Google’s Algorithm Updates – The Quicksand on the Path of Your Online Success

Aside from the fact that internet marketing and SEO are not an easy task to begin with, the numerous algorithm updates made by Google over the past couple of years have brought online businesses even more difficulties than ever before.

Nowadays, SEO has become more like a fine art, and webmasters find it increasingly harder to compete against each other in what has become a race for search engine supremacy.

Launching Panda and Penguin Was Just the Beginning

Before Google first launched the Panda and Penguin algorithms, ranking high for various niches was more of an exact science. Today, after more than 22 official Google Panda updates, as well as numerous Penguin, Knowledge Graph, page layout and countless other search engine algorithm updates, it has become difficult to determine whether any newly adopted promotion strategy can withstand the test of time.

Even many of the entrepreneurs who have managed to escape without being subjected to any penalties by Google are afraid that the success they had so far might easily be erased by some sort of new algorithm that may be imposed in the near future.

The bottom line is that, if you’re an internet business owner, you can’t hope to successfully manage SEO techniques and strategies in order to rank higher in Google, unless you have the help of a professional. Of course, SEO experts cost a lot of money, and what helps you rank today may earn you a penalty tomorrow, so, basically, it comes down to this: you either invest thousands of dollars hoping your company keeps its high ranking, or you adopt another solution.

The Solution: Reputation Management

Chasing illusive Google rankings is not the only way to success. Lately, reputation management has been seen as a more practical approach not only for attracting traffic to your site, but for drawing more genuinely interested clients to your business.

According to experts, many businesses pay too much attention on ranking high in Google searches, but are not that careful about what people actually think of them.

Determining how good or bad you look in those searches is just as important, however; monitoring your search results, updating your online content and being ready to take action if any negative reviews appear will often be crucial when it comes to protecting your brand and making sure that all your potential clients are properly informed regarding the real benefits that your business can bring them.

Here are a few noteworthy tips on how to turn reputation management into a real gold mine:

  • Monitor all the information you can find about your brand. If something negative shows up, you have to know about it as soon as possible in order to step up and reassure your customers.
  • Try to counteract any negative input in any way possible. If contacting the reviewer himself doesn’t work, then leave a comment presenting your side of the story as well.
  • Promote your business profile on review sites, and let them do the ranking for you.
  • Publish constantly updated, quality, original content on your official site, as well as on blogs, social networks, high PR review sites and any other place where you can use informational sources to promote thought leadership for your brand.
  • Hire a company experienced in dealing with reputation management, such as Spotless Rep. Such companies will be able to help you find all the resources and tactics that can clean your online reputation completely.

By following these steps, you can reduce the repercussions that a few small negative reviews can have, and your popularity can increase without the need to dodge Google’s increasingly comprehensive set of rules.