Seo Redefined

SERM (Search Engine Reputation Management) has become a hot topic and a very interesting niche market in the world of SEO. Many people are very unfamiliar with this new concept and how it actually works. I will attempt to explain it here.

SERM are tactics that many companies use to proactively protect their brand names from untrue and damaging posts made by people whose only goal is to hurt and damage a company's reputation. Many times these lies and deceptive practices are spread through search engine searches. This same tactic is used by stalkers and harassment artists who are out to destroy a person's (or company's) reputation and good name.

Until recently, there was not a lot that could be done by a person or company to stop this horrific and cruel practice of deception. But thankfully a few states have passed new laws prohibiting this kind of behavior and made this tactic a felony. Where a few years ago a person had little to no recourse, a company or person can now sue and have the perpetrator put behind bars.

There are some things a company and person can do to limit the damage from this type of harassing behavior. You certainly do not want to ignore this and hope that the search engines will suddenly forget you exist. You will want to confront this type of harassment "head-on."

You may find that you need a lawyer to help you decide if there is some type of legal action you can take. In the event of a stalker or on-going harassment you will want to discuss your options with a lawyer.

When the matter is one of brand or name disparaging you will want to bury the offending posts.  This can be done in many ways and certainly has many advantages. Most people do not go beyond the third or fourth page in search engine results. So blogging becomes even more important along with press releases. What you are trying to do here is bury the offending posts so no one will find them.

If the offending posts appear on any of the popular rating systems then address each post as you find them. Offer to correct the problem that the person is complaining about. Address any negative information that that may have made against you. Be very careful not to resort to name calling of any defaming behavior. You do not want to give this person a chance to sue you.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about SERM. We have a lawyer on staff that is always happy to answer any questions you many have about your situation.

It was announced today by Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter that one of the nuclear carriers in the Atlantic fleet will be moving to the Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville, Florida.  This was great news for the Northeast Florida/Southeast Georgia area. 

This will mean thousands of new jobs for the area as well as a boon to the real estate market.  These Navy men women not only will need homes and apartments but the local economy will get a nice boast.  The carrier yet to be named has an on board crew of over three thousand. 

St. Marys, GA where I live has a Navy Sub Base and is only about 30 miles up the road from Mayport. 

Trying to keep up on your online reputation can be a time consuming task. But lucky for us there are a few really great online tools that can actually make this task much easier. By utilizing the following tools you can get up to the minute notices when someone has been blogging or posting any comments about you or your company and spend a minute or less a day on your online reputation.

1. Google Alerts: This is a great tool and does not require  that you have a Gmail account. You can set up Alerts for any word or combination of words and be alerted as they are found or once a day. The results are then emailed to you. I mention this in a previos post.

2. Trackur: This tool allows you to track the use of your name or company name in blogs, news articles, posts, images and videos. You can also track the most current info on your competitors. This is not free but works well.

3. Technorati: This will track any mention of your name, company name or brand name in any blogs. Great tool to use and you will have to register to use it, but it is free.

4. MonitorThis: Finally this tool searches over 20 search engines for info about your or your company. Very useful tool when you have the time to actually look up this information.

Probably the easiest way to do all of this is to hire an SEO firm that specializes in SERM. For just a few dollars a month we can monitor the Internet for any information about you or your company and brand name. We will then alert you to what we have found and recommend a course of action. Contact us today for more information.

Online Reputation Management is an on going process that needs to be practiced on a daily basis. There is a very easy way to monitor your image online. Just use Google Alerts. Google Alerts will scour the Internet during its regular schedule and alert you when it finds your name or company name (really any phrases you set it up for). This frees you from the daily task of doing this.

The URL for this cool little feature is http://www.google.com/alerts. When you get there you will see that you do not have to have a Gmail account to use this. I use it for my Gmail and Yahoo accounts. You can choose which groups to monitor. You can monitor just News, Blogs, Web, Video or Groups. In this same drop down menu I always choose Comprehensive because that will monitor all of the above for you.

There is another drop down menu that asks you how often you want to be notified. This is going to be a personal preference on your part. You can choose As-It-Happens, Once-A-Day or Once-A-Week. Again I chose As-It-Happens so I can react quickly to any negative information. Not that there will be any but if there is I want to squash it as quickly as possible.

Remember here that I strongly suggest you do this for two very good reasons. First you want to manage your Online Reputation so your "Brand" is not affected negatively. Secondly you want to be to react as quickly as possible to any negative and potentially harmful information.  It really only takes a minute a day to monitor your Online Reputation.

