There are many areas of the Internet that can be used to promote or besmirch the reputation of individuals and companies. Social networking and bookmarking sites, review sites, and blogs are some of the most popular places for such reviews. Many of these sites are crawled by Google and other search engines and as results pick up steam through threaded posting the pages can rank highly in the results pages.

In order to counteract occurrences of negative press that might hit the top spots in Google, Yahoo, and other search engines it’s possible to use SEO as a valuable tool. SEO is an ethical way to ensure that your own pages appear as high as possible in search results. This not only includes pages on your main website but also on blogs, forums, and other pages that you own.

SEO usually targets keywords and search phrases that potential clients use when shopping for specific products or services. However, it is possible to optimise a page for any chosen term or word. This includes the names of brands, products, and names that you want to protect.

Social networking and other social sites have gained a lot more popularity with users and subsequently search engines have begun to stand up and take notice too. Facebook profiles, Tweets, and social profiles have gained greater exposure in search results.

Using a combination of your own online real estate as well as other related pages it is possible to move negative results down the search results and replace them with more informative and positive results; a beneficial way to use SEO to manage your online reputation.

The survey excerpted below is the first I’ve seen of its kind. It shows that there might indeed be a link between fan pages on facebook, and similar business profiles on social networking sites, and people actually buying the products or services offered by that business.

The study by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research suggested that 51 per cent of fans of Facebook Pages and 67 per cent of Twitter brand followers are likely to buy products and services from the firms they are connected with.

Research like this will only encourage the major businesses to pay more attention to their online brands and to running un defamation campaigns.

http://www.bluhalo.com/news/view/7829/econsultancy-reputation-management-to-grow-in-popularity

Ever heard of a slam book? It’s a notebook, usually owned by a junior high girl, in which she and her friends write terrible things about their classmates or teachers. Well, now the online equivalent has been created. Unvarnished is a new social networking site that allows people to review others’ professional career, work ethic, etc. The controversy is…individuals can make those reviews anonymously.

Their vision: a site that encourages candid and nuanced information about prospective hires, bosses and business partners.

So far Unvarnished, which is in private testing at GetUnvarnished.com, has hundreds of users and thousands of reviews. The company preloaded 400,000 professional profiles.

Critics say Unvarnished gives a bully pulpit to unscrupulous users who will unfairly sully the reputations of others, harming their ability to land jobs and promotions. Lawyers say the site is a litigation nightmare.

In all liklihood, the argument is moot–LinkedIn is the largest company of its kind and likely to remain so. And it doesn’t allow for the same sort of online libel that Unvarnished does.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sc-biz-unvarnished-story–20100405,0,758983.story

People make a lot of suggestions regarding SEO and web reputation management, but none is better than the advice found in this article. They’re quite right, content is king.

“This is not just content for the website itself but content for press releases, blogs, testimonials, social media channels and other third-party sources”, said Mr Hollands-Hurst, who is a search engine optimisation (SEO) consultant at the group.

He added that companies wanting to manage their online reputation should both boost SEO and create sufficient positive content that will drive adverse comments away from the first search engine results pages.

Of course, the content has to be good. “Any press is good press” isn’t a rule that applies in the reputation management industry.

http://www.computeach.co.uk/IT-news/IT-Computer-Technology-News/Content-is-key-in-boosting-online-reputation-says-Pixl8/19701060