Reputation is KEY!

Grow Your Reputation!

As small business owners, especially those just starting out, we look to build our relationships. The relationships we want to grow are not only with our clients, but with potential clients, and with other business owners and network groups.

How to start working on your reputation Management?

  

      First Step: 

            Research yourself! Search your business name in the top search engines. Conduct an analysis on the results you find. What are consumers saying about you as the business owner and/or your products or service?

a.       Based on the findings you will know where you stand. Note: you may not have any results come up because you are brand new. This is actually not a bad thing because you have a clean slate to work with and can set yourself up for great success.

           Second Step:

      Create a plan! Decide if you are going to focus your outreach on a local market, regional market, or national market. Who is your target audience? What is the demographic? Do you have a specific gender, age group, income level, or perhaps business sector you are trying to reach? If so, you may want to consider geographic-targeting or content-targeting.

a.       Geographic-targeting (geo-targeting) allows you to focus on specific geographic areas even down to the zip codes.

b.      Content-targeting allows you to focus on specific content that people search by keyword or by website, by topic, or by phrase.

c.       Note: you can use these methods of practice via GoogleAd Words, Facebook Adwords, Display Ads, Search Engine Optimization, Content Strategy, Banner Ads, Video Advertising, and even traditional radio/print/television will allow for such specific outreach.
d. Add video to your website - then add the video to Youtube which is owned by Google. This can influence the positioning and ranking of your business on search engines because of the content (a smart investment)! 

3      Third Step:    

      Organize a budget! Come up with a budget that will work over a 3month – 6month period at the minimum in order to start seeing results. You should not expect to create a plan for one or two months. You need time to grow your content and let people start to know who you are.

          Fourth Step:     

           Measure your success! Keep track of what is working, what isn’t and what needs editing. Make changes as you go along. You can edit your keywords, your display ads, and your campaigns. If one campaign is performing much better than another, perhaps you may want to invest more money in that campaign. 

Fifth Step:

            Be Innovative! Never give up. Always strive for better. Continue to connect.

One more thing…

Just in case you checked out your business and you realized you may have some negative reviews or your information isn’t listed accurately:

*I can help you with that! Visit TrendSetter Communications and send and email!
Your Google+ Local listing is VERY IMPORTANT along with the other top 35 directories such as Mapquest, Yahoo Local, Bing Local, YellowPages, Yelp, etc.

You will want to make sure the information on those directories is accurate so that folks can reach you, visit your website, find out about updates, services, coupons, and most of all: YOUR BUSINESS!

Stay tuned for the next blog on how to fix inaccurate data!