Online Reputation Management (ORM) is one of the most important things to get straight especially if you do most of your business online. All it takes is for one negative comment to hit the chat boards and your reputation can go down faster than an airplane with no engines.

ORM is the process by which references to a brand, person, service, or company get followed and all the while having a contingency plan in place to deal with the negative comments or feedback that may come. This is typically a three step process that occurs as follows:

Track: Develop and maintain a way to keep track of what is being said about you online.

Assess: Consider all feedback good or bad and see what sources are producing the feedback.

React: Depending on your evaluation of the situation you can comment yourself, give a rebuttal, or choose to ignore the comment all together.

ORM is not something that should be done it is something that has to be done in order to maintain the integrity of your online presence. This mix of SEO techniques combined with good PR can be accomplished with your efforts or by an ORM expert. Why do this?

Take for example if your online business sold phones. Now assume that you bid on and land a blockbuster of a deal to sell a ton of phones overseas. Now think about how ticked off one of your competitors may become.

What if that competitor posts some negative things about you, your work ethic, and you business even if it is not true? All of the sudden a Google search of your name or your company’s name comes up with the slanderous remarks. Whether true or not, that is what people are seeing about you online.

If you do not catch this sort of thing in the early stages you may experience a big drop off in sales and by the time you figure out what is going on a lot of damage is likely done. This is why constant ORM is necessary for your online survival.

In the above instance if you had been monitoring your name or had someone doing it for you, swift reaction could have taken place. You could have immediately added your rebuttal and possibly diffused a nasty situation.

Now you see how it is important, but conduction proper ORM is more than just simply Googling your name every once in a while. You have to have a solid ORM plan in place and be sure that the plan you set forth is indeed being executed. If you do not have the time to execute the plan yourself then you have to get someone else to do it for you.

Remember that success and failure online is a very fine line and a lot of it hinges on your reputation. There are countless companies out there that do exactly what you do and if your online name gets tainted and you do not react in a timely manner it could mean certain death of your online hopes and dreams.

Written by Mark Bove’

Everyone has a passion for something. In my case it is teaching others how to generate unheard of online traffic using the latest SEO techniques. What is your passion?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could somehow turn your passion into an online school or university that will not only teach others what you know but will also help you to earn a little money on the side? What about earn a lot of money on the side? That is precisely what I set out to do and am in fact getting ready to do. So how do you get in on this game?

There are websites online that will allow you to turn what you already know into an online course so that you can actually market the course to others, have them take the course, and make extra money. It really is as easy as it sounds too.

Take for example www.prfessor.com. Here you simply log on and let them show you where to add content. The course that is designed is entirely up to you because it is your passion that is going to be transformed into a school.

After you have created your specialized online course you can use a number of methods to track your students and you professors. Utilizing this type of information will allow you to determine exactly how you can make your online university even better and realize more passive income as a result.

Now the natural though that occurs is how costly is this? While you may think that you will be charged an arm and a leg for services such as these you may be pleasantly surprised to know that all of these features and more can be obtained for under 50 bucks per month. The best part is that most online course development websites will let you go on a month to month basis so there is no need to sign a contract. If you do run into a service that wants you to sign a contract then run the other away because there are many quality services that will not require a contract.

Yes the online world has done it again. We truly live in a virtual reality these days and thanks to that fact you can now take your hobby, your passion, your life and mold it into an online school or university that will teach others and bring you in extra income month after month. What are you waiting for professor? Your online school is only a small amount of work away.

This is a continuation of a post I made in November of 2009.

Okay, so you have a great looking website and you know that you need to promote it in order for it to do its job, which is bringing you in dollars. The problem is you have no idea how that should be done and you may be thinking about hiring an Internet marketing firm to help you with the task. Maybe you are looking to your boss, superior, or close friend that has labeled themselves as an Internet Expert, but how expert is the Internet expert you are considering for the job? Sure they seem to talk the talk….holding titles such Internet Marketing Expert, E-Business Manager, SEO Expert, E-Marketing Manager or even ‘Guru’ and that’s the easy part; but have they walked the walk?

There are many ways to call out the want to-be experts to see if they are simply full of fluff. Many so called experts may have web development back ground, maybe even a coding background…some may know web design while others may have copywriting experience so it sounds like they know what they are talking about.

Here are my top ten ways to see how “expert” they really are:

1. See what the SERPS Say: ‘Google’ the person’s name and see what pops up. If nothing pops up then you can be sure that they know nothing about Internet Marketing, SEO or the like. If they were anything or knew anything they would certainly appear in the SERPS. If they can’t do it for themselves how can they expect do it for you?
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2. Ask About Research: If your Internet expert or Boss says, ‘I don’t need to research the competition,’ then drop them like a hot potato.  PERIOD. How can they know what is and isn’t working if they can’t even tell you what your main competitors are doing?
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3.  Show me the Blog: Any Internet expert who is worth their salt will have a personal blog. Ask around, you will be surprised as to how many so called experts not only do not have their own blog, but have never even posted an original blog article on their topic of expertise.
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4. Look at the Basics: What are the strategies that want to-be expert is planning on employing? If they don’t believe in the little and basic things such as Meta tagging (often referred to as Meta insurance just in case), creating landing pages for your PPC campaign, keyword rich page title tags, or they somehow try to convince you that you don’t need ‘that much’ textual content on your website then you don’t need them. The most basic rule in Internet Marketing is content is king, see if they know that.
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5.  Stuck on Explorer: The 1982 movie Firefox starring Clint Eastwood was a great film, but if your Internet expert, boss or SEO agency doesn’t know that the term ‘Firefox’ (or calls it Foxfire) in relation to the online game represents a more powerful web portal than Internet Explorer, then they are stuck in the dark ages or just plain ignorant…and it is your website that will lack as a result.
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6.  Thinking outside (the) Google (box): So many Internet experts will only utilize what Google gives them as far as marketing tools go. While Google does offer some wonderful Internet marketing tools, there are much more robust tools available to the online world than what Google has to offer (this is a known fact) and if you are working with someone who fails to realize this then you, the client, or employer are missing out on some golden opportunities.
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7.  Close Minded: Building up organic traffic takes time because you have to get your content out there. EVERY TRUE EXPERT know this. It’s a big world on the Internet and if your Internet expert ignores feedback such as this then they are close minded and not going to do you a lot of good. They are selling you snake oil or trying to run their department or business like that old (and one of my favorite movies) movie Glengarry Glen Ross….organic traffic is not like selling or buying swamp land…if they think it can come quickly…..then they are ether ignorant, using black hat SEO or they are just plain idiots.
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8.  No Social Media Accounts: WHAT???? Alright, if your Internet expert has no social media accounts then run the other way; fast. EVERYONE has a social media account or two or three these days. And with the way that Google will be ‘real time’ ranking websites going forward these social media accounts will not be something that are nice to have, but rather something that are necessary to have. If your expert, boss or agency has NO social media profile then they are ignorant or they are an idiot. PERIOD.
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9.  Not Published: How many articles does your Internet marketing guru have published and or syndicated? If they are really good they should have quite a bit. If they have none then really, how good can they be?
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10.  Not Social: If he or she is not social how can they understand ‘social media?’ If your Internet marketing professional is not a social butterfly then red flags should be waving. Any expert at any level of anything should be at the Company Christmas Party, industry conferences and the like. If your expert is always missing on the scene then so too will your website be missing in the SERPS scene.

In life it is very easy to claim that you are something you are not. Many fly by night Internet experts will come and go this year and every year thereafter. But it is easy enough to figure out if these so called experts are really good and can do what they say they can do or if they are simply blowing you full of hot air. Take the time to investigate your Internet marketing expert as it just may save you time, money, and a good ranking in the SERPS.

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Note: keep an eye out for my lengthy 3 month in the making case study titled “The Corporate SEO”

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