15 ways to create positive brand image online

Here we will discuss about 15 ways to create positive brand image online

 Own Your Own Website

Your first goal for creating a positive online image is having a website. Chances are, you already have one for your business like yourbusiness.com. Be sure to also protect your personal brand by having one for your own name, i.e. firstnamelastname.com. Websites with an exact business or person’s name in the domain generally rank first when someone searches for the name. If you have a website you control at #1 in search results, it will get the most amount of clicks and prevent most people from continuing to look through the rest of the search results.

Own Related Domains

If you want to take it to the next level, build up some other domains for your business or yourself. Hosting companies are notorious for having negative information pop up in search results from bad reviews to anti-their-company groups. GoDaddy tackled this by creating a crop of additional websites with their brand name in the domain.

Any business can do something similar by creating separate site for the following:

• Your blog such as yourbusiness.com or yourbusinessblog.com.
• Your customer support such as support.yourbusiness.com oryourbusinesssupport.com.
• Your store such as yourbusiness.com or yourbusinessstore.com.
• Your main products such as yourbusiness.com or yourproduct.com.
• Your apps such as yourbusiness.com or yourbusinessapps.com.

Start Multiple Blogs

Your main personal or company blog doesn’t have to be your only blog. Thanks toGoogle+ authorship and Google Direct Connect, you can tell Google a blog on any topic is related to you. Here are two great examples. Danny Sullivan is well known for being the editor-in-chief for Search Engine Land. If you search for him, you’ll also find his personal blog named Daggle. It comes up in search results for his name simply because he put Danny Sullivan’s Personal Blog in the title of the homepage and connected it to his Google+ profile.

Be Active on Social Media

Notice that I didn’t say create a whole lot of random social profiles that you may never touch again. There’s little point to doing that when reputation management is concerned. Instead, you want to create several strong social profiles on prominent social networks and keep them active and up to date. You will also want to build a strong audience on these networks as well – you could almost consider your number of connections like the number of links to your profile – the more you have, the better they will rank.

Some of the best social profiles to create and routinely maintain that will generally rank well in search results include the following.

• Google+ – Profiles for people, pages for business. Make sure you occasionally include your name or business name in a status update or two as well.
• Facebook – Profiles for people, pages for business.
• Twitter
• LinkedIn – Profiles for people, company pages for businesses.
• Biznik – People only.
• Pinterest – Make sure one of your pins includes your name or business name too!
• Myspace – Don’t laugh, it still ranks well in search.
• Quora
• Flickr
• YouTube
• Vimeo

Create Online “Business Cards”

Want to create an online business card of sorts? Several websites allow you to create a personalized page that displays a short bio about you plus links to your website, blog, and social networks. About.me is probably the most popular one.

Claim Your Local Profiles

If you have a local business, be sure to claim your local profiles and local directory listings, or create them if they don’t exist on sites like Yelp, Merchant Circle, Yahoo Local and similar sites. This is also good to help with your local search marketing campaign so local customers can find you easier online.

Write Guest Posts

When it comes to reputation management, you’re not looking to do one-off guest posting opportunities where your name will barely be in the by-line. You will want to write for sites that have author bio pages crafted for you or allow you to create custom profiles like SEOmoz. Basically, the bigger the website, the better the chances of your author page showing up in search results. While any site can be good, highly authoritative sites like TechCrunch, Mashable, Forbes, and Entrepreneur are great examples of ones to strive for.

Do Interviews

If you or your business is asked to do interviews on blogs, videos, or podcasts, definitely say yes. Typically people will include your name and/or your business name in the title of the resulting content which will rank well in search.

Place a Lot of Images of Yourself Online

This is easily done when you’re creating social profiles and getting guest posts. Having lots of images of yourself online might sound like vanity, but it can trigger image search results for your name or business to pop up, further pushing down potential negative search results. Easy ways to do this is through profile photos on your social networks, author bio pages on your websites & blogs, avatars on forums, and so forth. The key is to always make sure that your photo’s filename isyourname.jpg or similar, not something non-descriptive like profilephoto.jpg.

If you’re embedding your photo on a website, be sure to use applicable image SEO optimization in the code like this:

<img src=”yourname.jpg” alt=”Your First Name Last Name” title=”Your First Name Last

Make Videos

Another great way to dominate search results is through video. YouTube is usually the most obvious to go for as they are owned by Google and therefore are likely to appear in search results. But don’t forget other popular video sites such as Vimeo as it also shows up often in search.

Some great ideas for video title formulas include:

• Your Name or Business Name on ____
• ____ by Your Name or Business Name
• Your Name or Business Name Interviews ____
• About Your Name or Business Name

Write Press Releases

Press releases still make a dent when it comes to getting your name or your business name out there. If you’re looking at a real-time reputation management crisis, try submitting your responses through social media and through press releases. Legit services might charge you a fee, but they are worth it when it comes to making sure your press release is optimized for search. Some good examples of press release services include PR.com, SBWire, and PRWeb.

Create an App or Podcast

 

Apple.com is a highly authoritative website, so it is no surprise that any apps or podcasts rank well in search results. As a matter of fact, your app or podcast is almost guaranteed to show up on the first page of search results for your name or your business so long as you include it either in the title or the description.

Get a CrunchBase Profile

 

If you are the owner of a technology company, you can submit yourself and submit your company to be included in the CrunchBase database. These entries tend to rank as high, and sometimes even higher than Wikipedia entries.

See if You Qualify for a Wikipedia Page

 

Wikipedia pages are tough to come by thanks to the rules. But if you qualify to have a Wikipedia page created about yourself or your business, it is generally a guaranteed page one search result. Learn more about Wikipedia pages for yourself and for your organization.

One thing to keep in mind about Wikipedia pages is that they are publicly editable. This means if there is major news about you or your business, it will likely end up on your Wikipedia page too.

Once you have a presence on the top social networks, local search directories (as applicable), and other sites, it will make it easier to respond to any negative press when it arises. Be sure to think before your speak / type and make your responses as professional as possible. You’re not just trying to defend yourself – you’re also trying to prove to people how awesome you really are.