And today’s media landscape makes it easier than ever for anyone to implement a reputation strategy that is proactive and preventative. Through blogs, social media, and more anyone who wants to get their name out in the world in a positive way has many avenues open to them. And being active online is s great way to prevent a future crisis.

Being actively engaged online gives you great advantages for your online reputation. For instance, the more you can get your name (or company name) mentioned, the more instances Google has to draw from when compiling a SERP for your name. And if there are more positive or neutral mentions of your name online than negative, then the SERPs will reflect that. Also, if you are actively engaged online, chances are you will be making friends and acquaintances across the world that can help you if a reputation management crisis should occur.

Being Actively Engaged

The benefits of being actively engaged online before a crisis occurs are apparent, but how do you start? How can you build a positive reputation right now?

1) Blogs

If you don’t have one already, get a blog and use it as a home base for information about yourself or your company. This is a great place to publish content about yourself as well as quality content that other online communities and individuals can access and link to. If you are regularly publishing quality content, your blog will gain regular readership and rankings in the SERPs, giving you a positive online reputation.

2) Social Media

Social media is another great way to prevent future attacks on your reputation. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ profiles all rank well in the search engines—especially if you have a high number of followers who regularly share your links and comments. This is key: if you are actively engaged online through social networks, you will naturally increase your rank for those profiles in the SERPs and prevent the invasion of negative information should it ever arise.

3) Forums and groups

Another place to be active online is through forums and groups. Online forums connected to your niche or area of expertise are a great way to be helpful and answer questions, raising your online profile and the chance that people will link to your blog, social profiles, and more. LinkedIn is an especially good place to form some great relationship through professional groups. These friendships and positive relationships can come in handy for promoting your content and boosting your online profile to guard against future attacks.

4) Conferences and Meetups

Online is great, but offline encounters can also help you build clout and a positive reputation online and off. The more people you encounter within your field, the better your chances of being mentioned online, trusted, and used as a resource. The result is that you’ll garner more attention for the positive things that you do, building a great online reputation before something negative comes along.

5) Be a Resource

Lastly, be a resource to people in your field. If you can create a website, social media account, or other online repository for great information, your online community will link to you and use you as a source around the web. And when that happens you’ll be sure to create a rock solid online reputation.

However, if you’re dealing with an online reputation management problem, sometimes it can feel like Google’s practices are unfair. If someone with high authority has written nasty things about you online, Google shoots it to the top of the results for your name—damaging your reputation and good image. But now Google has started to roll out a feature that can help you build some authority for you name on the web. It’s called “author rank,” and by implementing a few simple practices into the way you create and distribute content on the web, you can gain some great screen real estate in the SERPs.

What is Author Rank?

Google has now devised a way that you can link published content on the web to your personal profile. This creates two results. First, it means that your image will appear in the search results when someone searches for an article or other piece of content you’ve written on the web. Second, Google will be able to link ALL the content you create back to you, so you can start to build a solid reputation and some authority on the web. In fact, Google has said that when author rank signals are incorporated into your content, the amount and quality of that content will be used as a ranking factor for yourself and the websites that you spread content to.

In other words, the better online reputation you can build with author rank signals, the better your content will rank on the web. Then you can use your author authority to influence the rank of content around the web, bringing more positive results to the SERPs for your name and anyone associated with you.

How Do You Do it?

To start using author rank signals as part of your reputation management strategy, you need to implement a few pieces of code on your website and within the content you produce around the web

1) Get on Google+

If you’re web savvy and concerned about your online reputation you probably already have a profile, but, if not, create one now. Google can only track your authorship if they know where to find you on the web, and they’ve determined that Google+ will be where they can find you. Is it monopolistic? Sure. But that’s Google.

2) Create an author page

On your personal or company website, create an author page with a small blurb about yourself and a link back to your Google+ profile using rel=”me” or rel=”author” tags in the link. For example:

<a rel=”author” href=”https://plus.google.com/109637006071618937451/posts”>Your Name</a>

3) Link Your Posts to Your Author Page

If your blogging platform has an automatic author bio section added to your posts, make sure it links back to your profile page. Alternatively, you can manually link to your author page in every post. Also, when you author content for other sites, make sure you link back to your main author page, so that Google will recognize that the credit for the content goes to you.

