How do you know if your search engine optimization agency is doing a good job? Instead of waiting months for results, you can get a glimpse of whether the work they are doing will be effective early. Here are three relatively simple things you can check. Think of it as the SEO version of "trust but verify".

Up to 90% of business leads research a brand online prior to a buying decision.

Research indicates that salespeople lose about 22% of prospective customers when only one negative article is seen when researching whether to buy a product or service. When there are two negatives in search results, the losses can double. When three negative things are seen in search results the losses can mount to almost 60%. 

For all the brands looking to improve their online presence, here is a checklist of 50 SEO tips that briefly cover everything from SSL certificates to schema to search friendly URLs and much more. Note: If you are looking for an online reputation checklist click here. 

Google is your new home page. When a brand dominates their own search engine results, it sends trust signals to prospective customers. Control of the many aspects of search results such as Knowledge Panel, carousel images, location information, Google posts, social media posts, and more not only provides brands with the ability to showcase why they're great, it also enables a company to keep competitors from sharing their online brand-space. This article discusses many of the ways brands can control how they're seen online.

There’s a reason why the National Enquirer, The Sun, Daily Star, and US Weekly publish content that is all about scandalous behavior. We all love a good fall from grace story (unless it's happening to us), a red hot gossip drop, or a celebrity rumor. And when personal reputations start blowing up like Philadelphia on the 4th of July, we are tapping and swiping our devices to get the latest, juicy tell-all details.

You may not end up on the cover of US Weekly, but you nonetheless have a reputation. And that reputation needs to be managed.

Reputation matters, whether you’re an ordinary individual, an extraordinary individual, a crook, a saint, a political figure, or an entertainer. But reputation matters for more than just individuals. In the world of business, reputation has an ever broader impact.

It’s hard to change someone’s mind. However, it’s easy to confirm one’s biases. And nowhere is this more true than in the world of political reputation management.

Whether you’re running for the vice president of your neighborhood HOA or vying for election to the president of the United States, political reputation is an untamed beast. It’s complicated. It’s tenuous. It moves rapidly. It rises. It falls. And no one in the history of the world has mastered it.

Corporate reputation refers to people’s collective opinion regarding a corporation or enterprise. It’s based on such features such as search engine results, news coverage, and the publicized actions of the company. There are there some corporate reputation humdingers out there. The news media loves a sizzling story of a corporation’s fall from grace and with good reason. The public is receptive, clicks ensue, money is made. This is because the human brain seems wired to generate copious amounts of curiosity when the topic is salacious or negative.

Corporate sentiment, or business sentiment, is how people feel about your brand. In more technical terms, it’s the level of confidence that shareholders have in a corporation or business—the prevailing mood or attitude about that company’s success (or lack thereof).

What is Reputation? Reputation is the subjective qualitative belief a person has regarding a brand, person, company, product, or service. Reputation is the key to success.

The best way to define reputation: Reputation is a third-party perception of your, or your brands, character. It is a malleable thing. Malleable by others, or by you. This is because today, people depend on Google to make decisions for them. Whether you're selling water or running for President, your online reputation precedes you. By changing how Google portrays a brand you can change one of the main ways people perceive reputation.

In today’s digital environment, reputation is more important, more pervasive, more unforgettable, and more meaningful than ever. It's difficult to build, enhance, sustain, and protect a reputation that'll last (even for a reputation management agency). It’s also easy to neglect, abuse, reject, or shred a reputation in just a short amount of time. A disaster can happen in minutes, and circle the globe within hours. That's why it's so important to maintain an active reputation management strategy. Let's unpack what reputation really is.