LookupPage Blog | Professional Web Presence and Visibility

Celebrity Twitter of the Month – Lance Armstrong

 Seven time Tour De France winner Lance Armstrong is a unique athlete. Not only is he the only person to win the Tour De France more than five times, he is the only person to have won the tour seven consecutive times after recovering from advanced stage cancer. When Armstrong was 26 years old, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer that at that point had already spread to his lungs, abdomen and brain. He underwent several operations and opted for alternative form of Chemotherapy and that led to the remission of the cancer in his body.

By 1998 Armstrong was already deep into a training regiment that would spark his return to the Tour De France, The fact that Armstrong won seven tours in a row starting in 1999 and participated in yet another race in 2009 marks him as one of the greatest athletes of our time.

Lance Armstrong describes himself in the short Twitter Bio as “7-time Tour de France winner, full time cancer fighter “. Armstrong is tweeting on a regular basis about his daily life, travel, cycling and of course, the Lance Armstrong foundation, LiveStrong, a non profit organization which strives to inspire and empower those who have been affected by cancer. Armstrong has over 2.3 million followers on Twitter. He is using Twitter to engage his fans about topics that are important to him and to promote his organization via the micro blog.    

Lance Armstrong is an exceptional athlete that could get the attention of the world media in many ways. The Fact that he chose to have an ongoing relationship with his followers via Twitter is a complement to the technology and the recognition of how ground breaking it really is. Businesses and professionals are choosing to use Twitter as a part of their marketing effort because it is currently enjoying solid web visibility from search engines, meaning that a Twitter account could often rank highly within the Google CV of a professional or a business. Please Follow LookupPage on Twitter to learn more about online visibility social media optimization and online reputation management. 

What Can be Learned From the Tiger Woods Scandal?

Since the tales of infidelity have started to circle around Tiger Woods, large sponsors such as Accenture have cut ties with the athlete. Accenture who has been a sponsor of Tiger Woods in the past 6 years, using his image for campaigns in print, television and airport advertising in 27 countries around the world has terminated the sponsorship deal all together. Other companies such as Gillette, Tag Heuer and AT&T have all decreased the use of Tiger’s image in their campaigns but have not ended their relationship with the athlete. 

Pepsi who named a Gatorade energy drink after Tiger Woods, decided to pull the plug on the drink shortly before the news of Tiger’s car accident made headway. They too decided to scale back the relationship with the pro golfer as opposed to ending it. Golf is considered an upscale sport and some of the products that Woods was promoting are high scale as well. Some of the potential customers for these products are conservative and others would simply feel that Woods no longer represents elegance and luxury. To put in basic terms, Woods is suffering from a negative online image that brands do not want associated with their products.

The fact that it is much harder to build a reputation than to destroy it could not be any truer in this case. Most of us are not celebrities and will never be known to millions of people around the world. We all go about our business and live our lives without the issue of public perception having an effect on the choices we make. Since we are not paid to be a brand we can afford to do what is best in our opinion at any given point provided it is acceptable by our family and friends. 

It was not long ago that comedian David Letterman confessed on national television that he had not been faithful to his wife. Letterman opted to be the one who breaks the news to his fans as opposed to the media. While it is fair to assume that had Tiger Woods announced that he was leaving his wife and new born a few months back his reputation would take a hit, it would certainly not be as bad as things have become for him as of late. However, there are still things that can be done to protect the brand of Tiger Woods brand – but this is an issue for a different post…

 
 

 

45% of Employers are Using Social Networks to Screen Job Candidates

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. Two thousand six hundred sixty seven managers and human resource employees took part in the survey and were asked whether the information they found on social networks regarding the candidate had an affect on their decision. More than a third of the participants said that what they had found on social networks influenced their decision to pass on a candidate.

The websites employers were searching through included facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Myspace and the number one factor that deterred employees was provocative photos followed by references of alcohol and drug use. Other negative elements potential employers were looking for were bad mouthing of previous employers and poor online communication skills. Employers do realize that people lead private lives. At the same time, they also prefer to hire people who are responsible enough in order to maintain a somewhat professional online reputation. Being careless at managing your own image online does not portray a job applicant as someone who would improve the image of his or her employer. 

  What can people do to maintain a positive online reputation?

1. Create top positive search engines results that you can control. LookupPage allows professionals to create a positive result that ranks high on major search engines and includes additional information regarding the job applicant as well as provide links to reports, images and recommendation letters. Other forms of content that can project positively on a potential candidate include blogging or twitting about a topic that has to do with the position one is trying to obtain.
2. Keep private profiles private. Social networks (including Twitter) offer various privacy settings that allow users to be visible only to friends and family who obtained the approval of the user.
3. Consider who your Facebook friends are. Facebook is a great tool to keep in touch with friends and loved ones. Adding people from your office as your friends on facebook means they can have access to most of your conduct on the social network. This has often backfired when people forgot their boss is also their facebook friend.
4. Keep track of your Google image CV. Removing negative images from search results is a tedious task but is often well worth the effort.

Who Needs Online Reputation Management? Paula Deen Knows

A few days ago an unfortunate incident brought unwanted attention to Paula Deen. While trying to do her bit for humanity by volunteering for the pre-Thanksgiving ‘Hosea Feed the Hungry’ food drive in Atlanta, she was hit in the face by a piece of ham that was being tossed for loading (see the below video). She was certainly taken aback, but took it in good spirits, even managing to make a few jokes along the way.

    

Unfortunately, there followed several derogatory reports, most containing more un-pleasantries than necessary. Not only was a video posted online, but this scenario prompted some literary geniuses to post comments such as; “When pigs fly....they land on Paula Deen's face!” and “Paula Deen gets hit in the face with a rogue ham”. A bit cruel for someone who is volunteering time to feed the hungry. 

