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The term “googling” is ever scary in this digital age. People can “google” you for any reason and dig deeper into the search result page to find the most awkward stuff. The question is do you have that awkward stuff buried on Google?
If yes, then probably it’s the time to take charge of your personal online presence and appear clean like water on the first page of SERP. We’re focusing more on the first page as it’s where more than 77% of the traffic land on.
Even if your answer to the previous questions is a no, still personal online reputation management is something you should take seriously to reap its illimitable benefits. Else be prepared to see the drastic downfall in both your personal and professional life. Rude, isn’t it? But the data says exactly the same,
Thundering! But if you look at the bright side, think about the number of benefits you may yield from an efficient personal online presence management. So, let’s dig deeper into this actionable guide to unlock the doorway to a thousand benefits.
What is Your Personal Online Reputation?
It’s justified to search for the personal reputation meaning when you’re unaware of the topic. So here it goes,
Your personal online reputation is the combination of information based on the search result people are getting while googling you, your personal presence on Google or your brand presence on google, your personal image on social media, and your overall digital identity.
Confusing? Well, we’ll break it down for you,
People Are Googling You
Yes! You heard it right, people around you are googling you any moment of the day. They are searching for crispy information.
And who knows, someone may search to find the most embarrassing content about you, right?
In the US an average of 57% of adults enters their and others’ names on Google to assess their personal online presence. One thing that is common among searchers is the curiosity to know you better.
Generally, people find your website, social pages, or any other information which becomes the basis of their opinion about you. Combining this bunch of information you can say it’s your personal online presence.
How People Perceive You
Upon receiving the information on Google, people form their own opinion about you or your brand, for example, when you stock your favorite person on Google, don’t you form an opinion about himself or her?
So, your personal reputation is much likely to get affected by these people’s perceptions. You can discover all this information like what people are saying about you, how you’re appearing on the first page, and a lot more simply by signing into an online reputation management tool.
Tools like Socialmention, Google analytics show you the average impression about you or your brand on online search results.
How You’re Performing On Social Media
Okay so, in this age of digital revolution, nothing has ever captured our attention more than anything than social media. Can you disagree with this?
Well, then turn on your smart phone’s digital wellbeing and find out how many hours a day you’re spending on these social platforms?
An average person spends 2 hours and 33 minutes on social media. This is why personal online presence management on social media is something you should focus on now more than anything.
So, we hope you’re clear now on the doubts on personal reputation meaning. Let’s head over to the ever-growing significance of this online reputation.
Why is it Important to Repair Your Online Reputation?
Since someone is keeping an eye on you, you should always be prepared to represent the best version of yourself. And this is achieved when you learn to efficiently improve and repair your professional reputation along with personal.
Don’t worry if you’re still not convinced. Let us show you the reason behind the growing importance of personal online reputation management,
People Will Judge You Based on Your Presence
This might seem judgmental. But, we often have the tendency to form an opinion on something in the first place of seeing it. Right?
Don’t you decide whether to buy a dress or not right after seeing it for once? Of course, you put a substantial amount of research after you decide to buy it but over 70% of your decision gets affected by the first impression.
Since your personal reputation is the aggregate score on your performance on major platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and above all Google, it’s highly recommended to manage your online presence to stay clean.
Else you will never be able to reap the benefits of these social platforms. This is the primary reason to manage your personal online reputation.
Information is Accessible to Anyone
If something is terrible on the internet about you, then not only you’re ruining your personal life but professional life as well even if you’re an ordinary person.
People may exploit or misuse information and tarnish your online image so much so that you may never convince someone to repair your online reputation.
Even people may blackmail you using content and snatch away your goodnight sleep. This is why you should focus on managing and improving your personal online reputation.
How to Improve Online Reputation: 6 Actionable Hacks
Since you can’t ignore your personal online reputation, it’s time to learn some actionable hacks to manage and improve your presence. Are you ready? Let’s dig deeper now,
Find What’s Wrong About Your Online Image
Okay! So, before you jump into the ocean of information and get drowned into that in the process of finding a way or a hack, let’s do a quick google search.
