With so many restaurants out there, most people turn to the internet to find a good place to dine in. Review sites such as Yelp provide a lot of information and countless reviews about numerous restaurants, and, due to the number of people who make their decisions based on what reviewers say, the emphasis placed on online reputation has been growing exponentially.
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Ever since the internet appeared, companies have taken a high interest in their online reputation. Today, as the expansion of the internet has transformed it into a fast paced, highly competitive environment for countless sites and millions of businesses, this concept is more important than ever when it comes to properly promoting your brand.
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Online reputation management is still seen by many as a new “industry”, and most beginning online business owners know very little about it and about the importance it has in regards to improving their brand’s image and overcoming their competitors.
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Google’s ranking choices aren’t really magic. Google doesn’t favor any one site over another without clear and measurable calculations. But what are these calculations? (more…)
The number of users that access the internet through their mobile devices has considerably increased in the last few years. Website owners, web designers and reputation management professionals already know that the future of the internet is mobile. Actually, specialists predict that mobile internet access will outperform desktop internet use in less than two years.
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One of the most important aspects of reputation defense and management is to create and post content that will captivate the attention of readers as easily as an interesting news bulletin. While there are many ways of achieving this, it can be a daunting task given the number of brands competing for the same niche and the influence that a single negative review can have on the reputation of your entire company.
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Nowadays, customers decide whether to trust a business or not depending mostly on the information available online. Just one negative comment about a company is enough to drive potential buyers away. Negative feedback remains on the internet for everybody to see, and its effect on a company’s reputation may last for a long period of time and cost tens of thousands of dollars. Therefore, without a professional and effective online reputation management strategy, businesses risk losing their clients and money to their competition.
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Something that is rarely talked about is consistency between organic search results served to different users. This is a very real challenge for SEO, especially a company like ours that helps others rank in Google. (more…)
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.
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Everyone knows the value of high quality links to a site and how important that the anchor text can be. In the past all you had to do was blast a gazillion links with your desired keyword and you’d rank. But there is more to it… (more…)
Local listings are extremely important for most small businesses who are trying to get noticed and to attract more local customers. The problem, however, is that Google+ Local, one of the world’s leading services that allow people to post reviews of businesses in their area, has often fallen short of the quality that most people attribute to Google products and services.
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We see all kinds of advertisements from web design companies, from big firms to fly-by-nighters, that offer web hosting as one of the many features offered when you hire them.
“We’ll even host your site for you” (for a small fee, of course). Sounds good, right? Well, maybe not….. (more…)
There are countless of misconceptions revolving around the concept of online reputation management (ORM). Perhaps the one that is most worthy of mentioning is that a business only has to use ORM tools and resources when they’re in a crisis – for example, when reviews or listings point fingers at your business saying that it’s a scam, or in the case of a scandal.
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It is no secret even for beginning online business owners that the reputation their business inherits or gains over time has a powerful effect on the number of new customers they attract, the sales they make and the overall popularity of their brand. (more…)
Which would you rather hire? The guy that is an SEO savant? The company offering a team of SEO specialists? Both? Which is better for you in the long run?
Here’s our thought: Definitely not both! (more…)
Just how different is Google’s standard SERP’s from Google’s Mobile SERP’s? What’s the SEO take?
So you are working hard optimizing your site, right? You’ve made your on-page changes, updated meta-descriptions, posted new material to your blog and built enough links to your site to cover it in Medieval Chain Maille. (more…)
It was early 2007, when the idea of reciprocal linking (you link to my website and I’ll link to yours) suddenly became a bad idea. Google declared that link swapping was not only an irresponsible linking practice, but a ranking penalty could be imposed if done in excess.
And 3-way linking was born…… (more…)
Online reputation management is not always a simple task, but it can be essential when you put so much work into building a quality online business only to see it ravaged by negative feedback from a few customers who may exaggerate the bad experiences they may or may not have had.
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We’ve been around the web for over a decade now, and have seen a lot of changes. Man, this industry is enough to make you excited to roll out of bed in the morning, and frustrating enough to have you pulling your hair out by dinner.
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In the past couple of weeks we’ve run across a couple of clients that know the value of natural ranking in Google and are interested in maximizing the results. What’s great is that there really are a ton of options… (more…)
So it has taken me a little longer than a week to post the conclusion to the “big rocks” post. (Thank you Rachel for the reminder)
We left off with: “But why?”, you ask. “Why would I begin to rank higher on Google for ‘New Widget model 335C’ if I am not specifically targeting that keyword phrase”? (more…)
A NYTimes piece recently came out talking about how JC Penny broke the rules. They bought/rented links to their money site and used other Google-disallowed techniques for ranking their site’s pages. They ranked very well for a wide variety of phrases ranging from comforters to curtains until someone (probably a competitor) pointed out that it was worth looking in to.
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Today we had our usual mid-week SEO meeting to review new clients and make keyword suggestions. We had four new folks come on in the past week and we always start with what they think should be the keywords. While some have a good handle on what they should be, many do not. (more…)
In the search engine optimization world, the latest fad is getting in the Google index. Right now most SEOs think a link doesn’t count unless it’s in the index, right? Wrong!
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In terms of optimizing your website, you want to consider the “Big Rocks” first.
It is easy to be consumed by the multitude of keyword phrases for which your website might be relevant. (more…)
When you are in business for yourself, you take an immense amount of pride in your company name – as you should! This is the basis from which your brand is born. You have put tons of thought into your name, and now that you are happy with it you want to proclaim it to the world! (more…)
Way back in February, Overstock.com was penalized by Google for improper SEO tactics involving link building.
At the request of some Humankind SEO clients, we will attempt to explain what Overstock.com is accused of and what you can do to learn from their error.
An excerpt from the Wall Street Journal article: (more…)
Carnival Cruise Nightmare – Handling a Reputation Crisis
Carnival Cruise Lines fire with feces flowing throughout the decks. Burger King meat supplier busted for using horse meat. Los Angeles police officer goes on a shooting spree. Pizza Hut employees throwing dough on the ground and using it.
These potential PR nightmares happened in the span of just a week recently, and similar examples will continue happening.
But what is the right way to handle a crisis so that it ends up being a positive or neutral event instead of a negative?
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