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Strengthen Your Link Reputation and Brand

Inbound links, or links that direct people to your site from other sites, are one of the cornerstones of a strong online brand. Not only do they drive traffic directly, they also influence how much weight your site carries with search engines, helping to bolster your online reputation. Many people take a passive approach to inbound links – if they appear, great, if they don’t, they don’t worry. Others work hard at getting new links, but are only aware of the links they directly solicit.

Build Your Link Reputation

Most people don’t realize that by failing to monitor inbound links, you’re actually missing a great opportunity to reach out to supporters, increase traffic to your site and build your Google CV. The internet is built on a model of reciprocity, and many people regularly check their outbound links to see if the link is reciprocated. If it isn’t, they may cull those links to make more room for people who will link back to them. Knowing when a site links to you allows you to decide whether it is a link you want to pursue keeping, and gives you the chance to take the steps necessary to keep it. Knowing when new links come in also gives you the opportunity to reach out to those people and, if necessary, ask them to improve the link text to best help your search engine relevance.

Collect Data About Your Links

There are two main classes of inbound link monitors: standalone software and web services. Both has their merits and flaws, but as both have costs associated with them, most people choose to opt for free web services. Using a web service gives you portability, and ensure you will never have downtime – rather than having to remember to open a program to check your links, it is done for you every day and you receive an email giving you an overview of new links gained and lost.

Develop a Linking Strategy

You can then use this data to develop a weekly strategy. Look at the new links you’ve gained, and visit the sites they came from. Decide whether you think that site has search engine relevance or traffic relevance for you, and if so how valuable it is. Find the context in which your link appears, and see if you think there is anything that could be improved – maybe it should go to a different page on your site, or have different link text. Then find contact information for the site operator and write them an email thanking them for the link to your site, informing them you have put up a reciprocal link (if you felt it was worth it), and if necessary asking them politely if they would mind updating your link information slightly.

You will also be informed when links to your site have disappeared. In these cases, if the inbound link was from a source you cared about, you’ll want to send an email and ask why they removed the link to your site, and whether there is anything you could do to reconcile the situation. If they decide to leave your link removed, you may wish to remove any outbound links you have to their site, as these one-way links may negatively impact your search engine rankings.

Use LookupPage Services

At some point, you may want to hire a team of professionals to manage your link reputation. LookupPage has a team of advanced SEO and linking professionals who know exactly which content to promote and how, greatly improving your link reputation. LookupPage also helps individauls and businesses get first page rankings on major search engines, under unique domain names.To start benefiting from our expertise, upgrade to our plan for professionals and follow these simple steps:

1. Sign into your account (or create a new one).
2. Click the "My Account" tab.
3. Click the "Upgrade / Renew your subscription" link.
4. Chose the "Pro" package and purchase.

We look forward to helping you manage your online image and reputation to ensure a safer and fully enriched online future.

Low Cost Link Building Techniques

Keyword management, strong title selection, and good semantic tagging will only get your site so far in

terms of search engine results. Ultimately, the cornerstone of any good search engine strategy is link building – strong and topical inbound links to your site from other high-relevance sites will do wonders for your search engine placement across all of your keywords. There are many different ways to gain inbound links, and many of the most effective are actually free or cost very little. These are a few of the easiest, and most effective, way to build your links.

Commenting on Other Blogs and Forums

One of the easiest ways to garner links without spending a penny is to simply become active on other blogs and forums that are topical to your subject. Whenever you leave a comment on a blog you should have the option to include a URL, which will point to your site from every comment you leave. In forum posting you will be able to include a signature, which can feature a link to your site. In both of these cases, take care not to be seen as a spammer – make topical responses to the posts or threads, and don’t actively promote your site, just let the link sit there.

Registering for Pages

There are countless sites out there which allow you to create a profile that can include a link to your site. Many of these sites, such as Facebook, Flickr, or LinkedIn, are free, and also have high search engine relevance. Others, such as LookupPage, are built specifically to improve your search engine ranking. These pages act not only as a source of inbound links to your page, but also as reputation management pages, allowing you to create another node in search engine results with content about your brand that you control. 

Including a Blogroll

Other blogs can be a great source of inbound links, as they can be highly topical, and often hold quite a bit of sway with search engines like Google. A blogroll, which generally sits in the sidebar of your blog, allows you to link to blogs you like or have a relationship with. These blogs, in turn, will link back to your site. There are services available which can help put you in touch with good blog matches, or you can simply contact the operators of blogs you think would be a good fit and offer to trade links on one another’s blogrolls.

Writing Guest Posts

One excellent way to get an inbound link from a higher-profile blog or informational site is to contribute a feature to that site. This will give you the opportunity to write in your area of expertise, demonstrating to their readers why they might want to visit your site, but will also give you a valuable inbound link. Even once your feature is off of the front page and buried deep in the archives, the inbound link will remain, and continue to help with your search engine relevance.

The Importance of Marketing Yourself Online While Job Searching

With the grim economical news coming from Dubai, the job market continues to be a difficult one. The latest collapse of what seemed to be a thriving economy would undoubtedly result in significant job loss, as corporate restructuring will go into affect.

Maintaining a strong Google CV is not only important for one’s online reputation but it can also be a helpful tool when applying for a new job. It has become considerably easier and faster for employees to “Google” someone than to pick up a phone and ask for recommendations.Professionals who maintain a positive business image online would have an easier time impressing prospective employers than people who do not have any web presence at all.

A recent survey by Harris Interactive for CareerBuilder.com shows that researching of potential candidates on social networks by managers and human resource staff, has doubled in the past year alone. A social network such as LinkedIn or a guaranteed visibility online tool such as LookupPage can rank extremely well on search engines and provide an additional positive result when a job applicant is being searched online by an employer.

