Consulting Business 101: How To Manage Your Online Reputation

Having a home office is the biggest advantage of launching a consulting business.

Photo Courtesy of: Flickr

You don’t have to worry for monthly rental, maintenance costs and gas bills. All your basic transactions are done online.

From setting up a site, hiring employees, finding leads, nurturing clients to receiving payments, you can manage all these activities with a computer with a fast-speed Internet connection at home.

Don’t get it wrong. An online consulting business isn’t a fantasy paradise.

It isn’t a business that will make you rich overnight. Consulting requires consistency.

Nothing will happen if you fail to consistently market yourself. The online world must see you.

To keep the ball rolling forward, your long-term goal is to manage your reputation around the Internet landscape every day.

Below are some of the tips to enhance your online reputation 24/7:

1) Your reputation is your brand.

It speaks highly about you, your products and your services. That’s why; you need to carefully choose the people who will work for you.

It takes time to hire the right people for the right position. You’ll look for a team of virtual assistants who understand and perform the following:

• Building a site
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Blogging
• Email Marketing
• Social Media Marketing (SMM)
• Web Analytics
• Affiliate Marketing
• Display Advertising
• Mobile Marketing

Apart from the above mentioned, your #1 aim is to train these virtual assistants to think outside the box.

You make them realize that they work for you not only for money but also to represent your name.

Keep in mind: Hire for attitude, Train for skill

2) Master the art and science of English.

English is the universal language. As an online consultant, you communicate with your employees and clients through email, project management tool (Wrike, Trello, etc.) and Skype.

The style of communication in each platform varies. Sometimes, a research proposal is best discussed in detail through email than in BaseCamp.

It’s mainly up to you which is convenient and affordable to use. Most important thing is, you send the message in a concise and friendly manner.

The disadvantage of online communication is people might immediately misinterpret you if you use slang terms. They might get uncomfortable if they read your message in caps.

Worst case is, they will never trust your intention if you write with wrong spellings, wrong punctuation and wrong grammar.

English is a cerebral language. It has rules and patterns. Below are the tips you can follow to improve your oral and written skills:

• Speak concisely.
• Listen attentively.
• Talk to express an idea.
• Never use big words.
• Use short sentences.
• Keep a paragraph short.
• Observe proper punctuation.
• Observe correct grammar.
• Be professional in tone.
• Edit, edit, edit.

Talking and writing in English fluently improve your reputation, online and offline.

3) Participate in social media.

Facebook. Twitter. YouTube. LinkedIn. etc. These social networking websites are all the same but function differently.

Your social media world plays as a shadow to your offline world. For example, if you consider yourself an extrovert, your Facebook profile might receive hundreds of likes, comments and shares.

People will remember you as either their friend, enemy, office pal or classmate. You can’t please all of them but you can certainly earn their trust and respect using one of the sites mentioned above.

The following are a number of tips you can use to rev up your social media reputation.

• Separate personal from business accounts.
• Update your Facebook profile frequently.
• Update your Facebook business page every day.
• Get many likes as you can.
• Study your Facebook page analytics.
• Join the conversation in Facebook Groups.
• Tweet naturally and concisely.
• Tweet with a photo and a link to your site.
• Reach out to your Twitter friends.
• Learn to use hashtags.
• Update your YouTube Channel twice a week.
• Upload instructional and promotional HQ videos.
• Share these videos to your Facebook and Twitter friends.
• Update your LinkedIn business profile.
• Participate in Linkedin business groups.
• Connect with the influencers.

4) Buy a trusted tracking tool.

It takes a lot of time to search the web for mentions, reviews and citations. Even a simple and free Google Alert isn’t enough.

That’s why; use an automated tracking tool to save time and effort.

Angela Stringfellow is the Chief Ideation Officer of American Express Open Forum. In an article she wrote in October 2013, she enumerated the six recommended tools here.

It’s also a smart idea to look for a number of special features such as:

• Thorough filter of good from bad reviews
• Automated posting of good reviews in social media
• Comprehensive analytics

5) Participate in business forum.

There are hundreds of forums online. It seems impossible to actively participate in all; therefore, better choose two of the many.

Register to a forum that allows a link signature to your site. This way, you’ll get more attention (and clicks) as this link appears in all your threads.

Just be extra careful. Make sure you provide answers that are realistic and doable. Answers that don’t make sense are forbidden. Forum owners will ban you.

6) Design your website.

Your website is your shopping mall. Its goal is to attract different users and visitors.

It requires technical expertise to create a functional site. It needs to have the pages that provide the right information.

For this reason, work closely with your developer. Let him or her understand your vision, mission, goals and the following technicalities:

• Web brand logo
• Domain name
• Font design
• Font sizes
• Brand colors
• Number of columns
• Placement of boxes
• Installed plugins
• Analytics
• Homepage design

The content you put in the site reveals your personality. Therefore, carefully plan what you want and create a timetable when to post it.

