What’s YOUR reputation ?

Do you know what people find when they search the web for your business name, or type of product or service ? Are there any comments, reviews, feedback, discussions, insults being published ? If you think people will ignore or treat lightly what they read online about you, think twice, because stats prove you wrong. Read on to understand how you can monitor what is currently being said about you.

First, you have to understand that what is “out there” on the net can be comments left on a blog, a forum, an online review site (like Yelp, Insiderpages, RateMDS, … among others), your Google + Local page / listing (Yes, if you are a local business with an official name and address, you most certainly do have a google + local page where people can leave reviews about you), an industry or local directory or your website. Of course, it could also be in emails, but this is another matter…

Second, the sheer number of people who use the internet to search for a service or product is capital: over 90% according to most current statistics*. So ignoring your online reputation will be like giving the driver seat of your car to strangers, or worst, most likely people unsatisfied by your service.

How to monitor or find out what is being said ? Simply follow this step by step instruction for a first glimpse into your online reputation:

1. go to google.com and type in “[your name or business name]” replacing […] content with your name or business name, but do make sure to use the quotation marks; review the first 2 pages of results.
2. still in google, type in “[product or service name]”, and again, making sure to customize what is inside the [] to make it relevant to your business
3. in google, type in “[product or service name location]” replacing location with your city or region; you can also do the same search with the nearest biggest city if you are located off a major city.
4. you can set up google alerts to get notified of any mentioning of your personal or business name on a continuing basis. However, you should understand this will only monitor some discussions about you, as most people leaving a review on a review site or your Google + Local listing will not necessarily mention your name as they are already on your business page listing.

OR you can also choose to make it easier and get a full checkup about your business’ online reputation by generating a free report with our software: simply visit http://yourreport.reputationalchemy.com to start. It takes only a couple of minutes to generate the report.