Safely
Integrating Online Reputation Management, Social Media, SEO,
PR
By
Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency
New
York --- May 31, 2012 ... The most powerful marketing tool today
is something called online reputation management.
Online
reputation management is the PR of 2012.
It represents controlling both negative and positive content in
the most potent and expanding communications media channel - the
Internet.
As
we are wired today from our offices, homes and all between using
iPads and Smartphones, we are constantly pushing information out
about our personal and commercial lives. Whether it be through
social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blogs,
LinkedIn, Pinterest, MySpace, Google+, Flickr, or Yahoo and Google
groups, the information overload is there and the ability to control
it becomes more of a challenge.
There
are companies out there which claim to be able to control your
information on the Web. To detect what is negative and remove
it.
The majority of these organizations which refer to themselves
as online reputation management companies, actually know very
little about professional public relations, branding, marketing
and advertising. Rather they specialize in writing computer programming
code for Websites which will secure a high ranking when one searches
for your name on Google, Yahoo or Bing.
What
one must ask these online reputation companies is whether or not
they buy back links - Internet Website links on other, rather
obscure Web pages that direct traffic and the search engines back
to your Website. Buying an optimized domain name for your Website
works - both for branding and the search engines. But don't ever
employ paid backlinks.
Google
refers to this custom of purchasing backlinks as spam. They don't
like it and Google head of Web spam Matt
Cutts has stated that if you get caught buying backlinks,
that link and your Website will no longer be listed or indexed
by Google.
This
is perhaps the largest red flag for SEO professionals - those
who work off the ecosystem of Google as search engine optimization
programmers. These are not PR professionals.
A
true PR professional would never jeopardize their client's name
and or service. Yet, there are thousands of Websites on the Net
which are being promoted not through quality content and established,
respected news media, but rather through paid links.
Warning, this news article is copyright by the Leyden Digital
PR, Social Media Group.
Like
a house of cards, these paid links can evaporate in seconds as
Google's anti-spam program - Penguin - takes off in search of
an abundance of links bearing your name going to the same Website.
SEO
is a respected industry. The majority of people who create Websites
are designers who work with layout and graphics. They are not
Internet marketing professionals who deal with the code behind
the Website. The trick here is to find a company which has integrated
all three skills - PR, layout and SEO - in order to provide the
most powerful media push without breaking the rules.
Responsible
online reputation
management companies will not buy backlinks. What they may
do is purchase online advertising such as Google Adwords or Facebook
advertising. They may create banner ads which lead to your Website.
That is kosher and encouraged.
Seek
out professional Internet
marketing companies by asking two questions: how many years
have you worked in professional public relations and public affairs
and do you purchase backlinks? If the online reputation management
company has professional staff who have worked as journalists
and PR pros for more than 10 years and state that they only place
links to your Website (known as PR - page rank) from well known
and respected Web and media companies - then you are in good hands.
Stay
away from Web spam. In the end it will make your content invisible
as Google wipes you off the online market place.
Stay honest, remain professional. The short cuts of purchasing
backlinks can and will only hurt you.