Reputation Management Online

SEO Online Marketing

So often when a company is looking to hire somebody for the intenet to help with marketing they will hand it over as an IT issue rather than a marketing issue.  This is often because companies still don’t get and understand how the Internet can help or hinder a company.  When you talk about advertising in a newspaper they get what quarter of a page looks like, SEO on the other hand is very subtle and often not obvious.

So many times I’ve heard in the past people saying I am getting my cousin, brother, friend to do our website, or our graphics designer is building our new site and so on.  One thing runs true no matter whether we are talking about online or ofline business, Location, Location, Location.  If I ran a large department store, would I build it on some little housing estate on the outskirts of town, or would I build it in the the prime shopping areas where the footfall would be 1000′s of times greater.

So taking that same attitude, would you get someone who has never ran a successful website online to help you with your online marketing, build your website and ultimately control you reputation online?  I hope your answer would be no.

When do you start your online marketing?

Again one of the biggest mistakes is to wait until your product or business launch and wonder why nothing is coming through your website.  We like to plan at least 6 months ahead to get the ball rolling, work on our marketing strategies,  start our SEO campaign and build good quality content.  Don’t leave it till the day you open for business as you will be dissapointed.  Of course you can also use Adwords to get the ball rolling but rlying on just this form of marketing can be costly.

Make sure to leave a budget for your online marketing, I remember talking with a developer who had built 200 serviced apartments to rent out as holiday lets.  They had spent £30,000 on towels and allocated £1,000 for online marketing and website….  Need i say more.

SEO and Reputation Management has to be part of your marketing strategy, there is only 10 places available on the first page, make sure you are planning to take one of those spots.