LookupPage Blog | Professional Web Presence and Visibility

Five Website Branding Tips

Building a website brand requires both careful planning and execution. The following is a list of tips that are important to implement when creating and maintaining a Website brand online.  

1. Choose a domain name that is short and memorable. 

Finding a good domain name requires some research. It is vital to come up with something that is both short and catchy. Time spent on this is well worth it since getting the domain name right will make it easier for your customers to remember you.

2. Give an incentive to returning customers in the form of new and relevant content. 

We try to stress the importance of fresh content on a regular basis for search engine rankings, but even more important than that is reaching out to your customers on topics that matter to them. Small businesses often create excellent blogs in order to increase the correspondence between them and their customers.

3. Design a simple, easy to use website.

Presenting a web site that is highly animated, requires a download of additional software, or enables viewing of the page only for a specific browser, limits the amount of people who can access your website. It is hard enough to bring new visitors to a web site. It is imperative to make their experience a positive one.

4. Go “live” only when your site is ready. 

If your content is not ready, you are better off waiting until it is than putting a “coming soon” sign. The association one would make from such a notification will seriously harm the reputation you are trying to create.

5. The website has to look professional.

This is an important one: In e-commerce, all the customer can go by is the appearance of a website. While it is cheaper to hire an amateur designer, the result will most likely not be sending out the right message. Once the site is up it is important to keep the topics professional even if it represents a small business. Personal photos do not belong anywhere on your professional website. Displaying photos from your recent fishing trip on your business website can hurt your branding efforts. 

Know More about Your Audience with LookupPage Enhanced Statistics

We all know that having a LookupPage enhances the online visibility of businesses and professionals. Premium subscribers have access to comprehensive analysis that allows them to monitor when and how many views their LookupPage receives as well as other valuable metrics. The statistics tool can determine what country, city and IP address the search originated from as well as what the search term was. It can also indicate what website or search engine referred the traffic over to the respective LookupPage. 

This data is vital for anyone who is trying to improve the online visibility of a business or a brand since it can determine where the interest originates. This is beneficial because targeting becomes cheaper and more effective as a result of focusing a campaign at a smaller more engaged audience. Leads and conversions are easier to track with LookupPage statistics; once again providing the decision makers with data that will help determine a marketing approach in the future. The LookupPage statistic tool is effective because it allows users to make decisions based on actual metrics. 

Free LookupPage subscribers are welcome to view their statistics up to 3 times at no cost, so if you have not yet tried LookupPage statistics we encourage you to have a look at this useful feature. In order to view your statistics all you have to do is login to LookupPage and click on the view statistics button.

LookupPage Basic and Professional users enjoy unlimited access to the statistics tool. Upgrade your account today so you can benefit from it as well!

Online Reputation Tips: How to Remove Embarrassing Images from Google Image Search

In the same way that people should monitor their Google CV, it is also imperative to pay attention to the results of a Google Image search for one’s name or brand.  People Google themselves quite often these days, and paying attention to what comes up in image search could potentially turn up negative results. This can be a bad photo or an image that is defamatory. If someone has tagged you in photos that you do not like on Facebook, you have the option of removing that tag. On Google search it is harder to remove an image from the results page but it is certainly not impossible. 

Why is there image search to begin with?

The short answer for this question is “because there is a market for it“. Google is extremely aware of what its customers want. If a certain celebrity is searched on Google and his image results gets many clicks, the ranking for the image results will most probably be in the first results page.

As of today, the bright minds at Google are still experimenting with facial recognition software. For the time being, any images found on Google for the term “Albert Einstein” for example show up there because they were given Alt tags as photos of Einstein. The way to decrease the importance of an image that you are not fond of is to publish new positive ones and to tag them the very same way so in turn they would seem more updated and relevant to the search engine.

Is posting the new image in several places important?

Yes!  Diversification of origins for the new photos will improve the likelihood of quick indexing by the search engines. Using Picasa is great but from our experience, Google gives a lot of credit to Flickr (despite the fact that Yahoo owns it). Other places that would certainly be indexed on a regular basis are LinkedIn and LookupPage. As both are geared for professionals, their algorithm is set on taking the image one would post in their professional profiles seriously.

