Online Reputation Management: Part 1 - What Is It, & Why Is It Important? - Get more referrals by talking to us!

{3:40 minutes to read}

When you Google yourself, what comes up?

Is it you or your website?
Does someone else with the same or a similar name as you come up?
What are you finding there if it is you?
Is it positive, negative or in the middle?
Maybe you don’t want people seeing the things that are coming up for you.

Online Reputation Management, or ORM as it’s commonly referred to, is a big and booming industry because everyone is looking each other up on the web.

Employers or people who are just curious about one another are Googling each other. Unfortunately for some, the results that come up are not always accurate or favorable – thus, ORM was born.

Many say not to worry about search results past the 1st page, but I say you need to be looking back a couple of pages, because profiles, postings, etc. posted on Facebook, LinkedIn or any social media could be there – especially if posted on Google+.

For example, if you Google the name of a client we’ve worked with for a while and which we help with their website, blogging, etc., they’ll typically own the first couple pages of Google with content we’ve proactively helped them with.

There are a lot of things that can come up that may have your name attached to it online. Online Reputation Management has to do with being more aware of what’s there. Google yourself. Pay attention. Because what’s also there are automatically created directories – social networks that aren’t major yet, which build themselves automatically, and which leave it up to you to claim your profile, complete it, correct it, etc.

As you go back further on Google, you’ll find some of these directories – think LinkedIn wannabes – and you don’t know what potential client or potential referral source may click them. You need to know what’s there. It takes some time, and it may take some technical expertise, which is one of the reasons why ORM companies are coming into play. They realize a lot of people don’t necessarily have the time or expertise to take care of it.

I’m aware of an attorney who had been disbarred a while back. He was a very decent guy who made a mistake, but he wondered how to diminish the negative press in search results and move forward with his non-attorney career. If you Google his name, stuff about his disbarment comes up.

One way to change that is to make sure there’s lots of positive stuff going on. Get blog posts up, participate in LinkedIn, etc. He can do what everyone else is trying to do: It’s called burying the bad stuff by pushing it as far back on Google as possible.

In Part 2, we’ll outline specific ways to manage and improve your online reputation. In the meantime, Google yourself. Do you like/agree with what comes up in the search results?