It’s helpful to vary the content. A good combination of written, audio and visual contents always attract new visitors to return for more.

7) Go offline.

Managing your reputation online is never enough. Whenever you can, make it a habit to encourage your leads and customers to attend seminars and workshops. This way, they will have the chance to meet you and shake your hand. They can even take pictures too.

Always remember: Healthy offline reputation results to healthier online reputation.

*****

Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

Mastering Local SEO (Part 9) Be Social

Be aware your website is your shopping mall. Your main responsibility is to convince people from public and private parks (your social media channels) to visit your mall every day. This mission is accomplished if and only if you:

1. Choose the right social media sites to register.

2. Actively and manually update your profiles. By actively, it means every day or four times daily depending on what site you’re using. More on that later…

3. Make sure uploaded contents (photo, video, infographic and slide presentation) either contain a link to your site or a call-to-action such as phone number.

Photo Courtesy of: Pinterest

Social media, by definition, refers to any social channels where you can reach out to your existing and new customers. It might be a social media networking, social bookmarking, review platform, photo-sharing, video-sharing, social forum, content curation and question-and-answer.

Successful social media adds an extra layer of increased awareness and solid promotion to your local SEO campaign.

The biggest problem with social media, however, is not all sites are created equal. Each social channel is unique. It works differently than the other. For example, Facebook and Twitter are both social networking sites but there’s a need for you to vary the techniques to attract more attention.

The Truth about Google

You can’t go wrong with Google. It only requires you to create one e-mail address to use its other free services, which are vital to your local search engine optimization campaign.

Remember: As the major search engine, Google holds 67.6% of the US market shares (Search Engine Watch, May 2014).

Therefore, don’t waste time. Open an account now and learn how to use Google+, Google+ Local, Hangout, AdWords and YouTube.

The Truth about Facebook

Moz believes Facebook builds brand loyalty. The site allows you to convert your friends into potential customers.

Just think about it. With one account, you can create a personal profile, a local business page (with free analytics) and a group.

Paid promotion works well in Facebook. You can expect more likes, more comments, more shares and more unique visits to your website.

The Truth about Twitter

Google and Facebook are your business partners. With consistency on your part, both of them will work hard to improve your local search result ranking.

Twitter, on the other hand, works differently. It serves as your handy communication tool to listen and talk with people – family, friends, followers, potential customers.

Apart from networking, Twitter is also ideal for bookmarking a blog post, curating a content relevant to your business and requesting a mention from top influencers.

The Truth about Linkedin

Linkedin serves as your online resume. People want to see your professional profile to know who you are, what your current and past accomplishments and what other people say about you.

The Truth about Photo-sharing

Online marketing is 80% visual. People will believe what they read about you if it’s supported with photos, which are uploaded in your social channels.

To improve your reach, find a way to include Pinterest and Flickr in your campaign.

The Truth about Content Curation

Think content curation as a way of distributing free booklets to a group of people. Your goal is to educate them rather than promote your business.

These people will remember you if they consistently receive worth-reading contents. They will either follow your tweets or add you as their friend in Facebook.

The Truth about Question-and-Answer

Answering questions in Quora and Yahoo! Answers will improve your reputation. You’ll become an authority figure and who knows, people might also want to visit your website, if its link appears in your signature.

Mastering Local SEO (Part 7) More Reviews

Reviews reveals your online reputation

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Your reputation improves when a review praises your products, services and customer help desk. Unluckily, your reputation spirals down when your review profile is filled with inaccurate criticisms and false accusations.

It hurts, yes. However, there’s something you can do. Remember: your business is your empire; therefore, you need to learn how to manage these reviews effectively. Listed below are some of the tips and techniques:

1. Respond to reviews, either it’s positive or negative. Reviews don’t define the overall face of your business. These are simply comments, suggestions and feedback written by people – who are your repeat customers, first time customer or competitors. For this reason, make it your daily habit to reply to each review. Either write a simple “Thank you” to positive feedback or send a personal message to those who have commented negatively.

To save time, take time to study your analytics in each channel. This technique will reveal what review channels constantly receive active reviews. You can either use one review channel daily or use a different channel each day. For example, Yelp during Mondays, Google+ Local during Tuesdays, Yahoo Local during Wednesdays, Facebook during Thursdays etc.

2. Your response defines your reputation. A business isn’t a business without negative reviews. It comes and doesn’t go. In fact, a study reveals more customers will write negative feedback than positive.

That’s why; it’s best to handle it with class and confidence. Think and control what you feel before you reply. When you answer back, don’t be too defensive to a point that you aren’t solving the problem.

3. Listen. All reviews are subjective. These are written in different tones, in different styles and in different approaches. Be patient with them. Try to research who wrote the review and what his or her intentions are.

