Think about the last time you bought something online. How did you decide what to buy? You probably searched for whatever you wanted and read a few reviews. Maybe you found a negative review and that was your cue to move on to the next option.

You’ve just finished your latest blog post. You’ve dedicated hours to create it. But what happens if nobody reads it? Without a solid content promotion plan in place, your readership may never increase. In fact, you should be spending more time promoting your posts than you spend actually writing them. Here are the main points:

Originally published on 21 July 2019

Using "related searches" for a reputation management campaign may provide short-term improvement, but cause long-term problems by associating a client's brand with a negative query. Here's how to avoid that.

The success of your business often rides on one thing: your corporate reputation. But how can something so important be intangible? Despite our inability to precisely “calculate” corporate reputation, the future of your business relies on your ability to keep it in good standing.

There is a lot of apparently bad / old / inaccurate information out in the world about how to block archive.org, otherwise known as "The Wayback Machine" from scraping your site. This is the most accurate information we can find about it as of this writing. Spoiler alert: Internet Archive did remove our site once we asked, but the robots.txt method did not work. 

Every additional 1-star improvement can increase business 9%. Think about that. 

Whether you own a coffee shop or an auto body repair, chances are one of your main sources of business is from your Yelp page. By this point, you’ve surely put the time and effort into making your profile stand out from the rest of the crowd. However, the work doesn’t end there. You must continue to manage your Yelp reviews to make sure the right people are leaving reviews, the positive reviews outnumber the negative, and that any issues are being addressed.

You can make Google ignore a web page, thereby making it "disappear" from search results, by adding a "noindex"meta tag to the HTML code of a single web page on your site. When Google crawls the page with the noindex tag on it the search engine will delete the page from search results. This method only works if you control the website and have access to the HTML code of a page.

Online reputation is like a credit report everyone can see. Whether you are a movie star or an investment banker, your online reputation determines how others perceive you. Everybody can (and should!) manage their online reputation to make sure that it is the most accurate representation of themselves.

Search engines don't always show brands in their best light. When potential clients and customers search online search engines serve up many different types of content - most of it out of your control. They may reveal blog posts from your competitors, show reviews from review sites like Yelp or Angie’s List, or even negative articles about the brand. The key is to identify and then optimize customer touch points your brand can control.

It takes hard work to snag a spot on the first page of Google search results. There are many aspects to consider, such as creating relevant content, incorporating relevant keywords and links, and crafting an enticing search result that makes people want to click on it. But before you can create content that excels, you need to understand how it might be displayed. 

• Understanding the anatomy of a search result page can help you craft your content in a way that entices people to click your link.
• Structure, organize, and promote your content effectively to rank high in SERPs.
• Update and refresh content to keep it relevant.