Creating a LookupPage that highlights the attributes of a candidate as well as provides links to online reports, pictures and recommendation letters can make the difference between being called back for an interview and being looked over. Another advantage of creating an online resume is that it can be accessed at any time of day and from just about anywhere. Finally, LookupPage Pro users receive a unique domain name as well as comprehensive user statistics about who has been searching for them online. This is without a doubt a great online tool for job seekers!

Building a Brand Using Free Social Media Tools

Traditional online email accounts are getting less traffic than in previous years. The reason for that is simple, people are emailing their friends directly from their social networks so they do not need to enter Gmail as often as they used to. Social networks are becoming stronger and are no longer used by a specific age group. 

Although there is an argument among different search engines on what is the most searched word of 2009, we feel that the most explosive and important word for 2009 is Twitter. Apparently, we are not the only ones who think this way. Only recently, Google unveiled its real time search option that will incorporate status updates from popular social networks among other real time results.

If you need any further proof on how seriously Google is taking twitter accounts create a fictitious account on twitter and conduct a Google search for that name 48 hours later. Odds are that this none - existing person will rank on the first page of Google thanks to that twitter account. Because of the fact that social media profiles usually receive indexation by Google and other search engines, creating a brand using free social media tools is certainly achievable.

Facebook

companies such as Coca Cola, Pizza Hut and U.S based restaurant Chain  T.G.I Friday’s have achieved considerable success by creating a Facebook Fan page. This can be achieved on a smaller scale by getting your friends and clients to become fans of your service. 

A solid Facebook fan page needs to be able to provide information about the business and possibly provide an added value to the fans of the brand. The Pizza Hut fan page is currently offering a 20% discount on all orders made with the Pizza Hut iPhone application as well as other coupons. 

Twitter

As written above, Twitter is currently enjoying the respect of major search engines. Although getting a large following on twitter takes time and effort, it is certainly achievable. Ranking well on Google for a twitter account is certainly easier if the account is active and tweets on a regular basis. The CEO of Zappos , an online shoe retailer  is using Twitter in order to engage and be reachable by Zappos customers. By being readily available, he is strengthening the brand of his company as being attentive to what the customer wants    

LookupPage.com - while it is not a social network, creating a LookupPage for a business or a professional can have tremendous return on investment (ROI). LookupPage enjoys excellent indexation by Google and creating a profile can help you establish additional positive results that often rank extremely well and contribute greatly to one’s Google Resume.  For example, you can check out Oxford Car Service which created a LookupPage for their business and their LookupPage is ranking extremely high on organic search. 

Steps Comcast Should Take to Help its Online Reputation

Online reputation is somewhat of a buzz term these days as almost everyone is aware of its importance, but not everyone takes action to build and protect their brand reputation. The endless flow of online content (mainly due to sites like Youtube and Twitter) increases the chances of a celebrity or a brand to be effected by a bad review, an embarrassing video or any other negative press. A great example of the effect an individual can make on a brand using social media is Comcast.

A simple query on Google for the term “Comcast” yields several different types of results. As we have discussed in this blog before, Google prefers to offer varied results that include images, articles, videos and presentationsthat have to do with the search term. The number one video result conveniently positioned on the first page of Google is a YouTube video entitled “A Comcast Technician Sleeping on my Couch”.

It surprises us that Comcast who have made headlines recently when they discussed how Twitter has reformed the way they interact with customers, is either unaware of their negative online reputation or they are simply not doing anything to improve their Google CV. To make matters worse, a search for Comcast on Youtube is even more negative than a regular Google search. This is a major issue for Comcast because Youttube is an aggregator of public opinion. It uses video instead of 140 character tweets, but it is quite similar to Twitter yet Comcast is ignoring it.

What should Comcast do to improve their Google video search results?

Comcast needs to create similar presence on Youtube to the one they have on Twitter. If they opened up a channel on Youtube and started responding to some of the negative videos, they would be creating positive content that actually ranks on search engines and improves their online reputation. Other content such as funny ads Comcast created for television could also be used on this channel. Creating a channel on Youtube is free (although its maintenance isn’t), this is purely a strategy decision Comcast needs to make.

 

 

 

The NFL is Wrong for Going after Twitter Use

 The National Football league recently made headlines when it forbade the use of Twitter by journalists in the press box and by players during games. The NFL is making an effort to protect the organizations that have paid millions in order to have exclusive rights to report play-by-play accounts of each game. Threatening professional athletes with fines and suspensions for staying away from their jobs is understandable, asking journalists to not report what is going on in front of their eyes is unintelligent. 

Movie studios and record companies have tried to restrain technology in order to maintain their current business model and have failed miserably; it is unclear why the NFL feels that they would be successful where so many have failed before. In a recent blog post, we discussed why twitter is an effective tool for business. We feel that twitter is an excellent medium to engage an audience that is already interested and to interact further with this audience. Because Twitter has grown so much recently, it has become a great tool for building an online presence. If the NFL feels that people are less likely to listen to the game on the radio or buy season tickets just because there are play-by-play tweets online, they are simply mistaken. Twitter is providing the NFL (or almost any business for that matter) a great service.

The LookupPage Twitter account allows us to inform our audience in real time what we are dealing with. Professionals and businesses that are interested in online branding and visibility follow us because they know we provide relevant content ourselves and when we run across relevant content someone else came up with, we publish that as well while giving credit to the author. This is a great way to remain up-to-date, give people what they want and make sure they will stick with you. Try to restrain the flow of information now and you may find yourself losing business.