Important: It’s best to delete an unpleasant feedback from a profile without a real name and contact details.

4. Positive reviewers can become your repeat buyers. It feels good to interact with positive people. Positive people also give negative reviews but they back it up with something helpful to you. They help you feel inspired despite of imperfections. It’s for this reason why it’s a best practice to ask if you can include their contact information in your mailing list. Your goal is to earn their trust more by sending useful freebies on a weekly basis.

5. Consider hiring a reputation management firm. Give this idea a green signal if you have the right budget. It does save your time. The firm also protects your reputation from Internet trolls, squatted usernames, false information, fake profiles and competitor attacks.

Mastering Local SEO (Part 6) The Reviews

The Truth about Reviews

Photo Courtesy of: Search Engine Land

People, nowadays, use smartphone to browse the Internet. They use the gadget to pay their bills, book an airline flight, rent a condo and purchase the latest product for their LEGO collection. For this reason, it’s a smart idea to put your business right in front of them rather than they look for you.

Question is how. Answer: Build your review channels.

The Benefits of Reviews

1. Search engines immediately recognize your local business once it’s registered and listed in quality review sites.

2. Your review channels will appear in the first page once your targeted customers search for your contact information.

3. These review sites serve as your extended area for social networking. It also provides a free blog and unlimited storage for your photos. Most importantly, your customers can rate and write a review about your products and services.

4. These review sites improve your online reputation. People will trust your company once it receives five-star ratings with positive reviews.

5. Negative reviews give your channel a shade of balance. Keep in mind, your customers still need to see and read them.

6. It’s easy to embed the review widget on your homepage and blog. This way, people can immediately read your reviews once they click on these widgets.

Do’s & Dont’s for Reviews

1. Before registration, be aware of the site’s guidelines. Read it, understand it and keep it in mind.

2. Make sure you only registered one account in each review site. Multiple accounts mean the site will ban you in their listing. Search engines will remove you in their index too.

3. All review channels need to have similar business name, address, phone number and website.

4. Verify your business information either by phone, email or by wait for the arrival of a postcard.

5. It’s helpful to see other review channels and get some great ideas. This will help you improve your channel.

How to Choose a Review Site

It isn’t recommended to register to all review sites and aim a higher rank in search engine. It isn’t a guarantee that if you’re going to put your business in these sites, people will come and call you.The business game doesn’t work that way. It’s still about why and how you’re going to invite people to your channel.

Remember: Reviews play a role in local SEO. It talks something about you.

Yes. It’s allowed to register to any review site as long as it provides an easy navigation for people. The site also needs to ignore illegal practices. Most importantly, the site is trusted and popular.

Simply choose the best five for your business such as Yelp, Google+ Local, Facebook page, Yahoo! Local and Amazon.

Realistic Expectations: Hiring the Best Reputation Management Firm

Choose Excellent Services

                                                             Photo Courtesy of: Flickr

Your reputation defines your brand. It acts as your wheels traveling through the detours and roadblocks of the business world. Due to inevitable left and right priorities, however; you can no longer monitor your online reputation.

It’s for this reason why you need to consider hiring a management firm like Leads Ahoy. The firm is expected to monitor and enhance your reputation to bring in more traffic, more prospects and more customers.

Before hiring, make sure the firm is listed in Better Business Bureau. It feels safer to select the best five companies if they’re BBB accredited. Accreditation means you can openly uncover their accomplishments.

A firm with inexpensive list of services isn’t always the right choice. The duties and responsibilities of a quality management firm includes but not limited to:

1. Updating your blog and social media. It’s an excellent idea to hire a management firm with advanced knowledge on search engine optimization. Blogging is an on-page optimization. It is a technique performed inside your website. The firm needs to assign a content manager to write, create and promote quality contents for you.

A healthy blog is updated daily. The content doesn’t need to be long as long as it follows the guidelines in search engine optimization.

Social media covers social networking, social bookmarking and social reviews. Your content manager needs to update your social channels daily. Social media immediately attracts attention if contains colorful photos supported by texts.

2. Monitor daily reviews. Choose a firm that can auto-track your business reviews and mentions 24/7. This way, it’s easier to filter the positive from negative reviews. Positive reviews will be posted in your social channels while the negative reviews will be sent back to you.

3. Reporting. The firm needs to submit monthly reports and suggested recommendations on time. For easy glance, the presentation of the report must give you a visual and written summary before the details of their daily activities.

Welcome to Leads Ahoy!

This is our new blog!

Leads Ahoy is your newest online business consultation firm. Hopefully, you and our team will have a great time sharing our thoughts and ideas about search engine optimization, reputation management, video marketing and lead generation. This blog will serve as your platform for communication. Tell us what you want and we’ll write it for you.

The Leads Ahoy Team