique to Trust Guard.

Email Verification - An email is sent and received to www.reputationarmor.com in order to confirm their support email address.

Phone Verification - A phone call is placed to confirm the company’s phone number.

Signing up with Trust Guard will accredit your business as a verified trust-guard member and let consumers and potential clients know that you care about your businesses reputation and you are not hiding from anything (Transparent).

In consideration to protecting a brand with online reputation management, whether it is an individual’s name or a company, Reputation Armor recommends a pro-active approach. Positive showings that rank high in search engine results are most certainly good for business; but Reputation Armor has found that a surprisingly high amount of CEO’s aren’t considering the fact that those same high ranking results could also be providing “insulation”, effectively shielding their brand from the many negative results that can become a PR nightmare. Reputation Armor provides proactive Online Reputation through a variety of innovative techniques. Some of the reputation management methods that Reputation Armor employs can be enacted by basically any individual who has the time.

Reputation Armor tips for Do It Yourself Online Reputation Management

1) Purchase all the related domains to your brand, including the sub domains. For example “ReputationArmor.com”  “ReputationArmor.net” “Reputation-Armor.com” …etc.

2) Create profiles on a handful of social networking sites. Use your name or brand when possible in the URL and Title of the profile. Then update often.

3) Start a blog on one of the domains that you now control. Use it to update clients on new product releases or industry news. Update frequently.

These are just a few simple techniques from reputation armor that can be completed in order to enact a proactive online reputation management campaign. By perusing this process and dedicating the time it takes to implement and update, the odds of positive information out weighing the negative results is greatly increased.

For more information about Proactive Online Reputation Management, contact Reputation Armor

@ ReputationArmor.com

What is the Google dance?

Reputation Armor has heard the term “the Google Dance”, to refer to a couple different things. Although only one is actually correct. It’s a 3 to 5 day phase of time when Google is rejuvenating its rankings, and results ebb and flow widely.

How Often Does The Google Dance Happen?

In the past the name “Google Dance” was used to describe the period in which a key index update of the Google search engine was being executed.   Reputation Armor found on average that these major Google index updates occurred on every 36 days or 10 times per year. Reputation Armor observes that the easiest method to identify this was noting the significant changes in search results, and by an updating of Google’s cache of all indexed pages. These changes would fluctuate from one minute to the next.

Because Google’s users (including the Reputation Armor staff) rely on it to deliver authoritative reliable results 24/7, updates pose a serious issue. They can’t afford to shut down for maintenance or go offline for even one minute. Therefore, the Dance. Every search engine goes through it, some more or less often than Google. However, it is only because of Google’s prominence that we pay attention to its rebuild more than that of any other engine.

Around 2003 Reputation Armor found that the Google Dance became far less dramatic.

Now at some stage in any month there will be slight changes in rankings. This is because Google’s bot or spider is ceaselessly running and finding new material. It also happens because the bot may have detected that a website no longer exists, and needs to be deleted from the index. Reputation Armor notes that most importantly, the Googlebot will revisit every website, figure out how many sites link to it, and how many it links out to, and how valuable these links are.

Because Google is constantly crawling and updated selected pages, Reputation Armor has established that search results will differ slightly over the course of the month. On the other hand, it is only during the Google Dance that these results fluctuate wildly. Reputation Armor also considers that Google has numerous data centers, sharing over 10,000 servers. Somehow, the updates to the index that transpire during the month, and outside of the Google Dance have to get transferred throughout. It’s a steady process for Google. These constant, incremental updates only affect portions of the index at any one time.

What the Google Dance Means to Reputation Armor and Our Clients

Reputation Armor technicians spend a great deal of time studying the algorithmic nature of Google. Because a Reputation Armor online reputation management campaign relies so heavily on Google results, we pay close attention to every aspect of change in these results. Although an important aspect, our lead technician has advised the rest of the Reputation Armor team that “the dance” is not nearly as important as what takes shape when the dust settles.

Reputation Armor knows that every company needs first-class preparation for managing their online reputation. Bad news moves faster than good news.

The online equivalent of traditional word-of-mouth is an interactive Web 2.0 that has increasingly empowered observers of all levels of professionalism and knowledge. Industry-specific forums and review sites are a fundamental resource of publicity that Reputation Armor watches because online reviews are rising in popularity and significance in consumers’ buying decisions.

