Google Yourself. See Yourself through Google’s Eyes

Google yourself and see what comes up in the search engine display page(s).  As a small business owner, do you have a reputation management strategy to keep track of those negative mentions about you and your brand?

Do you notice anything unusual – a negative mention, comment, or reviews about your product and services, or simply you? While it is possible to have a total control over what you post on your site, blogs, and social media profiles, it is very difficult to keep track of what other people are saying about you and your brand. As a small business owner, do you have a reputation management strategy to keep track of those negative mentions about you and your brand?

If not, then you should!

You see, your potential clients are always searching for products and services similar to yours through search engines such as Google. For example, they use keywords such as “your company name + reviews,” “your company name + discounts,” “your company name + affiliate program” to learn what other people have to say about your product and services.

And if they come across a negative mention about your brand, that you think isn’t valid, something posted by an online scammer or one of your competitors, it will spread a negative impression about you and people will likely hesitate buying from you. As a result, you’ll lose another customer, not to mention an online reputation that could cause you additional havoc.

Don’t worry about not converting, but you need to have ways to handle those invalid online mentions.

Here are top ways to monitor you online reputation using Google’s free tools:

Tool #1: Google Suggest

The best way to see yourself through Google’s eyes is to type your brand name on Google Suggest tool and see what other suggestions appear alongside your search term. For example, if your company is based in Singapore that specialize in SEO consulting, type the keyword “SEO company in Singapore” and see what other ideas Google will suggest. Go through each keyword suggestion and see if anything appears about you and your company on the search engine result pages (SERPs). If there is something you don’t want other people to see, then use Google’s content removal tool to stop them from displaying further in search engine result pages.

Tool #2: Me on the web

Google recently launched a free tool “Me on the Web”, inside Google Dashboard, which will help you keep track of your search results for your name. The tool is included between Google’s analytics and account information. You can use this tool to receive alerts whenever anyone mentions your name on the internet, either through blog posts, web page, social media updates, or any other online media channels. You can also set up when you would like to receive the notifications – within minutes, daily, weekly, or monthly – so that you can manage them accordingly.

Tool #3: Google Alerts

Go to google.com/alerts and fill up the 5 fields to set up Google alerts to send you notifications whenever someone mentions your brand on the Internet.

1. Type your brand name or any other keywords and its variations associated to your business in the “search terms” field to set up an alert for each.

2. Use quotation around two or more words. Google will look for two words as a single phrase.

3. Select “Comprehensive” from the “type” drop down to include all types of sources.

4. Select “as-it-happens” from the drop down menu “How often” to get alerts as soon as someone mentions you online. Not to mention, it will also help you to respond appropriately if the mentions are negative and invalid.

5. Finally, enter the email address to send your “alerts” to.

Use the above three tools to quickly find out who are saying what about you and your brand so that you can quickly take appropriate action before it gets too late.

Which online reputation management tool do you use to monitor your brand? Please share and let us know below!