“Retweet” Search Up Significantly In 2009

It has been reported earlier this year that Twitter is growing at a rate of 1,382%.

With more businesses and professionals using Twitter than ever before, search for the term “Retweet” has grown immensely.

What does it mean to retweet? To quote Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group, within the Twitter community a "Retweet" is a social gesture indicating endorsement of an idea. It also displays the power of word of mouth. We are more likely to pay attention to recommendations or ideas generated by our friends and colleagues than to information presented to us by strangers. A retweet coming from someone you know is more likely to get your attention.

How do you get people to retweet your stuff?

The absolute best way is to come up with content that will impress your reader. In late August, we wrote a case study about the lacking online reputation management of KFC restaurants. This blog post generated thousands of views in the following days. It also has been retweeted as late as two weeks after its publication.

Another way to increase the probability of a retweet is to engage in endorsing ideas that people who follow you post on Twitter by retweeting them. This is a form of “what goes around – comes around”. By paying respects to content they have put up online you could create a reciprocal relationship in which they promote your tweets.

You can follow LookupPage on Twitter and see for yourself 

Announcing LookupPage Wednesdays - Cuyahoga County Heating Repair

Every Tuesday we are going to feature a LookupPage that has impressed us as of late.  By sharing these online-visibility success stories, we are hoping to increase the knowledge of fellow LookupPage users on what makes a page so successful on search engines. Another aspect of it is that we can discuss what can be done with that specific page to enhance the results it is receiving even further. Finally, we are also hoping to give  an additional boost to a professional or a business that has taken control over its online branding.

This week we are featuring Overholt Heating and Air Conditioning.

This company has been in business for over forty years and needs to be congratulated for understanding online marketing.  Overholt understands that LookupPage can get great indexing from major search engines so what they did was use the name of the county in which they operate as the name of the company. Now when someone searches “Cuyahoga County Heating Repair”, Overholt is the first name that comes up on that search.

What we love about their LookupPage is that they linked between their online profiles; you can read about the advantages of doing just that.  Overholt’s LookupPage has good content and is rightfully ranking first on both Google and Yahoo. As far as we are concerned, other great content that Overholt can include in their LookupPage could be the name of the person who started the company forty years ago, payment methods accepted and most importantly a company logo to be associated with the great brand this company has worked so hard to achieve. Using the same logo is not only effective with getting people familiar with a brand or a business, search engines are able to tell if they are presented with the same image in several different places  this could result in improved ranking down the road. 

Who Needs Online Reputation Management? Kanye West Knows

Over the weekend, the MTV video music awards took place in New York City. When 19-year-old Taylor Swift had won the prize for best female video, she got on stage and began her acceptance speech. Kanye west, an American rapper and producer felt that a different singer deserved the prize more; he got on stage, took the microphone from the hands of Taylor Swift, and said that he was happy for Taylor, but that the video by Beyonce Knowles was one of the best videos of all time.

Here’s the link for the video

Taylor Swift looked humiliated by these turn of events. When Beyonce later won the Video of the year award, she showed class and invited Taylor Swift onto the stage to have another go at her acceptance speech.

What does all this have to do with Online Reputation Management you ask?

Kanye West is a highly successful artist that right now may not care about what is being said about him online. He is however also a brand. We have highlighted before the negative things that occur to a brand that is poorly managed online.

The singer Pink was at the VMA’s and was quick to respond to Kanye’s behavior when she tweeted “Kanye west is the biggest piece of shit on earth. Quote me” and so were millions of Americans. On an additional online front, Kanye West has a Wikipedia page that we are sure some people are going to be interested in “modifying“ after this behavior. Crisis communication can make or break a brand. This is a time of crisis for the brand of Kanye West. We can only hope that his public relations team is smart enough to take necessary steps in order to diffuse the situation.

It is entirely possible to gain control over the results page of major search engines. Creating a profile on LookupPage is a great start for improving online visibility of a business, a professional or a brand. LookupPage Pro will guarantee online visibility on the first page of Google! 