Alternatively, on 3^rd party sites, you can use the rel=”author” tag with a direct link to your Google+ profile. But if Google is going to encourage you to link back to an author profile on your site, why not benefit from the link juice that those 3^rd party sites will create when you link back to your own site?

Improved Reputation Management

When you can successfully use the rel=”author” tags and show Google where you are publishing content on the web, you’ll benefit from increased rankings and an improved SERP—creating a better online reputation.

And it’s one of the reasons guest blogging can be used as an effective reputation management strategy. With guest blogging—blogging for others and hosting guest bloggers on your site—you get a chance to build links to your site and make friends around the web, boosting your profile and name, which will result in cleaner SERPs for you or the company you work for.

Blogging for Others

There are so many blogs out there looking for content, you won’t be able to count them. There is a huge demand for great content right now, and there are a large number of webmasters who are asking for great content. Most won’t pay, but that’s okay. You can ask for a link instead—which is better if your goal is to build a better online reputation.

Part of a good reputation management strategy is to get as many mentions of your name as possible on the web (preferably with links back to your core site or blog). When you guest blog, include a short bio at the end of your article with a link to whatever web property you are trying to send link juice to, like social profiles, your blogs, or online news article that mention your name/brand. The link juice will flow to those properties and help them rank better for your name.

Also, guest blogging allows you to use Google’s new rel=”author” tag and point it at your Google+ profile. Boosting the prominence of that particular social profile in the SERPs.

Others Blogging for You

Many webmasters are afraid of giving away links from their site. But this isn’t the old days of SEO; Google has evolved. In fact, a site that has a minimal number of links pointing out is suspicious to Google and might not rank as well as a site that freely links to other great resources and websites.

You can use resources like MyBlogGuest.com to find people who want to give you guest posts in exchange for a link. But don’t open the floodgates. Be particular about he kinds of posts you’ll accept, the quality of those posts, and the websites that they will link to.

When you publish a guest post on your blog, the author will either share the post through social networks or put a link to you on their site as well (or maybe both).  All around, those are great ways to build ranking signals to your site.

And with a number of guest posts, you will show Google that your site is active and regularly publishing fresh content.

Reputation Management

Of course, keep in mind your goal—a better online reputation. To that end, make sure you have an author bio on your page that points to your social profiles, so that the juice your are building goes exactly where it is supposed to go. It’s great if you start ranking for other terms as well, but remember to always stay focused on the SERP that you are trying to clean up or trying to shore up against future reputation attacks.

In the end, guest blogging (both inbound and outbound) is a great way to get more mentions of your name on the web and a fairly easy way to build links to your site in order to boost its rank in the SERPs and create a better reputation management strategy.

If you are a college student that means it’s very easy for people to find you online. Which can be extremely helpful if people need to contact you or if you’re doing some really great work and have a positive reputation that future employers and college recruiters can access. But having that much information about yourself available online can also be a bad thing if you have a history of angry blog posts, a portfolio of pictures of yourself drinking in Tijuana, or social media posts that brag about how easy it was to cheat on the last Biology test.

Today, more than ever, young people need to learn about and be aware of online reputation and how it can be managed to create a positive online reputation that can aid, rather than hurt, your chances of future success. So here are a few things for college students to keep in mind as they strive to keep their online reputation clean and presentable to the world.

1. Be social

Some young people may think that the first step in cleaning up your online reputation is to close all your social media accounts. That is false. Having a variety of active social media accounts is actually a really good because it gives you a better chance of being found online when someone searches your name. The key is to control your social media profile so that they help you, not hurt you.

Think about your social media profiles as auditions for future jobs or internships. Is there anything on your current profiles that would be a turn-off for the recruiter for your dream job? If so, get rid of it. And start posting content that is positive, useful, and unique—content that displays your talents and personality. Then when those important people start looking for you online, they’ll find someone they want to hire.

2. Create content

Another way to build a great online reputation is to create content. Blog, design, build widgets—whatever, and post them to a central location, like your own website. If you are creating unique, sharable content on your website, you’ll make it much easier for people to find you online, see what you really do, and understand the talents you have. If the content is truly sharable, your site will rise in rank, and your website will gain traction for your name, creating a positive online reputation.

3. Get involved

Another way to spread your positive online reputation is by getting involved—both online and off. Online, take part in forums and online groups that fall within your niche. Get to know group members, comment, and ask and answer questions. The more you can show your knowledge and willingness to help, the more people will look to you as a resource and link to your website, social profiles and more, all of which will help you build a stronger online reputation. Offline, attend conferences, volunteer at non-profits and more—and make sure you get your name listed on the website as a participant or volunteer.

4. Be smart about what you share

Once you’ve cleaned up your profiles and created positive relationships and great content, be careful what you share in the future (and what others share about you). Think of your online presence as something that needs to be curated and pruned from time to time. Be mindful of what you post and make sure that other people are not posting photographs or information about you online that could damage your reputation.

Overall, think about your online reputation as a reflection of your ideal self. It’s not that you have to be serious and straight-laced all the time. Just make sure that when you post to your social profiles or personal website, the content reflects the personality you want to display to the world—your best self. If it’s not currently doing that, clean it up. And start looking toward the future as an opportunity to create an online reputation that you can be proud of.

Boomers aren’t interested in learning new technologies unless it helps them talk to their children and grand children. And Gen Xers are pretty tech savvy, but they understand that technology is simply a tool and a proxy for interpersonal relationships. Millennials, on the other hand, have grown up sharing all types of personal information online through social networks, blogs, and more.

Where Boomers aren’t concerned about online reputation, and Gen Xers are aware of how damaging it can be. Most Millennials have yet to face the consequences of bad reputation management. And for a generation that has shared so much online, that’s a problem.

However as they leave college and enter the workforce, the problems of sharing anything and everything online will start to become apparent. Not only are prospective employers cruising social networks to check out job applicants but being easily found online is quickly becoming a mark of prestige. As a result, negative and embarrassing online content is a bigger liability now than it has ever been in the history of our culture, and a lack of being easily found can be a sign of lack of experience and engagement.

So it is now the tricky job of Millennials to walk a fine line between sharing too much information and sharing just enough content online to build a positive reputation. Millennials have to be vigilant reputation managers of their identity like no other generation has been. But they can get things straight and cultivate a positive online reputation if they start early and follow a few basic principles.

1) Be mindful

First and foremost, Millennials need to be aware that what they do and say online matters. In high school it’s easy to think, “I can do and say what I want, no one cares.” But you have to keep in mind that the thing you didn’t think was important four years ago is still there, and people you want to impress can find it easier than you think. So the first step in cultivating a positive personal reputation management strategy is to only post positive content to social networks and blogs. Don’t post embarrassing information or (heaven forbid) brag about doing something illegal or unethical.

2) Get a head start

Because most Millennials are not concerned about these things, those that recognize the importance of reputation management have a fantastic opportunity in front of them. Grab up as many personalized online properties as you can while you’re young. And hang onto them. For example, personalized social profiles, name specific domains, and more. You may not need to use them now, but one day they will come in handy. And you want to grab them before someone else does.

3) Create

One of the best things you can do to cultivate a positive online reputation is to create content. That is, start a blog, curate content through your social networks, and become an influencer online. Even though you may still be young, start building a professional profile now. Colleges and future employers will be impressed with the work you’ve done so early in life, and you’ll be a shoo-in compared with applicants who aren’t aware of their online reputation at all.

4) Take care

As you look toward the future, think about reputation management as you go about your digital life. Look toward the future with a goal of being easily found online (for positive reasons) and work toward it. If you don’t take control of your online reputation, then your carelessness will. Stay on top of new technology and new platforms as they arise so you can always be ahead of the reputation management game.

One of the most challenging aspects of independent marketing is getting your name out there for people to see and making sure that, when people search for your name online, they see something positive about what you are doing and how you can help them.

And that’s where reputation management comes in. Not only is reputation management important for people who may be associated with negative information online, it’s also a way to create an online presence that will help you gain a better reputation in the world, allowing you to make more connections and grow your income. Let’s take a look at a few ways online reputation management can help you as an independent marketer.

1) Go to conferences

Not only are conferences great for meeting people, making connections, and learning about how to better market your product independently, they’re also a way for you to get your name on the internet. These conferences will often publish attendee lists online, as well as award recipients, speakers, and workshop moderators. When people search for you online, they’ll see that you were part of a conference, and that will increase your credibility and reputation.

