Internet Marketing
SEO GUIDE

Reputation Management

Description: Alongside SEO and serving your website's customers and visitors in the best way possible, reputation management is one of the most important things you need to concentrate on. Read on to find out why.

It's very likely that when you are surfing the internet you come across a few people you have already virtually ?bumped into' elsewhere online. Whether they are webmasters you are familiar with, writers of numerous e-books or publishers of software products, you probably have an instant reaction to them. You'll either think they seem like good honest people, or you'll remember how much you dislike them.

Not all reactions to internet marketers are so strong of course, but it does illustrate why reputation management is so important online. Unfortunately there are very few webmasters who put any real effort or consideration into what other people think of them - and as a result they could be missing out on some valuable recommendations and traffic.

So what exactly is reputation management?

Put simply it's the process of making sure your ongoing reputation is as good as it possibly can be - and that's it. If you want to build a good reputation it's no good hiding behind your website and not revealing anything about yourself. That's not to say you should reveal all but honesty and the willingness to help your visitors in every way that you can goes a very long way towards building a good reputation online.

It's said that if someone is happy with the service they receive they won't tell anyone - but if they're not happy they will tell anyone who will listen. For this very reason it actually takes longer to develop a good reputation than it does to develop a bad one.

A good way to help establish a good reputation online is by positioning yourself as an expert on a particular subject associated with your website. This is made much easier if you have based your website around a subject you love and you are passionate about. Not only will you find it easy to write articles and content based on this subject, but you will also find it quite natural to write about that subject with real passion and enthusiasm. This tends to pull in more visitors who keep coming back for more, which further cements your reputation.

As time goes by you will also begin to notice another benefit of positive reputation management. As your reputation and your site continue to gain momentum, attracting attention for all the right reasons, people will start to link to your website from their own or perhaps from their blog - purely because they like your site and they like what you have to say on your specialist subject.

Webmasters always like to recommend other related sites to their own visitors, and maintaining a healthy reputation will virtually guarantee a big payoff when it comes to getting one way links to your site from elsewhere - and all without having to ask for them.

In the final analysis it's all about trust and quality - if people trust you they will link to your site and help you to build your business and your reputation in the process.