Fionn Downhill – Digital Shenanigans

Consumers today are highly cautious with their online dealings with businesses, so whether your company has only a website that promotes your off-line business, or your business is managed online, your reputation is at stake. The Internet is capable of bringing in all kinds of orders and new clients, or the Internet can ruin a company with negative reviews. Your competitor or a disgruntled customer will post a negative review about your company’s products or services and in an instant, your company’s reputation, which you’ve worked hard to build up, has been destroyed. This is precisely why it is imperative for companies to consult an online reputation management firm.

Studies show that more than 80% of people use the Internet to do research into companies and the people they are about to do business with, and they will not do business with a company who has negative reviews, comments or blogs written about them. Most companies do not realize that it’s very easy to tarnish their reputation with just a few negative comments, or negative reviews posted in high-traffic websites devoted to informing potential customers. It’s virtually impossible to be a successful online business with a bad reputation. Firms who specialize in Reputation management online will work to repair any damage done and will steer more business your way.

These online management firms approach the situation pro-actively, by finding positive articles, reviews and feedbacks about your company and then work to ensure that these positive remarks and posts will rank higher in a search engines results list, thereby pushing down the negative posts into obscurity; that’s if the generated negativity is unwarranted and undeserved. If the negative remarks were earned, then the online management firms help you publicize how your company has corrected the issue at hand, and work to rank references to the corrective actions higher in a search engines results list, again, putting your company in a better light.

Online reputation management is an ongoing activity, because consumers will always use the Internet as a source to either praise or blast a company’s product or service, and your competitors with a better online reputation are waiting and willing to take away a potential customer. Vigilance about a companies online reputation is the key to keeping your company’s success and growth to continue.

Read the full report on the smear campaing against Elixir Interactive on www.elixirinteractivecomplaints.com.

This morning I received an e-mail from the ShoeMoney blog in response to my request to advertise my site http://interactiveseomoney.blogspot.com/ on their blog.  I knew I had never contacted ShoeMoney to advertise so I clicked on the link with interest.  It appears some low life spammer has decided that my name can make them some money.  They have created a blogspot blog offering my “amazing” SEO program for just $10 with a link to a Paypal account to pay.  They have then proceeded to drop spam blog comments all over the web to promote their scam and presumably make as much money as possible quickly.  The really scary thing is that after a half hour of trying to get a live person at PayPal they could not remove the fraudulent account which has been set up in our name.  They told me to contact an attorney.

This is either a sick joke since all detail about our company was correct or once again our good name and reputation is under attack.  I am sick and tired of how easy it is to hurt a name and brand on the web.  I was not a fan of changing the rules of the web but after so many years in online reputation management I now believe that the time has come for much stricter rules to protect brand, individuals and provide some protection against defamation and slander.    A few weeks ago a deliberate attempt was made to damage our name this may be be a follow up to that where they have now decided to try and damage my personal name.  Either that or there truly are a lot of naive people out there who would click on a Paypal link to pay $10 to be #1 in Google.  Otherwise why would these people keep doing this.

In these difficult economic times, it is more challenging than ever to build and maintain a successful business. Traditional business methods– running ads and relying on word-of-mouth — are no longer enough. Instead businesses have to think outside of the box, and more specifically into the cyberworld.

Regardless of the type of business, the Internet is often the first place that customers go when seeking a new service. Not only is the Internet quick and easy to use — simply type what you are looking for into Google and nice long list will come up — but it also gives users many different options. The Internet is a one-stop shop for listings of different companies and customer reviews.

As a business owner many tools can be used to your advantage. With the proper seo tool you can monitor and help influence your websites on search engines like Google and Yahoo . To begin search engine optimization (SEO) helps improve your sites ranking on the search engine. This involves being aware of popular search phrases connected to your business as well as having pages on popular social networking sites like Facebook or Linkedin . The goal is to improve your ranking so that potential customers won’t have to search through 10 or 15 pages of results to find your site (because most of them won’t search that far). This also increases your company’s visibility.

Another benefit of SEO is helping monitor your company’s reputation . Every business, no matter how long it has been established or how honest it is, has had disgruntled customers. It’s just part of the business. However with the Internet being so easy access and use, customers can spread their displeasure much easier and wider. SEO can help you keep watch for negative reviews that could damage potential business and reputation management can push those sites out of the primary ranking.

With SEO your business could be on the leading edge of the internet market and well on its way to even greater business success.