2) Take part in charities

Although a large donation might get you listed on a charity website, you probably don’t have large cash reserves to throw at these organizations (yet). Better yet, do some volunteer work and get yourself listed on the website as a volunteer and an important part of the organization. Charity work is never a bad reputation booster.

3) Become a sales resource

First, you can get yourself listed in any number of sales and marketing resources. And these listings will show up in search results. Second, become a resource. Create a website with a blog where you can talk about your experience, give advice, and point others toward helpful resources. If you act like a professional online, people will treat you like one in real life.

4) Make a video

Videos tend to rank very well on Google and other search engines. The video doesn’t have to be long or have a $15 million budget. It just has to look professional and give great information about who you are and what you do. If you do it well, and add your name to the video title, there is a good chance it will do well in the SERPs, and you will get some great reputation benefit from it.

5) Grab personal domains

Before you get too far into your independent marketing career, make sure you snag a domain name that reflects your name. It’s best if you can buy a domain that is an exact match for your name, like JoanSmith.com. But you can also try looking for alternative domain extensions, like JoanSmith.net, JoanSmith.org, or JoanSmith.me. Alternatively, try other variations of your name, like Joan-Smith.com, JSmith.com, JASmith.com (“A” standing for your middle name), JoanSmithSales.com, JoanSmithBrand.com, and others. Buying a domain like this and creating a site around it will make you easily and readily recognizable online.

6) Be Social

If you haven’t already registered social profiles to use professionally as an independent marketer, do it right now. Sites like KnowEm can be a great help to automatically register your name on many social sites. These profiles tend to rank very well in the SERPs, and they allow you another channel to build a client base and communicate with them regularly.

But Twitter isn’t just about telling customers that you’re having a sale this Friday or informing them about your latest press release. Twitter is also a great tool for reputation management. Because Twitter allows you to deal directly with the public on a near-realtime basis. and it allows you to monitor all public tweets, it can be a great place to listen to the chatter surrounding your brand, address potential problems, and build positive relationships online.

For starters, here are some great ways you can use Twitter as part of your reputation management strategy and reap the benefits of increased positive sentiment about your brand.

1) Monitor

Twitter is like a giant fire hose of consumer information. People tweet about all kinds of products and services. They tweet about the latest Sony TV they bought or the dress they just got at a steal from a Nordstrom’s sale. If you have any sizable customer base, and that base is fairly tech savvy, chances are that you are being mentioned on Twitter—and you may not even know it. Once you create an account, you can set up a keywords search for mentions of your company and product names. When you see users talking about you you’ll begin to understand how Twitter can be a useful reputation management tool.

2) Identify issues

One of the great weaknesses of Twitter is that people use it to complain about the products and services in their lives. But that also means that, as a reputation management specialist, you can use those complaints to your advantage. If many customers are complain about a new feature you just added to one of your products, you might reconsider that feature. If they’re having trouble loading your website, it’s time to walk down to IT and see what the problem might be.

3) Give thanks

You can also build positive sentiment on Twitter by thanking people who compliment your business and products. Just shoot them a quick “thanks for your kind words.” They’ll be impressed that you’re paying attention and feel personally closer to the brand. You just made a life-long customer.

4) Respond to problems

You’ll gain some great business insights if you monitor Twitter for complaints, but you’ll gain more customers if you actually respond to those complaints. If someone Tweets in frustration about one of your products, send a tweet and ask them how you can help. Point them toward resources and offer to fix the issue yourself. When you can do that, you’ll have changed that customer’s mind about your company and product.

5) Be a resource

Once customers understand that you are online and want to interact with them, you can become a great resource by fielding questions about your products and services. Give your audience the resources to solve their problems and give them tips and tricks to have a better experience with your product. They’ll thank you and recommend you to their friends.

6) Listen

This is similar to “monitor”; however, listening is like monitoring with your heart. Be open and welcoming to your customers. Don’t shrug them off when they ask what you think is a stupid question, but rather encourage them to talk about their problems and issues with you. Be sympathetic and give your brand a human ear.

7) Offer suggestions

When you notice a customer struggling, offer to help before they even ask. Your company has a lot of expertise and knowledge. Offering to help with their issues will go a long way to building trust with the customer and help them form a positive reputation of your company.

