We’ve all done things in our lives we regret. Unfortunately, in today’s day and age, those things are often found on the internet, available to potential employers, schools and any other person who enters our life.  So can you protect your online reputation by having those pages removed from Google’s index?

Unfortunately, it is not as easy as you would hope for.  Google clearly states on their website that they do not own the internet. This means that in order to get the pages off of Google’s search results, the website that houses the undesirable information must be changed.  Your only hope of getting a change is to approach the webmaster of the offending site to request removal of the page or at least request they block the page from Google’s indexing.  Google’s response if you approach them first is a polite, but firm, “We are sorry, but we can’t do anything without action by the webmaster.”

Your only hope is if the information falls into one of the categories that Google is prepared to deal with.  They include:

·         Social security or credit information in results

·         Adult content in results, when SafeSearch has been turned on

·         Inappropriate images in video results

Beyond these points, you are pretty much on your own.  Once you understand that Google has no control over what is posted to the internet, it does seem to make a bit more sense.  Google’s job is to tell you what is out there, not to police what is already posted to the Web.

So what is the best way to protect yourself?  Be on your best behavior to keep your reputation intact, and well, if that doen’t work for you… than you’re in good company.  If you do have to approach someone to get a page removed, make nice and hope for the best.   If that does not work, just make sure you have lots of good stuff to make up for being less than perfect.  After all, nobodys perfect J  .

No one wants to see or hear a negative comment about their business. When you first read a negative blog post, you are likely to get a sinking feeling in your stomach. However, a negative blog post doesn’t have to mean impending doom. Instead of dreading seeing your company’s name, take this as an opportunity to spin a negative into a positive.
When a blogger mentions your business consider it an open invitation to respond. If a blogger criticizes a promotion you are running or pans your business based on their experience, it is your opportunity to craft a well thought out response.
You have every right to explain yourself. Address the specific issue raised in the blog; explain what your business is all about or the structure of your promotion in question. Be sure to take the high road and always be professional. Personal attacks are never appropriate; even if you were attacked first.
Opening a dialog with a blogger gives you the opportunity to provide an explanation, to correct misinformation and address misunderstandings. With a well thought out and timely response, showing your thought process and professionalism is likely to enhance your image.
Don’t forget that the blogger’s posting and your response is going to be viewed by all of the blog’s readers. Accuracy is a must. On a side note, a quick “Thank you for the kind words” post to a positive blog comment is always appreciated.

Integrating Telephone Leads and Live Chat for Increased Results

Get more from your marketing budget and increase ROI by combining the power of Google Analytics with telephone tracking and live chat interactions. Each of these powerful marketing tools, when combined with Google Analytics, can provide you with better results and more information about your customers.

Telephone Leads and Google Analytics

Combining telephone calls and Google Analytics allows you to track each phone call made by your customers to your company resulting in new valuable information about you customers. All of this is easily accomplished when you work with a company like Mongoose Metrics. Purchasing bulk toll free numbers from Mongoose Metrics, allows you to use unique phone numbers for individual marketing campaigns or product lines at a very reasonable price. By assigning each number to a hidden web page on your site including the Google Analytics tracking code, each phone call will trigger a visit to the hidden web page. This will then trigger Google Analytics to register the phone call as an event in its tracking system. By combining the numbers being tracked with your account in Google Analytics, you can see results including the phone number called, duration and date of the call. All of this information can help you to refine your marketing and increase ROI.

Live Chat and Google Analytics

Having the capability to chat with your customers while they are on your website is invaluable. Aside from the personal touch this provide, it allows you to get a better handle on what is working or not working on your site, with your marketing and how your customers are responding to your company. Using the services of a company like LivePerson, allows you this real time interaction. Combining LivePerson’s services with Google Analytics gets you a wealth of knowledge not before available. Some of the information available to you includes:

* volume and quality of live chats by geographic area
* the source and keywords that lead to the chat
* navigation paths that drive chats

The more you know about your clients the more successful you will be. By garnering this type of detailed information from telephone and live chat interactions, you will be able to modify your future messages and increase ROI.

To get the best results from local SEO searches, a few simple steps can make a world of difference.  Follow these quick tips and you should see improved results in your local SEO searches.

First, spend some time researching the local link groups of the sites you are in competition with.  Finding out which local link groups the competition is using will give you an idea of what you are up against.  If you can get your web site attached to these same local link groups, you will make huge strides in catching up to the competition.  While you are working on this part of the project, you could make Hubpages or Squidoo pages to enhance your results.  The objective here is to simply group together sites that are normally together and add your website into the mix.

Another way to improve your local SEO search results is to focus on address citations.  For this step you want work on getting your business name, business address, business phone and business website with as many references as possible.  If you have access to HTML code, it is helpful to bracket your business address like this:

    * [address]
    * [/address]

Remember that each time your website gets a citation on another reputable website, search engines look at this in a positive light.  The more citations you get in your geo-location, the better your SEO ranking.

Finally, combining the authority and anchor text will help to give you a final boost in rankings.  Both anchor text and site authority are valuable factors in raising your ranking.  By combining the individual strengths of anchor text and site authority, you will be more likely to win the ranking in a close race.