My name is Zafar Ahmed, I am an SEO based in Pakistan

Let me start by describing ORM (Online Reputation Management)

According Wikipedia:

“Online Reputation Management is a set of methods for generating a distinguished presence of a person on the Internet. That presence could be reflected in any kind of content that refers to the person, including news, participation in blogs and forums, personal web sites, social media presence, pictures, video, etc”

Let’s suppose you just closed a deal on the phone with a customer and he is ready to place his for the most expensive package that you sell.

Now Imagine, there is a negative review on your company by one of your unhappy client or your competitor has posted just to taint your company name, it is even worse if it is on first page of Search Engines by a search on your company name, Imagine your client reads the negative review , do you think the client will feel secure to place his order with you now? Chances are less.

Do a search on your company name or your personal name, what result do you see? If you are seeing negative result on the first page, your customers are seeing them as well.

What to do if you have negative results when someone does a search on your company name?

Here are few steps:

1-Obviously, treat your customers fairly, provide good customer service. If you fail to do so, one of the customer might turn out to be a blogger and would blog negative about your company which will damage your credibility. You should contact the blogger personally, make him happy and request him to remove it.

2-Write press releases and publish them on every PR website. Use your company name and the keyword in the release for which the negative review is ranked. Press releases can slide down the searches.

3-Create profiles on other websites, online profiles are good as long as they are search engine friendly, use your company name as your profile name. Here is a link of these profiles:

•Flickr profile
•LinkedIn profile
•MySpace profile and blog
•Friendster profile
•Yahoo profile
•Yahoo 360 page
•Technorati profile
•Bloglines blog
•43 Things page
•Typekey profile
•GooglePages page
•Blinklist page
•Blogger blog
•LiveJournal page
•Geocities page
•Fortunecity page
•Tripod page
•AOL Hometown page

4-Register on different online forums and contribute as much as you can, make sure whatever you contribute is worth reading is a good quality post. Forum profiles get index really fast in Google.

These were few tips that can help your business to fight against these negative comments/review or blog posts, just be careful whatever you do online, remember this is Internet and Search Engines like Google can index everything you say or said about you online.

Remember this quote by Benjamin Frankin:

“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it”

Regards,
Zafar Ahmed

I don’t know why people still think Meta Keyword is as important as it was back in the 1998 and 2000. Remember, I am talking for Google.

If it was only meta tags, there wouldn’t be any SEO , it is the unique content and proper keyword usage in the content that matters and proper SEO techniques, meta tag is one of Google’s factor, however, they don’t carry weight when it comes to getting better ranking.

The true meaning of meta tag is “it helps search engines discover what your website is all about, it does not gives you ranking”. Some people is taking it different, and spamming the keyword in the meta.Hence, Google gives less importance to this tag.

More over, for Google, meta description plays a good role since it gives your website a proper description snippet in the search. However if your website is listed in DMOZ, you can always use the “NOODP” tag to have your own description.

I am not saying or never did to exclude meta tags from your website, do not make this your important factor and base your SEO on this.

Thank you!

Link Building can be a tough job, sometimes frustrating, whether they are one way links or reciprocal. Yet this is something which cannot be ignored totally, link building is the core of SEO, it is the card to higher ranking.

Is link building still very important for rankings?

Links are still the basic connector, and the only way for google to judge the websites importance. Much has been changed in Google’s algorithm, links which are non relevant are being devalued by google and putting much emphasis on trusted and relevant links, these are identified by “domain age” and ect.

This post will teach you few tips and strategies that can help you manage your link building campaign and achieve high PR links and relevant.

Reciprocal Links:

Reciprocal links are still a good way. However, do not make this your habit and make it as majority of your backlinks.

Links Age:

The age of your backlinks is important, go for permanent links and if you are renting, rent for as long as possible.

Free Links:

1. You will find CraigList to be cheap and free classified services.
2. It is good to answer to peoples’ question and provide a good resourceful link.
3. Submit stories to Digg.com and link it to an article to your site.

4. If you update your content regularly, people will syndicate your RSS content, some of these will provide links.

5. And the last one, forums signatures, yes. Forum signatures are known to be one of the free and best free links that you can get. However, make sure your posts are worth reading and based on quality.

Blog

Stat a blog on your website, update the blog, quality blog posts is what gets you the links.
Comment on other blogs, few blogs are no follow and they are not good from an SEO point of view. However, if your comment is useful, they can provide direct traffic.
And Do not forget to list your blog in blog director

Paid Blogging ( Reviews )

Blog review is when advertiser pays you to write a review on their business and services and posting on your blog with links to their website.
Through this, you won’t get a link only but this will have the people read about your business and get to know what your business is all about.

Testimonials:

This is a new way to create backlinks. For example, if you have a web host, designer or even an SEO, write a positive testimonial to them and send it to them, they would love to publish it and put a link to your website.

Did you find this post helpful? I’d appreciate a link back to it, also – feel free to comment below if you have a question or anything interesting to share.