Protecting your reputation online should be a part of any good Internet marketing campaign. By controlling the first few pages of Google search results for your name and your firm’s name, you can be sure that the information that potential clients find about you is not only accurate, but that it also displays your practice and accomplishments in the best light.
At its core, online reputation management starts with the publication of pages on the Internet associated with your name. Be they websites, bio pages, syndicated articles, blogs, etc.; the more you publish in your name, the more likely you are to control multiple listings in searches. Some common tactics that legal Internet marketing specialists will use to gain control of those first few pages of results in Google are:
- Creating individual bio pages on your website for the lawyer(s) and firm name
- Publish and maintain a blog
- Reserving your name as a .com and .net
- Submitting profiles to free and paid lawyer directories
- Publishing articles to syndication sites in your name
- Create/maintain a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN, & Avvo account
Creating websites and profiles and publishing articles are only scratching the surface of the work that needs to be done for successful reputation management. It is important that these sites, profiles and pages are optimized properly. It is also important that the profiles, blogs and website have fresh content and are updated often, insuring that they maintain high visibility with search engine results.
A truly effective Internet marketing campaign that is geared towards increasing search engine visibility through SEO will naturally protect your reputation (to a degree). One of the benefits of consulting with a qualified Legal SEM company is that the marketing plan they create for you will account for reputation management naturally. Online Reputation management, especially in the social networking era of the Internet, is far too important a variable to left unaddressed.