It’s about being aware of everything going on around your company, battling online trolls, and the dragons of so-called “scam alert” sites. In some ways it’s kind of like being a wizard. So when it comes to corporate reputation management, do you want to be Frodo or Gandalf? (Who doesn’t want to be Gandalf?) Here are a few ways you can be a corporate reputation management wizard.

1) Learn

Gandalf didn’t become Gandalf by sitting around waiting for magic to happen. He had to learn his art, and learn it well. As a reputation management specialist, you should learn basic and advanced SEO principles. Follow some of the top SEO blogs and influencers and emulate what they do to achieve great search results.

But also don’t forget about dabbling in marketing as well. Reputation management isn’t all about technical SEO, it’s also about nuance, dealing with people, and crafting the right messaging to your audience—whether that means a search audience or another blogger. If you can master both, you’ll be a wizard to be reckoned with.

2) Monitor

Part of the reason Gandlaf was effective was that he kept his ear to the ground. He listened to people and he saw trends in the culture around him. You need to do the same thing to defend your company against the figurative reputation onslaught from Mordor. Use tools that will monitor the web, like Google Alerts, for mentions of your company online as well as links to your main websites. When you see negative mentions or links, seek to understand them before jumping in to execute a plan.

3) Put out small fires

Gandalf knew well ahead of time that war was coming, and he started to gather his forces and put plans into action before the Orcs assembled a full-scale attack. When you find negative mentions of your company online, focus on them right away. It doesn’t matter if the site is small or if the mention “isn’t that bad.” Small things today can turn into big problems tomorrow. So, if you can keep on top of the small tings, putting out little fires as they arise, you’ll have fewer problems down the road.

4) Start with the small stuff

Why did Gandalf start his plan with Hobbits—small and simple creatures that knew no violence or war? Because he knew they were loyal, hardworking, and would follow the plan through to the end. He knew that the battle wasn’t about how big his army was or who had the most armor. He knew to came down to the details. As an SEO wizard, start with the small stuff. Create social profiles, buy domain variations of your company name, and more. Reputation management is not a war about the biggest swords. It is a battle of the most tenacious player. So start with the little things that will help provide a solid base for the rest of your strategy.

5) Be resourceful

Why use a sword, when a staff will do? Why send a knight, when a Hobbit can sneak through the cracks in the wall easier? To truly be a corporate reputation management wizard, you have to think strategically and look at ALL the angles. For example, if you can control your branded SERPs, why not try and control a branded “scam” SERP as well? Look for angles that haven’t been explored and new ways to attack the same problem.

With a little creative thinking and knowledge on your side, you can stand up to negative links in your branded search and yell, “You shall not pass!”

Because you’ll most likely be changing jobs a number of times over the next 20 years, the reputation you build at a single company won’t be worth much as you look for other opportunities—or if other opportunities come looking for you. That’s why it’s important to start cultivating a great online reputation now, so you can be ready for the future. Solid reputation management starts with you, and here are a few things to keep in mind that will help you boost your reputation and look toward the future.

1) Claim your profiles and domains now

Don’t wait until you build up a reputation to claim your social profiles and personalized domain names. A great place to do this is KnowEm. Do it now. By the time you have a name that’s worth something, someone else may have already snagged your usernames and URLs. For example, create a Facebook profile (and maybe even a “fan” page) for yourself, as well as Twitter profiles, LinkedIn profiles, and more. Not only will you own those personalized accounts so no one else can grab them, but they tend to do very well in the SERPs, letting people who are searching for you online find you easily.

2) Watch what you say

Before the digital age, you were allowed a certain leeway in your public discourse. Even if you said or wrote something stupid, chances are that those statements would be hard to find by potential employers and no one would really go looking for them anyway. However, today everything you write or publish on the web stays there. Forever. And not only your statements, but the statement of people who might write about you. Keep things clean and professional, and you won’t have to deal with damaging comments later on.

3) Give stuff away

Part of building a good reputation online now is creating a network of positive online references to you and your work. In this vein, find blogs that pertain to your profession and interests and write posts for them. Offer to give them interviews, data, graphics, and more. When people search for you online and see that you’ve given content to others and have been mentioned in a number of places on the web, they’ll get the impression that you are someone worth doing business with.

