14 min read
A person or company’s reputation is based on information (of some kind or another). And every reputation is perceived by people (of some kind or another). Put information and perception together, and you have reputation.
8 min read
7 min read
Remember when Donald Trump said "America should never have given Canada its independence"? Well, that was fake. Fake news has a long and storied history. Ben Franklin spread propaganda stories by creating a fake issue of the Boston Independent Chronicle. Today celebrities, politicians and everyday people are affected by it. Tomi Lahren of Fox News was recently quoted as saying "If you die in a mass shooting, it's not the fun's fault, or even the gunman's fault. It's your fault for not believing in God enough". She didn't say that either.
7 min read
A great brand story improves click-rates, increases dwell time, reduces bounce rate, helps branded content rank better in search results, and lowers the cost of promoting online content because it gets people to do much of the work.
15 min read
How do you get something removed from Google search? Well, there are five ways to remove content from Google search - or to effectively remove it. Content removal can be a tricky thing, but this guide should help.
6 min read
Why did the organic for your branded search traffic just drop off? Was it a Google search algorithm change or was it the content of your results that changed? It's a nightmare situation when suddenly you find that you're ranking for negative search phrases appended to your brand name, like "fraud" or "scam." Prospects are fleeing. The sales staff are freaking out.
12 min read
Create these five types of content at the same time, and in a specific order to give your inbound / SEO campaign consistency and make it easier to execute.
7 min read
Websites that are "authoritative" in their space rank much better. Google pays more attention to authoritative sites and pages. But how does a website become "authoritative"? Leverage different kinds of media to accomplish your goals.
5 min read
One of the biggest mistakes people make when performing online reputation management is to build a bunch of different web profiles and fill them with low-quality content. Worse, all these properties often can't be effectively maintained over time, and so loose relevance. The best way to manage reputation is to understand prospective customers, similar companies, and what search engines are looking for.
One of the first steps is to perform a form of competitive research called the search result audit. Here's why.
5 min read
Why do some web pages show up "above" the first search result? This is called a Featured Snippet, or "position zero" in the SEO field and it's one of the ways Google positions for SEO are counted. It's important because as voice search becomes more common, Google uses the featured snippet or "position zero" result for its "one true answers" response to voice searches. For instance, we searched "featured snippet" in Google and here's what happened:
8 min read
A search result audit is part of any reputation management plan, and can make your business better by revealing the strengths and weaknesses of your online brand as seen by your prospective customers. Warning: sometimes it can be a little scary. Search results can be an excellent tool for marketing, research, and development. But their utility goes far beyond into the realm of human intent, understanding, decisions and actions. Every page of search results tells you a story about your customer and what they’re really looking for. The trick is in seeing the intent behind the search results.
18 min read
This relatively simple step-by-step inbound content plan will work for most small and medium-sized companies. While the schedule is weekly, it could very well be monthly. It's flexible to fit most time and budget constraints.
5 min read
If you've ever wanted to learn search engine optimization (SEO) but don't know where to start - here is a list of the best resources we've found to learn SEO. Most of the steps below are free, some cost money, most just cost a lot of time. You'll also need a website to practice on and a good degree of patience.
13 min read
ORM, PR, and SEO -- what are all of these acronyms for? Let's break them down, and then delve deeper into how they all fit together.
PR, SEO and ORM are all specialized disciplines of online marketing.
7 min read
Brand touch points are like digital fingerprints; they tell a story. What are brand touch points and how do they affect business? Whether you realize it or not, your brand's customer touch points are working to help, or hurt, your organization's reputation with consumers. If a potential customer sees brand-related content and it piques their interest, what will they do next? They may perform a branded search (using your company name), in which case it's up to Google what your customer sees. How dost Google love thee?
10 min read
The term "fake news" took on a whole new meaning and set of consequences following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. One of the biggest stories following the election was the chaos wrought by so called “fake news” articles and publications.
7 min read
Imagine a prospect is making the tough decision between using your company or your competitor. At the last minute they discover something a bit "off" about your company's online profile. Which company will get the sale?
It could be a review, a lack of publicity, a problem with your Wikipedia page, or many other things. How does reputation play into the buyers journey?
10 min read
Why do you believe the things that you believe? Why do you defend your beliefs? Why do you like others who think like you do? We like to think that our beliefs are our own, formed from our unique, individual experiences, informed by our own logic, devoid of outside bias. But "confirmation bias" is one factor that quietly pushes us to one side of the fence or the other. In short, people agree with things they already agree with.
29 min read
So you want to contribute to a blog? Awesome! Enjoy this growing list of sites that we're pretty sure accept guest blogger articles. The sites in the list below most likely accept third-party posts or in some way help bloggers by providing things like syndication. We haven't tested every one of these for writing opportunities, but we have tested to see if they are live. We update and grow the list on a 'fairly' regular basis. Summaries are mainly those of the websites themselves.
6 min read
Why are people so negative? Humans have what is called a “negativity bias” because we’ve evolved to react to threats. Like Google, we’re pattern discovery machines; when something stands out, like a threat, our minds highlight it. Why is the news so negative? Because negativity bias is leveraged by the media to increase profits. The fact is, bad news gets more attention, more clicks, and leads to more revenue for the publication. Google also reacts to this pattern by giving people what they seemingly want - that often means more bad news.
This article will cover: