Find the Source

If you discover negative information about your company online, you need to find out who put it there and how to prevent such incidences from showing up online in the future. If the information is legitimate, your poor reputation is an internal problem, which led to a bad experience with your company that prompted an internet user to speak up. This certainly needs to be addressed. Many times people post information about a poor experience from bad customer service and problems that they felt should have been resolved differently. However, if the online dispute is not warranted, most sites will give you the opportunity to give your side of the story. Also – don’t try this unless you are certain the source is being deceiving, otherwise it will likely look like you are picking on your customers. If negative information exists online, the best thing you can do is avoid making the mistakes that prompted the complaint moving forward.

Ways to Improve Your Virtual Reputation

Seek Feedback from Positive Clients

It’s a known fact in the business world that people are far more likely to report negative experiences than positive ones. Even if you offer a great experience to your clients, they may need some persuading to let others know. A common tactic is to seek out clients likely to leave good feedback and offer them incentive if they post a review of your company online. Incentives may include discounts, free merchandise, or VIP status. Inc.com explains some of the habits of customer-obsessed companies that can help you manage your feedback.

Implement a Strong Marketing Campaign

Not existing online is just as bad as having a bad reputation, if not worse. Create a strong marketing strategy to let the world know you are out there. Marketing plans may include ads on related websites, print advertisements, and creating Search Engine Optimized (SEO) main web sites and social media pages.

Hire an Expert

While you can hit a lot of the basic online reputation management necessities on your own, to really boost your virtual reputation, you will likely need the help of a professionally trained SEO expert, web PR professional, or marketing associate. An expert can advise you and your employees on different techniques such as blogging, link building, and press releases to improve your positive web presence.

SimplyLili is a PhD student in Social Psychology, and the witty author of Essell Magazine; created to disperse knowledge on a plethora of psychological topics in a minimalist and relevant way. She is a self-proclaimed nerd, and her 3 fave things are blogging, rainy days, and pugs.
‘Knowledge-Simply’

Think about it- when you complicate matters, you are bound to loose some people who can’t grasp the notion you are trying to get across.

Yes, the opposite is true- complications are not too much for a smart person. But don’t you think they would appreciate something simple too?

In fact, some of the best inventions of all time were the simplest ideas, that were apparently right under everyone’s nose, but somebody thought of it first.

When it comes to web designing, web page layout, even subject material- I always try to stick with simple. Even my relationships with friends and family- I try to keep it simple.

I am a simple guy in real life- I like meat and potatoes, apple pie, American cars, the internet, rock music and guitars.

In fact, this article is a simple test. I wrote it for one reason- I wanted to see if simple was good for the search engines. Most people, including me, try to make sure we get certain keywords into our titles, headlines, etc, to try to get search engines to grab onto. But this time I thought I’d go with a keyword-less title, a simple title, and one that says in all actuality, nothing (or, a lot). Just to see what happens later in the search engine results.

As it turns out, simple is good really says a lot. And it really is true, and important. Try it on your next project. When you are trying to present an idea to people, do you have to explain everything? You shouldn’t have to. You should be able to say one sentence, and get your idea across.

Good luck.

Every webmaster who has had some success comes to believe that “he knows what he’s doing” when it comes to SEO. But the fact is- meta tags, backlinks, header tags, keyword density, and all that crap can only carry you so far. Eventually, you simply look at the competition, study them, see what they are doing, compare the top ten competitors against each other- who’s better, what’s working, what’s not- then you get your vision of exactly how you can do it better. And then you do that.

That’s it. That’s SEO- real SEO.

Well, here’s one that you’ll appreciate. It comes from a PR6 site with 979K backlinks. (That ought to tell you something.) I use it regularly for all my sites.

After you submit your site, you will get an email confirmation on which sites accepted your site or not.

Search Engine Directory:
1. Google
2. Yahoo! Search
3. Bing
4. Open Directory
5. ScrubTheWeb
6. ASR
7. EntireWeb
8. ExactSeek
9. SearchSight
10. Skoobe
11. A1WebDirectory
12. Web World
13. Amfibi
14. VieSearch
15. SoMuch
16. MasterMOZ
17. Info Tiger
18. Link Centre
19. SecretSELabs
20. 24/7 Web Directory
21. RDirectory
22. Submit
23. Info Listings
24. IllumiRate
25. Directory Storm 1
26. Domaining
27. Dramba
28. SurfSafely
29. Wikidweb
30. AgAccess
31. Ablaze Directory
32. BusinessSeek
33. W3 Catalog
34. GigaBlast
35. IS
36. SonicRun
37. Gimpsy
38. What U Seek
39. Finest 4
40. OneMillionDirectory
41. The Living Link
42. Web4URL
43. Clock Tower Studio
44. Pedsters Planet
45. Triple W Directory
46. Cipinet
47. 01WebDirectory
48. NetInsert
49. TowerSearch
50. MavicaNet

7 Powerful Backlinking Strategies Earning SEO Juice Naturally

By Joan M Stewart

1. Add no more than 50 high quality links in a day, by posting comments on sites that are similar to your niche, who have obtained a higher authority. Remember the anchor text you use obtaining links from places with high authority is very important.

Linking to High quality sites makes your back-link more relevant adding more Page Rank (PR) juice and authority to your site. You need to make sure that you are placing links on “Do-Follow” sites – search engines will pass on the link juice to your site. “Don’t you just Luv comments!”

2. “Do Follow Forums” - This is a pleasurable way of getting FREE Back-links, you add a meaningful comment, and meet with ‘like minded’ people. Most forums are “Do Follow” and allow you to leave a link to your site in your signature at the bottom of each post you make. Just make sure you find relevant forums to your site and that you are adding value within your comments. This is also an easy way to get many links back to your site, because the more prime posts made by you the more one way links. Say you add a new site to your signature and you have 1000 posts, then you gained and just added a 1000 links to that URL.

3. Blog Commenting - Leaving a comment on Do Follow blogs is a very easy and FREE method people have been using for years. Just make sure you are commenting on relevant blogs and don’t spam. Impart value with your remark and add your opinion to the subject. Don’t forget about using trackbacks.(A link from a web site to another web site which references its content.)

4. Directories - Apply this correctly and benefit landing up on the front page of the Serps in no time. Directories are great because you get to leave a brief description of your site then it’s placed in a relevant category which gives you a very influential link back. Some are FREE – many cost money for a do-follow link, and is usually worth it. I’ve also noticed many of them are now doing the whole swap link exchange as well if you don’t want to pay.

5. Social Bookmarking sites – Okay, I’m sure you’ve heard social bookmarking is a way to get TONS of free traffic, exposure and authority but it’s another great way to get one way links. You get to add a description of the site or post and a link to it.

Now there is always an argument over which bookmarking sites are do-follow but I’ve found some good sites below that pretty much got it right and even if you don’t get any link-juice, then you’ll still get a great deal of traffic from them if bookmarked correctly and with valuable content like from Digg, StumbleUpon and AOL News.

6. Submitting your RSS Feeds – Many people find your blogs from reading your feeds (short description of your post) they find the content on different feed directories. Make sure you are careful to make sure you don’t present the same feed too many times to the same site. Some automatic feed services like pingomatic and pingoat submit to the same sites or search engines. If you need more info on RSS Feeds go here http://www.whatisrss.com/.

I would definitely suggest joining an automated feed and post service, then add your feed URL to some of the feed directories. Some are do-follow and some are not, experiment!

7. Reciprocal Links – Swapping links with other pertinent sites has always been very popular but not as effective as it was ever since Google cracked down on the Linkjuice from this method a few years ago. It still works great and is a ‘must do’ in SEO tactics to out rank your competition in similar niches. The best way I’ve found is to find kindred websites to do this method by joining forums, usually they’ll have a section for this or by doing some enquiry in the search engines.

I wanted to add, make sure you also use HubPages and Squidoo because they really don’t fall under anything above, they are more regarded as internet tools, web 2.0 website or community websites. You’ll find they both work very well for your SEO needs. The 7 Ideas on how to get Effective Backlinks above are not in any particular order.

Oh, I wanted to mention – don’t forget about “Link Baiting” (creating content just to receive back-links) that is seriously a very powerful method as well, and Guest Posting (creating posts for other relevant blogs). If you got something to add then let me know, make some Luv Comments by visiting my site. Make sure you are using a few or all of the methods mentioned above and you will soon be getting more traffic and PR than expected!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joan_M_Stewart

It took some struggle to find the solution. So, when I finally did, since I never found one online, I thought I’d put it on here so others could find it.

Isn’t it funny how you rack your brain trying to fix something, and you just can’t get it. Then, later on, you just look at it and say- maybe this will work- and it does?

Anyway, all you have to do is login to your blog, deactivate, then delete the WordPress.com Stats plugin. Then, reinstall the plugin. When you reinstall it, you will get an option to replace an existing blog’s stats. Pick the one you want to replace, and there you go. Easy, huh?

After spending a few hours struggling with it, I looked at it again later with fresh eyes, and saw a simple solution right away.

What is important, is traffic! And Alexa rank. Alexa is a better gauge of your site’s all-around value and popularity. And isn’t popularity more important that a number on a scale?

Think about this- I’ll use Search-Mojo.com as an example. Evan Levy wrote a great piece about SEO myths and mistakes, which got me to notice a few things about his site, and (a few of) mine.

If you had a site that was ranked well on Alexa, say 155,612 (that would mean, according to Alexa you are the 155,612th most popular website in the world), but your PR was a big fat zero, would you worry? Of course not. As Levy said in his piece, “The goal is to make money”, not get PR.

Now consider the opposite. Let’s say you had a respectable PR6, but an Alexa rating of 5-million. What good is all that PR when traffic is what pays the bills?

I’ll take the high traffic site over the high PR site any day.

Google PR does have it’s purpose though. Links from high PR sites is still a valuable tool to help build your popularity. But remember, the focus is building popularity- visitors- page hits.

Anyway, PR goes up and down like the stock market. Why worry about it? With Google Caffeine, (thankfully) a lot of the old SEO rules have changed. Google and other search engines are getting smarter, more people oriented. And people is what we want.

A do-follow blog is the better idea these days, in my opinion. I mean, if you want people to post comments and articles on your blog, why not give then something in return? I love to post my articles on other peoples blogs, as long as they give me a link back. And if they don’t let me link… guess what? I don’t post my comments or waste my time there.

That’s why all of my blogs are do-follow blogs. Take a look at the links on the right —> They are all do-follow blogs. Please, feel free to register and post your articles and comments with your link on any one of them. But be warned- I do delete spam.

How do I define spam? To me, spam is any comment that is inappropriate. There is no point in posting a sex site at my recipe site. I won’t allow it. The same is true with sales pages that have 1000 links to them but no page rank. (I know this thanks to my SEOBook toolbar.)

If your website is just a sales page, that requires an email address to view, that is automatically spam to me. I know this is a common trend in internet marketing, but I vote against it. If something is free, then it shouldn’t require your email address, your zip code or your blood type. But that’s just me. A lot of do-follow blogs do allow these kind of sites to sign up and link.

These days, with web 2.0 and all, a lot of people are making money online (including me). So why not join me and be a do-follow blog? Stop by System Cash and post a money making idea. And I will click through to your site and post one too.

Don’t worry, it’s not that painful to make a sitemap. And it is very important to feed the monster (Google).

According to Amanda Watlington, Owner of Searching for Profit, “There’s not any reason today to have your content hidden under a barrel.”

Speaking on sitemaps specifically, Watlington tells WebProNews that people still do not understand how to use them, even though they have been around for 5 years. She has recently encountered multiple sites that have thousands of pages that are not getting picked up by the engines. The problem is that many of their pages have not even been visited.

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