In The Google Era, Your Google CV Is As Important As Your Personal CV

The internet and more specifically Google, has turned into the most popular source of information in the Western world for a number of reasons. Most of us own a computer or a smart phone that could take a query and answer it in seconds, accordingly convenience is a top reason. We no longer have to walk to the library to look something up or call the movie theater for show times we simply search online. The reason searching online is so effective is because it also provides us with accurate information in most cases. As perceptive Internet users, we are becoming better at separating the good and mostly accurate content we find from the junk.

Because search engines constantly index new material on the web, we keep turning to them in the hopes of finding the most relevant information out there. We search potential dates and employers to get an initial understanding of whom we are dealing with and so does everyone else.  

People work hard to present themselves in the most professional way possible on resumes. Employers however, often turn to the internet in order to search for things people would leave out of a resume. An online background check could either validate the claims made on the resume or at times expose the potential employer to a side of the applicant that he or she did not want to present.

People do not fully realize that they have control over their Google CV. “Googling” yourself is no longer the act of vanity but a personal responsibility one has to accept in order to tackle any negative results that may come up. Creating a LookupPage with background information about you could easily become a positive result an employer would find at the top of Google and other major search engines.  

The Importance of Vanity URLs for Online Branding

When someone owns his or her name online, he or she is in most cases taking out the guesswork from the people who search for him or her. Social networks have phenomenal indexation by major search engines, but there are many people with similar names making the process of finding someone even on a popular social network difficult at times.

Facebook made headlines early this summer when it enabled its users to customize the URL of their profiles. Facebook’s competitors such as Myspace and Twitter have been doing that for years but the fact that Mark Zuckerberg’s social networking creation has become as big as it has turned the process into a rush for prime real estate. 

When the process began, URLs such as www.facebook.com/pokerbook were available free of charge for registered users and that apparently is worth some serious money. Other than obvious popular internet names that often have to do with online gambling and foreign exchange schemes, why are vanity URLs so crucial?

Real estate professionals often remind us that location is the most important thing .When it comes to web presence this is the case as well. The fact that you own wwww.YourName.com means that no one else could be taking advantage of that particular domain for his or her gain. In many cases, it is worthwhile to own such a domain even if you do not have a specific purpose for it. Owning wwww.YourName.com may be necessary down the road and the only way to guarantee that this domain will still be available for your use is to get a hold of it right from the start.

Check out the LookupPage professional package and make to most out of your name with a www.YournName.com (or similar) and lots of other great features.

Tips on Removing Negative Search Results

This needs to be said right off the bat, removing negative results from Google immediately is close to impossible unless you have a positive personal connection with the site that is publishing this negative content about you or your business.

Negative results on search engines are something that both professionals and businesses have to deal with regularly.  It is very simple nowadays for anyone to express online his or her unhappiness with a service or a product. People turn to websites such as Ripoff Report for this precise reason; they want to learn from other people’s mistakes in order to avoid them. Just as easily, anyone can use his or her blog to vent about the cold cup of coffee he was served in the morning or about the plumber being two hours late.  

A company or a service that has many happy clients can easily be subjected to a bad review from a competitor or a disgruntled employee, what is one to do when a negative result ruins a perfectly good online reputation? 

Google credits relevancy and considers timeliness of content as extremely important element. If a Google bot scans the web and finds new and relevant content, that content has a good chance of ranking high on search results. Creating a new company profile and submitting it for indexing in a website that improves online visibility is a great start for pushing a negative result out of the first results page. A positive review of a genuine client can also rank above a bad review of a different client provided the content is fitting and fresh. Generally speaking, our recommendation is to fight the bad press by adding as much positive, new, original and relevant content about you and your company and linking between that content.

In our recently published a blog post titled 3 Ways to Change How your Business shows up on Search Results, you will find more ways for coming up with content that will rank high on search engines and will ultimately make a negative result obsolete. 

