Is It Time To Beef Up Your Internet Brand?

By: Mike McCoy

What's in a name? A lot, if you want to run a successful business. And what the search engines say about you is pretty important to building and maintaining a solid, successful image online and in the real world.

Does your online business seem to be stagnating, or even worse, moving back? It can be tough if no one know who you and your company are, but even worse if all people can find is negative information about you.

Here are some ways to tell if you need to do a bit of reputation management maintenance.

1) You Google your name and don't see yourself on the first three pages of results.

2) You keep Googling and find a lone mention of your company on page 17 of results. When you click to view the page, you get a 404 error.

3) Your company name contains a word like Smith, Jones, or Brown, and the search engine results are like thumbing through the phone book.

4) Your grandmother won a gardening award last summer and she has more search engine results than you.

5) Your company's name keeps appearing in search engines closely followed by phrases like "is a scam", "ripped me off", or "what a joke."

6) There are 75 other companies with a similar name to your company's name.

7) Someone else owns your domain name and is using it to display annoying pop up ads.

8) People only mention your name or company name on bulletin boards and blogs to talk
about how another company is way better than yours.

9) Someone is impersonating you or your company in blogs and bulletin board posts.

10) You haven't had a visitor to your website in the last two weeks besides you, your wife and your mother.

Ok, these scenarios may be a little far-fetched, but if you don't work on protecting your online reputation and improving your internet brand, things could get just as bad or even worse.
Start looking into way to promote your business through article and press release marketing, micro blogging and using journal websites to get things moving in a more positive direction. You can also use podcasting and video marketing to gain even more positive exposure.

If the situation is dire and you have no clue where to begin, then it may be time to enlist the assistance of a Search Engine Marketing Specialist--someone who knows how to get things going in the right direction again--and quickly.