Reputation Armor observes that blogs with a strong weight within your company’s field are also well worth monitoring. We can’t control the editorial output of another person’s blog, but we have formed many sociable relationship with bloggers which, should the need arise on one bad news day, may just minimize any damage afflicted upon our clients reputation. Reputation Armor also creates blogs for clients , a simple, personal and pro-active way that we build online reputations.

Social Networking sites, meanwhile, are a massive resource, and can be very influential. They are places where gossip about people spread like wildfire. These sites are, consequently, another source of Reputation Management that ReputationArmor.com takes advantage of.

We track the exact instant when mention is made about your company online with tools such as Google Alerts. If you do receive bad reviews on the net, you will not be able to remove much content directly (although it is sometimes possible). What Reputation Armor does is organize a positive online reputation campaign through your chosen keywords and the above strategies (as well as many other Reputation Armor strategies) to help cancel out or overwhelm any negativity (such as by pushing it further down the search results).

Reputation Armor contends that it is paramount to be pro-active in your online reputation management. Although its particular form will fluctuate depending on the nature and scale of your organization. Reputation Armor specializes in ensuring that well-chosen brand keywords within high value content get your site high up the search engine result rankings. Following that, it is much easier for your communication to be heard by as wide an audience as possible, as well as to counteract any less than positive news.

For more info contact, Reputation Armor

Reputation Armor: HP TouchSmart Twitter/Facebook Contest

Win a brand new HP TouchSmart 300 Desktop PC from ReputationArmor.com. Reputation Armor is giving away this brand new PC to a lucky winner in the Month of March.

How to enter the contest:

Option1: Visit Our Twitter Page and retweet the “Contest Post” or Tweet This Blog Post

Option2: Become a Fan of ours on FaceBook Click Here

If you choose both options you will double your chances of winning! The winner will be selected March 31, 2010.

There are many ways to manage your online reputation.  Reputation Armor likes to use the CPR method.

Create

First Reputation Armor creates a reputation.  This takes time and a reasonable amount of effort.  And once it is created reputation armor defends it.

Protect

How does Reputation Armor protect it?  First we find out what is being said about you online. Then we plan an attack on the negative and shine a light on the positive.

Respond

In a perfect world you would never need to respond to negative comments.  That’s because in an ideal world there would not be any negative comments.  Well back here in reality there are negative comments. Reputation Armor sees a growing number of negative comments about reputable companies/people. Obviously, you cannot please everyone. And at the same time Reputation Armor sees more and more negative comments are being left by competitors. There are many ways in which to respond.

For more information contact Reputation Armor 888-358-2766

Reputation Armor recommends that you take a second and Google your company name, your domain name, and your personal name. What do those results on the first page or two in Google look like? Optimistically everything on the first few pages of search results is positive. However, Reputation Armor has seen a rise in negative results for companies that have had a good reputation for years previous.

These are examples of negative Google results that Reputation Armor finds:

• Blog or forum posts from disgruntled customers or previous employees.
• Negative reviews of your business, possibly planted there by your competition.
• Embarrassing and possibly false, personal details about top executives in your company.

Reputation Armor even finds entire sites devoted to the countless ways in which a  specific company “sucks“.

If there are negative listings on the first few pages of Google, you can bet that many of your customers are seeing them. And that’s going to have a big effect on whether or not they decide to do business with you. Reputation Armor will provide “Google insulation” to push down the negative while shining a light on the positive.

For more information contact Reputation Armor @ http://www.reputationarmor.com

Reputation Armor has found 79% of managers reviewed online information about job applicants. 70% rejected candidates based on what they found.

18%, Reputation Armor also notes, of companies found social networking profiles as constructive because they presented an excellent feel for culture fit and added trustworthiness to the candidates’ resumes. Reputation Armor believes this number is only going to continue to grow.

76% of executives anticipate being Googled however 22% have never Googled their own name to see what companies and recruiters will hit upon.

According to a study last year, Reputation Armor observes, the top industries most likely to screen job candidates using social networking sites and search engines include those who handle sensitive information.

Contact Reputation Armor @ http://www.reputationarmor.com

Reputation Armor Quote:

That’s what Rocky is all about: pride, reputation, and not being another bum in the neighborhood. ~ Sylvester Stallone

Quote of the day brought to you by Reputation Armor