Simplified Reputation Management Content Diagram

We are often asked the question 'can I do online reputation management myself'? The answer is of course yes, with a caveat. If the problem is simple, or there is no actual problem, and if the key phrase is not very competitive (like a rare name), then it's relatively easy to do. Below is a diagram illustrating a simple content and linking scheme that often works well for reputation management. It's a miniature of what we often execute here at Internet Reputation Management.

The diagram above is an example of a simple reputation management structure. There are a few pieces to pay attention to.

Controlled Content

Controlled content (Completely Owned Website) is content that is absolutely controlled. Examples are websites and blogs because not only is hosting controlled, but the structure and content of the site as well. This type of web property can be endlessly tweaked, added to, and restructured for maximum reputation optimization.

3rd Party Controlled Site

A 3rd party website is a website that is controlled quite minimally, or not at all. Examples are websites that link into controlled websites. Sites like Delicious.com, press release sites, and third-party bloggers are examples. There is certainly gray area of control between an uncontrolled 3rd party site and a controlled 3rd party site. A press release's content can be controlled, so can a blog post if you know the blogger or have a commercial arrangement, but usually not to a great degree.

Controlled 3rd Party Site

A Controlled 3rd Party site is a site like keyphrase.wordpress.com or keyphrase.blogspot.com, LinkedIn and others. We categorize these as controlled because the Title tag of the page, as well as the content of the page and (to a greater or lesser degree) outgoing links can be controlled. Examples are Facebook.com, blog posts that are totally controlled (usually because of a commercial relationship), and YouTube. We include YouTube because the title of the page can be controlled as can most of the content and of course the videos.

Social Media Dashboard

Social media dashboards save you time. A social media dashboard enables a user to have a single web page open that posts content to multiple websites. A good example we use here is HootSuite.com. We also recommend connecting HootSuite to Ping.fm. This enables users to reach more social media sites by 'daisy-chaining' the sites. HootSuite controls certain aspects of Ping.fm, Ping.fm controls social media sites HootSuite doesn't.

Links

Note that linkages occur between various types of web properties. Note also that this is not a link farm. A link farm is a collection of sites that all link to each other. Generally speaking, link farms are bad. Instead, we build real sites and real content destinations with real content. They are not linked to each other in a large way, though there is a small amount of inter-linking in a natural way. For example, the LinkedIn profile may have a Twitter feed coming into it. A controlled website may have a link out to the Facebook profile or page.

Notable Exclusions

We do not recommend using directory listings. They carry virtually no Google juice. Not also that social bookmarks are not heavily used.

Summary

The online reputation management diagram above is simplified. In reality, over 100 websites are commonly utilized in a campaign. Among these are various social media platforms, third-party bloggers, text link ads, widely distributed press releases using multiple vendors and of course excellent content. From a cost perspective, content is one of the biggest expenses, but after the recent Panda / Farmer update by Google, well worth it.