As the Director of ReputationDefender EMEA, Tony McChrystal draws on a wealth of experience of online reputation management, digital privacy, public relations and crisis management. This article will examine the various different ways that information published online can impact a person, business or organisation.
Whether they are looking for a new job, seeking travel ideas or learning more about an intended purchase, people use the internet to conduct research, basing decisions on the information they find.
According to GlobalWebIndex, the average US citizen spends a hefty six hours per day online, equating to a quarter of each day. In an increasingly digitised world, the content people view online can hold colossal sway over their views, opinions and decisions. The attached infographic shares some interesting statistics about how social content affects consumer behaviour.
Effective online reputation management can make all the difference between a business being an embarrassing failure or an epic success. Unfortunately, algorithms prioritise popularity over accuracy. Danny Sullivan serves as a Search Liaison for Google. He suggests that while Google is able to provide information, it is not a ‘truth engine’. The attached PDF shares expert tips on Google ranking strategies for 2023.
Online reputation management enables people and businesses to implement strategies to actively control web content connected with their name, helping them to exert influence over the entries that are returned when people search for them via internet search engines.
The first step to enhancing online reputation is creating the right presence on sites already under the individual or organisation’s control, for example personal or business websites; social media profiles like LinkedIn and Facebook; rich media sites like Flickr and YouTube; press coverage; blogs and forums; and industry-specific listings.
According to research, when searching for information online, less than 10% of people go past page one of Google, with less than 1% going past page two. For this reason, reputation management is about much more than just posting images and blog posts. Rather, it is crucial to boost important content so that it ranks highly, enabling people to find it.
From multinational corporations to private individuals, ReputationDefender helps clients to project and protect the right image online, putting their best foot forward by exercising control over information, videos and images that appear when people search for them online. The company helps to remove sensitive personal information that could be manipulated by scammers and hackers, as well as helping to bury negative or misleading search results. The embedded video highlights services provided by ReputationDefender to support small business owners.