You better not tell Google you have the Flu.   It seems Google has decided to inform The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about any searches done for the Flu.  These updates will be in real time and will be sent directly to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Aggregated counts of Flu related keywords will be captured by Google and shared with the CDC.

Since ORM (On-line Reputation Management) has become the hot topic of the SEO world, companies are trying hard to put a dollar amount on what their reputation is worth.  This is of course no easy task, because for so long a reputation has been considered an intangible.  But of course the Internet has changed all of that. One wrong or negative post can devalue a company's stock with-in hours.  (Please refer to my post about United Airlines for a very good example of this.)

A few months ago a company by the name of FTI Consulting, a global business advisory firm surveyed a few hundred financial advisors to try and put a value on a company's reputation.  71% of the financial advisors agreed that a company's reputation was worth at least 20% of their overall market value.  This is why so many of the fortune 500 companies have made ORM a big part of their Risk Management.  A company can no longer afford to ignore bad press.  The speed that information is now shared has changed all of that.

On-line surveys now show that about 74% of consumers use search engines to seek out information on the products and services they are considering buying or using.  Considering the speed of the Internet a company's reputation is even more critical today than it was before the Internet.

If you are not currently monitoring your ORM then what is holding you back?  Can your reputation with-stand a 20% decrease in your yearly income?  Is there negative information out there right now that is impacting your income?  Did you lose a sale because someone posted untrue information about you?  Can you really afford to ignore this any longer?

I recently received a Twitter from my old friend Jim asking me why his SEO guys will not ever talk to his Web Designers.  Now before you laugh you have to understand my friend Jim and Twitter.  Yes I know the name Twitter sounds kind of funny but it is certainly easy to remember.  And before you jokers out there start making comments about my friend giving me a Twitter it has nothing to do with a "Purple Nerple".  Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? (This comes from Twitters Homepage).  Jim runs a very large Real Estate Brokerage house in the Midwest and loves high tech gadgets and the applications that run on them.  That's why he's a "Twitter

Try as he might Jim could not get his SEO firm to talk to his Web Designer.  I am sure many of you have run in to the same problem and asked yourselves that very same question.  I feel your pain and understand your frustration.  Many times egos get in the way and neither side wants to help the other.  But that puts you in the middle and does nothing to resolve your issues.

First you should try and find out what the objections are for not doing the work.  The answers may surprise you and get you closer to resolution.  Try using logic with both sides and remind them that you all have the same goal.  Many times a conference call works wonders.  Email both parties and find out when they are available for conference call.  In your email include the agenda and goals for the call and ask all parties to please keep to the agenda.  By keeping the tone of the call professional you stand a much better chance of resolving your issues quickly and to your satisfaction.

So by now you might be wondering what it is Jim did to resolve his issues?  He fired both his SEO firm and Web Designer.  He hired my wife Nancy and me to re-work his site design and SEO.  Why my wife and I?  My wife runs a WEB Design firm and I run an SEO Firm. So in some rare cases SEO Firms and Web Design Companies do make great bed-fellows.

I think most people would agree that in tough economic times your marketing plan is even more important.  Your plan is the marketing outline your business should follow and grow with, even in tough times.  You may have to redefine your plan to the current economic climate but you should still follow your plan.

Your plan will help you decide where you money should go.  It will help you decide if you need to spend more or perhaps pull back a bit.  What ever the case it will help lead you and keep you on target to meeting any goals you have established for your business.

Do tough times call for tough measures?  You are really the only person who can decide that.  Hopefully along with your Marketing Plan you have a very good grasp of your Financial Plan.  Both of these should have been a strategic part of your Business Plan.  Most experts will tell you that during tuff economic times you should actually increase your budget because most people will pull back and spend less.

A recent survey said that about 60% of all Brokers and Agents plan on spending the same or more on their Internet marketing.  That is a very strong number and tells us that people are optimistic about their future and they have a good understanding of what needs to be done.  Can you say the same?  Will the current Economy REDEFINE your Market Plan for you?

For those of you who have not heard yet, Google can now read your scanned documents.   This is pretty huge and adds another dimension to your SEO.  If you put scanned documents on your website you are going to want to make sure you practice some good SEO with those documents.

Google has been reading Adobe pdf files for sometime and even offers the ability to see them in HTML format.  This is great for people who do not have a pdf reader on their pc. But common, this reader is free.  When you scan a document you are basically taking a picture of your document.  The ability to read scanned documents is done by what is called OCR.  OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition.   

Most scanned documents are saved as pdf files.  Google using their new enhanced OCR can read these documents and turn the scanned documents into text.  This process is still prone to mistakes, because the conversion process has not yet been perfected.  It still works well.