Ultimate Reputation Management Guide Pt 5
In traditional SEO, the goal is to create one very powerful site that ranks at the top for your target keywords. The goal is to generate leads through this site and convert at a high level. In a way, it’s easy in its simplicity because you only have to focus on this one site: all external links to one site and it’s internal pages to make it as powerful as possible.
While a similar strategy is applied to reputation management, SEO is only the tip of the iceberg. The goal of reputation management is to protect your online identity from those who wish to do it harm. To accomplish this goal, you need a plethora of online assets on the front page of Google, not just one.
Why you need a myriad of assets
Lets say your company.com ranks at the front page of Google for athletic shoes. This is great because you’re going to get lots of leads and customers with this keyword. But what if right below in the 2nd and 3rd position of Google there are two negative reviews about your site. Even though your main site ranks well, you will still lose customers because the next two results on Google are negative. This is where reputation management comes in and positions you to control the top 10, 20, and even 30 results of Google.
Strategic online asset creation is about creating the right assets that will rank for the right keywords to occupy the first 3 pages of Google.
The Main Strategy Behind Online Asset Creation
The overarching principle can be summarized in the following way:
- Create assets to rank for your target keywords
- Create GREAT content and build links to earn page rank and rank for target keywords
- Intelligently link from these online assets to your main sites to give them an SEO boost
- The more sites you create in a legitimate way, the better
It’s not enough to create these online assets; as I stated in the beginning of this post, SEO is a big part of reputation management. Each site must be optimized to rank well and earn page rank. Once this is established, you can use these powerful ancillary sites to point to your main sites and give them extra link juice to rank well on search engines, thereby increasing traffic and leads for your business.
Online Assets to Create
Create your own websites
The first group of online assets to create are the .com’s and .net’s that match the phrasing of your target keywords. A common .com that you need to get is yourcompanyreviews.com. If this is not available, look to purchasing the domain name away from the owner, or purchase a variation of the domain:
- yourcompany-reviews.com
- yourcompanyreviews.net
- yourcompanyreviews.org
In addition, create pages on your site that match the target keywords that you’re going after. This can be easily done by adding a /reviews to your main domain:
- yourcompany.com/reviews
- yourcompany.net/reviews
Easy set up through WordPress
A simple, direct way to build sites and keep them updated is to use a WordPress Install. We use WordPress installs on all of our clients sites that need to rank well for a keyword and need to be updated on a consistent basis.
I’ve found the easiest theme to set up and customize is The Thesis Theme for WordPress.
Social Media Assets
In addition to .com’s and .net’s, you’ll need to create a social profile for each of your target keywords. The following are social assets that we’ve created for our partners and that you should create for yourself as well:
Make sure to get the proper vanity URL: facebook.com/yourcompanyreviews
Remember to get more than just the reviews username for your company. See below how we’re also targeting different keywords for reputation management.
Squidoo
Squidoo is a terrific way to become an expert in a target vertical. Using Squidoo, you can build lenses that serve as expert pieces about a topic. These lenses tend to rank decently well on search engines.
Quora
Quora is a great place to establish expertise via a popular Q&A site. I recommend Quora over Q&A sites such as Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers.
Keep in mind that Quora is a place for individuals — not companies or brands. Therefore, you’ll need to choose your company representative and create a Quora account through their personal Facebook profile.
WordPress and Blogger
WordPress and Blogger have similar uses. Create a blog that contains the keywords you’re targeting in the URL and update it with great content twice per month.
YouTube
YouTube is a great Quick Fix resource to dominate certain low-hanging keywords.
Flickr and Slideshare
Similar to YouTube, Flickr and Slideshare are great Quick Fix strategies to get photos and presentations online that can rank for keywords. Though these sites are not as powerful as YouTube, you can still hit the 2nd or 3rd page of Google using these social sites.
Tumblr
Tumblr is a cross between Twitter and a Blog. It’s not necessary to write unique content for Tumblr; rather, it’s best to use it as a platform to promote other online assets.
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Next Steps
Create the online assets for each of your target keywords. Take the time to create a good design, fill out the about section, and link to the appropriate profiles. If you create a yourcompanyreviews.tumblr.com, then it should link to yourcompanyreviews.com.
If you have any questions about reputation management, shoot me an email at mgabbard0@greengabbard.com
The goal digital marketer
ReplyDeleteis to generate leads through this site and convert at a high level. In a way, it’s easy in its simplicity because you only have to focus on this one site