4) Contribute

Not only should you get yourself mentioned on blogs and other websites, but you should contribute to the discussion. Find places online where other professionals like you hang out and hang out with them. LinkedIn groups are an excellent location to find other professionals. Join forums, groups, and social networks that pertain to your personal goals and ask questions, give answers, point group members to great resources. When you can build a positive reputation within these circles, you’ll build a positive reputation online in general.

5) Get listed

There are plenty of directories and lists out there that you can contribute to. Find directories that list movers and shakers within your field and ask to be included. (Of course it helps if you’ve already done many of the things listed above.)

6) Be vigilant

Lastly, be vigilant of your online reputation. There are a few free tools that you can use, like Google Alerts, that will notify you when your name is mentioned online. When you see these alerts, check out the reference and thank the person or organization for mentioning you. If the mention was not positive, work with the individual to resolve any problems that may have occurred. If you can fix these little problems now, you won’t have to face them in the future when someone important is searching for you online.

Before widespread travel, everyone in the town or area you lived knew who you were. So there was no need for you to prove who you were. But as people started to travel more and intermingle with strangers, it became too easy for someone to give a false name, pretend they were someone else, or generally lie about their real identity. And because identity was so easy falsified, it became necessary for people to use identification so they could prove they were who they said they were.

The internet is now at a similar point. It’s so easy for anyone to hide their identity online, or assume the identity of someone else, that it is imperative for your company to claim its name online in as many forms as possible, in order to prevent fraudulent use of your name. Or, from a more pragmatic approach, to prevent a rival from claiming your domains and profiles first

Here are 5 tips for claiming your name in order to protect your online reputation.

1. Claim personalized domains

If you are doing reputation management for a company, you’ve probably already purchased these. Not only do you need to own yourcomapny.com, but also other domain extensions, like yourcompany.net, .org, .tv, and more. Owning these various domains will keep others from buying them up and pretending to be you. But it will also have the benefit of allowing you to create microsites or informational sites about your company that can appear in the SERPs and push down more negative links.

If you are an individual, make sure your snatch up your firstnamelastname.com domain—if it isn’t already taken—and then consider buying other extensions as well. You can use these domains as blogs or as hubs for your identity online.

2. Register branded social profiles

Social profiles tend to do very well for both company and individual name searches and can bump negative content out of the search results. But more importantly, you want to protect your online reputation by making sure someone else doesn’t claim these profiles and use them for their own purposes. A great place to find the majority of the social media sites is KnowEm.

In fact, just last year, a prankster registered the profile @MayorEmanuel on Twitter and commenced to tweet as if from behind the scenes of Chicago Mayor Rham Emanuel’s election campaign. The profile gained a number of followers who thought they were following the real Rham Emanuel, only to find out it was a hoax.

Claim all your branded social media profiles immediately, so something similar doesn’t happen to you or your company.

3. Monitor your Wikipedia page

Although Wikipedia has in some instances been proven more accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica, it’s still a playground rife with fraud and misinformation. If you don’t have a Wikipedia page for your company (or if you are famous enough to warrant a personal Wikipedia entry) go ahead and create one before anyone else has the chance to do it for you.

However, keep an eye on it. Because Wikipedia is an open community, any editor can change the information on your profile. If this happens, make sure you correct the information quickly and alert the Wikipedia editorial board if malicious acts are being perpetrated against your page by other users.

4. Grab business listings

Another great place to claim your name is on business listing websites. Search local and niche directories for instances of your business or personal name and create listings that reflect your actual information. These can also be great places to link to your main website, blog, or other web properties and help them rank better in the SERPs.

5. Don’t forget variations

Lastly, don’t forget about variations of your business or personal name. For example, if you are a car blogger, purchase domains like yournamecars.com or yournameautoparts.com. For social profiles, think about various ways you could be represented online, like “@MayorEmanuel,” so that you can avoid unnecessary confusion over fake profiles. It’s also a good idea to hold on to common misspellings of your personal or company name to avoid potential problems as well. You can even use those misspelled domains as redirects to your main site, so you can capture anyone who is looking for you online.

Although there are many aspects to reputation management that will keep your SERPs looking good, you can avoid potential disasters by claiming any and all instances of your company or personal name online before anyone else does.