How to gain online reputation
You work online, start earning your first money, want to progress - sooner or later you realize that you need contacts in the online world in your particular niche otherwise you exist in some kind of vacuum.
As a sample I will talk about search marketing industry in this post. If we talk about Internet search marketing there are names that everybody knows: Jim Boykin, Aaron Wall, Rand Fishkin, Bill Slawski, etc. And there are names that are unfamiliar to the industry players. In fact, there are two great lists of the top industry experts that were recently posted on Rand Fishkin and Barry Schwartz’s blogs.
It would be great to see your name and blog on that list. Of course, there is an alternative way – the lists are not exhaustive and there are hundreds of other talented Internet search marketers. You can build ‘your own circle’. But before you know their names and they know yours it is a good idea to target best.
To begin with, read what reputation and image are to know what the target is.
The question is what it takes to get to that list?
- to start with, display your name and contact details at the website
- become an expert. You should be an expert in your industry and prove your status all the time (in your blog, online communities, conferences, projects you run, etc)
- generate unique ideas and some buzz. When you are a newbie you copy best experts in your niche. If you would like to join the expert list with time you need generate your own ideas. Good ones.
- time. It obviously takes time to become an expert and to let others know that you are one
- testimonials. Show customers happy with your services and products.
Probably, you will not get to the top list even if you follow the above guidelines. But you are likely to get contacts with other persons in your niche who are less known – by this you will achieve your target to find great people to communicate and build relations with in your niche.
Once you gain some reputation online (preferably, positive) you need to monitor and influence it. How to do that? The best way I know – make use of this Online reputation monitoring beginners guide where it is explained what and how to track. It is hard to gain a good online reputation, but it is easy to ruin it – a few forum posts and blog entries more than enough – take care of monitoring your hard earned reputation.
Summary: This post is about online reputation in search marketing – it is a sample. In general it applies to any industry online.
It is not easy to combine all aspects of your online work: you need to run your own website, regularly update it; you need to market and promote it; in addition you need find time to develop your online reputation. But it is a fact of life that these three components are a must if you would like to succeed online.
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