In past when internet was not that prevalent as it is today, business owners were not that focused on reaching more prospects and expanding their service base over internet. They were just targeting and selling to limited passive clients. But, with the growth of internet and increase in the trend of making online presence, this scenario has changed. Now online presence is not just a matter of smart choice, rather it has become kind of necessity. Your website is your online business card and the first point of attraction for the clients. The more visitors come to your site, the more you have a chance to convert those visitors into customers.

Now, what if your visitor comes across something really bad about you, may be a bad review or comment of a frustrated client or a several years back legal case or something similar that portrays a bad image of you which might not be relevant in present day. Here the role of online reputation management consultants comes into play. These are the people who help you build your positive image over the internet and also suppress any bad comments or reviews against you/your business.

So, now we know Online Reputation Management is the practice of influencing and controlling one’s (individual or business) image/reputation over internet. It’s all about managing how you or your product is evaluated in the search engines and make recommendations and referrals. Does it sound similar to SEO!? Well, there are similarities between these two but ORM and SEO are not same.

In SEO your whole and sole purpose is to rank a website higher, to bring it on top of the search results of different search engines, to attract more visitors to the website. On the other hand what the visitors see/read about you/your business when they search for the same, is the area of interest of Online Reputation Management. ORM is all about shaping your public image and mend your bad reputation over internet. You may or may not top the pagerank but having a good reputation is a must as far as ORM is concerned.

Let’s conclude with some tips on how to build your online reputation.

Search engines do not read what is written or posted about you. It’s just a matter of popularity of the posted content that makes the search engines assume that the content is relevant and thus that content reflects in the search results. These contents might be true but may be out of place in your present day profile. How to get rid of these and build a good reputation.

• Do not go back to check: A negative comment on you/your business might excite you to read it but you should never go back to that page to check on whether it’s still there. Repeated visits instruct search engines that the page is important and this increases the page ranking. Also, do not ask your associates to go visit that page. This also marks the page as relevant.
• Do not engage in word exchange with the Detractor: When you come across something bad about you, it’s a natural tendency to react. But for your own good do not react over internet. Don’t comment on a bad post about you. This will only make the situation worse as it will draw more attention to the post. It may also happen some malicious critic might take your comments/responses and use those against you after twisting your words.
• Promote your part of the story: For this you need a huge amount of positive content and a solid base to promote those. Do blogging, posting in Social media sites and get positive reviews for you.
• Take advantage of Social Media: Remember social media sites always rank high in search engines. Make sure you have Social Media accounts with your real name and you are active and updated in these sites.
• Make sure your Privacy is Protected: Always keep your privacy settings so as to not to leak your private data to the public. Do not opt for services that cannot protect your personal data and remove your private data from public platforms.