Reputation Management Tips - Press Release

Businesses and professionals have varying methods for highlighting the content they come up with on the web. Although the advantages of using social book marking  in order to improve the online visibility of a brand are widely recognized, generating a press release has many other benefits for the purpose of search engine optimization and brand recognition.

Coming up with a solid press release requires quite a bit of legwork. To begin with, it is crucial to have a noteworthy announcement about your company or brand. A significant milestone for the company, or the launch of a new product would make good candidates   for a press release. The communication needs to describe the news in a neutral tone - stating facts as opposed to describing opinions; a press release is clearly not an advertisement. 

One of the better places to generate a press release from is PRWEB . It is not free but when you take into consideration the sustainability of your press release, it is not terribly expensive. Press release aggregators get a lot of respect from search engines, The people who determine the algorithm for Google and Yahoo are well aware of the strict editorial guidelines that users need to adhere to in order to publish anything as a press release.  

It has been suggested that because PR sites receive a lot of credit from search engines, launching a new website and using a press release as one of the tools for the launch is a good way of insuring a quick indexation process. While this tactic may not have proof, it is unlikely that a solid press release and links from a strong website to the new website will hurt the process. 

Add Content to Your LookupPage and Rank Higher on Google

Establishing online visibility requires hard work and dedication. A business or a professional who wishes to rank on Google for specific keywords has to come up with relevant and informative content in order to stay ahead of its competitors.
 
The world where a first impression is made by meeting a person face to face, evaluating their tone, style of clothes and manners is obviously gone. More people conduct their research online when evaluating candidates for a job or a business venture. This has significantly increased the importance of what other see and read about us online.
 
Here at LookupPage your online visibility and reputation is our business. Lookup Pages that contain relevant information about a business or a professional get significantly higher web visibility than profiles that contain little or no information at all. Excellent examples of the LookupPage service to your online visibility are the Oxford car service premium business page (search Google for "Oxford car service") and Ehud Furman, LookupPage founder and CEO, premium personal page (search Google for "Ehud Furman").
 
The reason for that is very simple. Search engine are becoming more complex and their attempt is to return valuable information for every search query. Someone's name showing up on a profile online could result in indexation by Google, but providing information such as specialties, education, experience and other background information will increase the validity of that content, essentially "forcing" the search engine to include this content in the search results.
 
If you are promoting a business on LookupPage, content is equally important for you to include. Information such as opening hours and accepted payment methods count as valuable content, but explaining what makes your business great is more likely to generate a genuine business lead. Either way, we believe that you should include both.
 
To add more content to your LookupPage:

1.  Login to your account. If you do not have a lookupPage account you can easily create one.
2.  Choose to update your personal details or your business details.
3.  Preview your changes.
4.  Save your changes.

How to Add a Retweet Button to your TypePad Blog

As Twitter is getting more and more traffic worldwide, a retweet (RT) button for your blog becomes an essential marketing tool. It will help your readers easily tweet your posts and generate valuable traffic to your blog. The most popular button is the TweetMeme retweet button. Since we use TypePad for managing our LookupPage blog, and we found no content about how to add a retweet bottom to TypePad, we decided to share that information with you.

How does it work?

Retweeting is simply to repeat a user’s tweet. For example, you retweet when you encounter a tweet which you want to share with people that follow you.

The retweet button automatically generates the correct syntax of the retweet together with a TinyURL. Here is an example of a retweet of our “Google CV” blog post: “RT @LookupPage The Google CV http://bit.ly/2elis "

How to install the button?

1. Sign in to your TypePad account
2. Go to your blog design tab (it must be an advanced template design).
3. Choose to edit your main index template.
4. Copy the below code at the beginning of the entry header )
5. Save your changes and you’re done.The TweetMeme retweet button code:

 

The TweetMeme retweet button code:

<div style="float: right; margin-right: 0px;"> 

<script type="text/javascript"> 

tweetmeme_style = "compact";

tweetmeme_url = '<$MTEntryPermalink$>';

tweetmeme_source = 'your_twitter_user_name';

</script> 

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"> </script> 

</div> 

Hopes this helps! And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter