Whether you’re just one person with a small business web site or you have the tremendous online presence of a large company to think about, how you’re perceived makes a big difference in your bottom line. You can never control it completely, but you can learn how to monitor your reputation and put your best foot forward.
It’s disconcerting, but the truth is that items that reflect poorly on you or your company can come from anywhere: disgruntled customers, former employees, even – quite inadvertently – yourself. You would be wise to assume that anyone on the verge of doing business with you will Google your name and/or the name of your company. Do you know what comes up for you in a Google search?
I’m very pleased to say that nothing embarrassing comes up for me or my company in the first three pages of a Google search. I couldn’t always say that; it wasn’t my fault that I shared my name with a former Playboy centerfold (who seems to have since changed the spelling of her name). But that case of mistaken identity is trivial in comparison to what comes up in Google for some of the best-known companies and brands online.
Let’s take a look at some of these brands. Search for Coca Cola in Google and the fifth link on the first page leads to “Killer Coke,” a site that cites “undisputed reports” that the company’s bottling plant managers in Colombia encouraged murder. Search for McDonald’s, and the fourth link from the top leads to “McSpotlight,” a site that talks about “McDonald’s exploitation of animals, people and the environment.” A search for Martha Stewart Living is almost funny in comparison; the first page offers a link to a parody site where the decorating diva supposedly offers tips for living behind bars.
If the big companies run into problems getting it right, you can bet that your online reputation may not be totally spotless either. And you’re not alone; businesses have sprung up specifically to alert their customers when something negative is published about them online, and to fix these reputation issues. Reputation Defender is an example of such a company; there are others.
Short of hiring someone to watch it for you, what can you do to manage and improve your online reputation? In this article, I’m going to talk about some of the positive steps you can take, regardless of whether you’re starting with a completely clean slate. In my next article, I hope to cover what you can do if and when the negative press gets out of hand.
Website Promotion 