After all, online reputation management begins with a simple search. So, the first step to improve your personal online reputation is to conduct a search.
Search your name with a keyword if Google is generating Auto keywords for you. If not then just type in your name, your nickname, and so on. If you find something irrelevant or embarrassing, note down the site name and information so that later you can remove that or avail help from an online reputation management agency to remove that content for you.
Pro tip: don’t be blindsided and miss single information as an unflattering image may damage the potential business opportunity in the long run.
Craft a Reputation Goal
Whether you’re an ordinary individual or a business owner, you may have a desirable online presence in your mind, isn’t it?
If not then it’s time to craft one. Since the digital realm is so vast you may not find a head or tale while searching for how to improve your online reputation. So, the next step you should take upon scouring the internet is to craft a reputation goal. Include questions like,
- How Do You Want To See Yourself on the Internet?
- Who will be Googling you the Most?
- What is the Status of Your Current Online Presence?
- How do You want to Reap the Benefits of a Strong Online Presence?
This will help you to create a clear picture over your head and therefore craft a perfect strategy to manage your personal reputation.
Grow Strong Over Social Platforms
As we’ve told, social media is influencing a large spectrum of people. Therefore if you want to improve your personal reputation, it’s a must step you should take.
Some have this notion that your job ends right after creating a social account when the truth is, it actually starts after creating an account. Make sure you create a portrait of yourself on social platforms, for example, how do you want people to see yourself? As an expert, celebrity, strategist, and so on.
When you’re clear on this part, it’s time to consistently optimize your social profile to make it grow. You can leverage reputation tools to keep a track of people’s sentiment over you or your brand. This will always keep you to reshape your marketing tactics.
Pro tip: Make sure you keep the unflattering images private from the settings. This will limit the reach of the audience to these posts.
Build Your Online Brand
Now it may take some time. You’ve to register for a domain, start a website or a blog, schedule content posting, promote yourself as an expert, ahh!!!! A heck lot of work, isn’t it?
But, this is the efficient step one can ever take in the process of improving his online reputation. Because, it’s hard to break someone with a strong backbone, right?
This is the reason why you should start taking small but consistent efforts to build your personal brand. You can take the following steps,
- Start your own blog or website and put relevant content on this. You can hire an online reputation management company in order to make it optimized for you. But make sure it’s registered with your name.
- Create relevant and rich content and post it on a regular basis. You can leverage social platforms as well to promote that content.
- Moderate the comment section and learn to respond to negative reviews in order to manage your online presence.
Repair Your Online Reputation
Once you access the data containing your old, irrelevant, negative content, it’s time to execute your online reputation repair plan. These data may contain an embarrassing image from myspace or personal information on that site or a mugshot image on a ripoff site.
Sometimes you may need to contact the website authority to delete that for you and other times the reverse SEO process is the only reliant step.
Most of the time reputation agencies perform the reverse SEO strategy to bury down the negative result on 4 or 5th pages on the internet and repair your online reputation.
Monitor Your Online Presence
Online reputation management is not a never-ending process. Even after performing all these steps, you’ve to monitor your online presence to keep a track of it.
You may use reputation management tools or hire an online reputation management firm to monitor your online presence but through whatever means you have to monitor it.
Monitoring will help you to delete the irrelevant comments that are bothering you or putting your image down, keep a track on people’s sentiment, and a lot more.
Conclusion
When you keep efficient reputation management in practice, you tend to notice the fruitful of it. You can learn from the big brands as well as how they improve their personal reputation.
For example, one of the renowned grocery brands, whole foods ignited controversy for a political stance. The CEO posted a detailed statement over a step taken by the president back at that time. But later the company submitted a response statement to mitigate the severe situation.
This is how you should improve your personal reputation as well. Else a delayed action may take a toll on your personal and professional reputation.
When you want to improve your personal online reputation, you’ll have to track what others are talking about you and therefore manage a severe situation when someone ignites a negative impression on you.
Are you taking your personal reputation management seriously? Do comment below and let us know.