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

Paula is a celebrity chef who may or may not care about what is being said about her on the internet. However, her name is a brand, and the internet has the ability to influence the opinions of the general public, one way or another. As that famous expression goes; ‘the word is more powerful than the sword’ and once comments have been written and “posted’, forever will they stay in cyberspace. Can you gain control over the results page of major search engines? Can you control what is being said about you or your business online?  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!

Personal Branding Tips: How To Rank On Google’s First Page With A Common Name

Web visibility is an issue that has become increasingly important with the growth of internet access both in developing countries and in the western world. More people are online than ever before and more businesses are counting on the web to generate sales of products and services. 

Ranking on the first results page of major search engines in recent years has become harder to achieve as there are simply more businesses and professionals competing to rank for specific key terms. People who have a common name such as “John Smith” may find it very difficult to rank on the first and second page of Google even if the content that they are providing is informative and relevant. This is because there is a lot of content out there that includes the name “John Smith” as well as every other common name. 

If a professional, i.e. a lawyer or accountant wants to rank for a common name, it is often a good idea to bid for search engine marketing (SEM) results at the top of the page. The cost that each click would be  considerably lower than key terms such as “mortgage “or “wedding ring” and yet the fact that the name, title and specialties would be listed on the first page of Google could lead to solid conversions as a lot of people will search your name online before meeting you. 

Another option is to focus on more specific search terms which include your middle name or your profession. For example, “John A. Smith”  or “John Smith Lawyer”. Obviously, the more specific the search term, the more targeted traffic you will receive. The down side would be that some traffic could get lost along the way. 

If you have a common name, and don’t know much about SEM, LookupPage,may be the solution for you.Check out the LookupPage products page for more information.

Celebrity Twitter Of The Month – Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is one of the most influential women in the world. She is an Oscar nominated actress, magazine publisher and most of all she is known for her immensely successful self titled talk show which has become the highest rated television show of its kind in history. 

It may seem strange that a talk show host who is on the air for an hour a day, 5 times a week still wants to interact on a regular basis with her Twitter followers, but it actually makes sense. Oprah’s use of Twitter is not a replacement for the messages of self-improvement and advocacy of literature that she engages in on television but an addition to it. 

Because of the tremendous growth in popularity of the micro blog, other celebrities and talk show hosts have started using Twitter as well. Creating this interaction and involvement with the audience is smart marketing of a brand. The fact that Oprah has a daily TV show and puts out a magazine, does not allow her the informal direct contact she has with her followers on twitter. 

Using Twitter, Oprah was able to reach out to her audience and remind them she has nothing to do with Acai Berry diets that email marketers have been linking her name to as of late. She also Tweets about her daily activities, some of which are clearly promoting the sales of her magazine and the viewership of her show.

Oprah is such a popular entertainer that people are following her on twitter for the small personal comments she makes. If it so happens that she engages in self-promotion in some of those tweets it must be ok with her followers, otherwise it would be impossible to explain how she is being followed on Twitter by more than 2.3 million people. 

LookupPage is on Twitter as well. We tweet on issues regarding online branding, reputation management and social media, follow us today! 

Personal Branding Tips – Ego Search Your Name

The act of Googling yourself used to be referred to as a vanity check. It turns out that it is not as vain as people may think. Many of us count entirely on the web in order to generate business. So it becomes imperative to constantly monitor what is being said about you and your business online. Many people create online alerts for themselves so that they would get an email every time a Google ‘Bot’ runs across their name online, others choose to Google themselves and see what comes up within their Google CV.

If you feel that a simple Google check for your name or for your business does not yield the results you want, there are a number of ways to improve your online visibility significantly.

1. Create a LookupPage - A LookupPage can be an excellent online reference that would list your qualifications, specialties and background information. Superb search engine knowledge allow LookupPage to guarantee to its Professional subscribers first page visibility on Google.  

2. Become a member of a social network. Search engines give Facebook more respect than they would admit to. The fact that people on Facebook usually use their own name and upload content such as photos onto the network, creates a valid source of information for search engines to dig through. 

3 .Start twitting! -  Twitter gets a lot of credit from search engines right now. A person who actively tweets and follows other users on the service will most likely generate a Google result for his or her twitter page.  

Best Personal Branding Blogs Part 1 - Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Blog

Its no wonder Dan Schawbel's personal branding blog comes up in every search that has to do with personal branding, He is BusinessWeek’s youngest columnist at 25 years old and the best selling author of “ Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success”.

Currently a social media specialist for EMC and a syndicated columnist for Metro US, Schawbel is perceived as an authority by academic institutions such as MIT and Harvard as both had invited him to speak in front of their students and faculty. The business community recognizes Schawbel’s talent as well; The New York Times called him a “personal branding guru”.

Why do we like his blog?

Dan has a bunch of personal branding experts weigh in, as regular contributors on different days of the week. Recently, the blog featured an extensive article titled “personal brand and word of mouth” by Maria Duron that we feel should not be missed.Dan’s interviews with industry leaders in the field of social media and pop culture are rightfully getting significant coverage in the world of Online Branding.

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.

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.

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.

''Personal Branding" Search Up Significantly In 2009

With decision makers' looking up potential employees and business partners online as a standard practice, the significance of what a search query returns for a brand has increased through the years.

According to Google Trends more people are searching for the term "personal branding" than ever before. The rise is not only in search volume for the term but also in the amount of news references for "personal branding "online.

As a result of increased availability of the Internet in developing countries and the decline in the technology gap, more people and businesses are online. The internet has the capability of sparking a business relationship between companies that don't necessarily even speak the same language. This increases the importance of what each company will find online about the other.

Personal branding is an integral part of having an online presence; businesses are taking actions in order to establish both their online identity and brand. Searching these terms online is the first step.