How Can I Find My Mugshot? It’s Easier than You Think
If you’ve ever asked yourself, “How can I find my mugshot online?”, you’ve come to the right place. Learn how to find mugshots online with our step-by-step guide.
If you’ve ever been arrested, you may be shocked to learn that detailed information about your personal life has ended up on private websites — specifically, your arrest records, criminal records, and mugshots. The last thing anyone wants is for their criminal history to pop up during a quick internet search of their name. Luckily, there are ways to remove these damaging images from the internet.
Read on to learn why this started, and how to turn your prominent mugshots into a problem of the past.
Public Misconception
Some argue that posting mugshots online is in the interest of public safety. The immediate misconception when seeing mugshots online is the assumption of guilt — but it’s important to remember that an arrest doesn’t indicate that a crime was ever committed. A person arrested could have had their charges dropped, or may have never been convicted of a crime. Yet the arrested person could still have their reputation damaged by misleading information on the internet, from celebrity mugshots to inaccurate criminal records.
Ultimately, the removal of these images can help protect law-abiding citizens. In today’s world, many job recruiters, potential landlords, or even romantic partners often seek information online. Even just one mugshot stemming from a years-old arrest can spread like wildfire across websites and social media, falsely damaging someone’s real-life prospects.
Is My Mugshot Online?
It can be daunting for the average citizen to figure out how to find mugshots online to begin with. If you’re worried that any previous arrest records are accessible online, try the following:
- A quick search of your name in Google or another search engine (you can also check the “Images” section of search engines).
- Check well-known sites like FindMugshots.com and PrisonHandbook.com.
- Use the inmate search tool on your state’s department of corrections website.
- Check your state’s sex offender registry.
- Check the websites of your local police departments and sheriff’s office.
- Download the app JailBase and search for your arrest record.
How Did They Get My Mugshot?
Most often, bots pull these public images from a federal or state corrections website, such as a corrections inmate locator tool. Even some police or law enforcement agency release mugshots online when posting about crimes, though some states have recently begun to outlaw this. Essentially, any of the tools recommended in the list above could be used to pull your mugshot or arrest record without your consent. These databases are often updated every 24 hours, and as soon as an image appears, it can spread.
In most states, it’s up to law enforcement agencies to decide whether to release mugshots — which they often do. Occasionally they may withhold mugshots during ongoing investigations, and there are some states with stronger laws governing who can access criminal records. For instance, California recently passed a law forbidding law enforcement agencies from posting mugshots of someone accused of nonviolent crime on social media.
Juvenile records are usually withheld from the public, but in rare cases, juvenile mugshots are released if they commit a serious crime that leads them to be charged as adults. And there are strict laws regarding the dissemination of information related to sex offenders. Depending on the severity of the crime, it might be required for a perpetrator’s mugshot to be stored in an online database.
Mugshots As “News”
These mugshot sites aggregate millions of images under the guise of “news,” but can damage personal reputations in the process. There are several reasons that they classify themselves as news:
- Most search engines give news articles a higher ranking regardless of the veracity of the information, meaning your mugshot could be pushed higher up on the search results.
- This allows many websites to continue their practice of publishing mugshots online. By declaring themselves as news organizations, they become more immune to legal action.
Again, while many of these sites argue they’re providing a newsworthy public service, they’re ultimately just damaging reputations without repercussions.
The Legality of Public Mugshots
As mentioned, in many states mugshot records and other arrest records are legally part of the public record. Unfortunately, in most cases, this means they can be posted online without a private citizen’s permission. This is partly due to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which, starting in 1967, made everything from marriage certificates to death certificates part of the public domain. In 1996, an amendment to the act made it even easier to access this type of information electronically.
Now, the criminal justice system is fractured across state and federal lines, making it difficult to have standardized laws regarding how websites upload and remove damaging personal information. Ultimately, this leaves individuals on their own when it comes to facing mugshot extortion.
Where to Start
Ready to learn how to find my mugshot in the digital environment? Let’s get started.
Once you’ve determined that your booking photos or other vital records have been made public, it can be overwhelming to figure out how to begin erasing your criminal record. There are numerous options:
- Working with a third-party company such as online reputational management (ORM) firm to facilitate the removal of mugshot online
- Reaching out to the website(s) directly
- Posting more information of your own to try to lower the chance of the mugshot being seen online (this can be time-consuming if you are busy to be writing articles, press releases, blogs, etc.)
- Attempting to get your conviction expunged
What’s Best for Me?
Of these options, many recommend working directly with an online reputation management (ORM) company to begin the removal process. Although an individual can reach out directly to a search engine or a website to remove information, they will likely have little success if the information is publicly available. You can also work with law enforcement agencies to expunge your record if there is a minor offense to clear — but this is an arduous process that usually requires filing a petition in court. And posting more of your own information (on social media or websites) can lower the chances of your mugshot or other sensitive information being discovered, but won’t actually delete the content from the Internet.
ORMs generally have experienced staff and bespoke technology that allow them to quickly find mugshots and criminal records faster than a simple internet search could. If previous methods fail, paying an ORM ensures that past mistakes or misunderstandings are permanently erased, not just buried in the search results.
Working with an ORM
Working with an established company to remove one’s mugshot online gives you the benefit of legal expertise, a proven track record, and guaranteed results. ORMs such as Guaranteed Removals also only charge clients once content is fully removed, and ensure that, once removed, any harmful online content is gone for life. From criminal records to mugshots, an ORM will ensure that your arrest record will no longer have an impact on your public life.
It can be daunting to begin a mugshot search on one’s own, since there are so many potential websites to sift through. An ORM will handle every possible mugshot online as well as future postings that could affect your reputation.
How Else Can an ORM Help Me?
An online reputation management company can do much more than erase arrest records and mugshot records. They can also enhance the online reputation of businesses and individuals, and remove likewise damaging content, including personal information that could risk your privacy.
An ORM can also focus on producing positive content, including writing articles in your area of expertise to establish you and your firm as a thought leader in your industry niche. Your website, including the About Us and bio section, will be optimized for search and page ranking. Your LinkedIn bio will also be updated. Regular blog articles optimized for search will be created so that fresh, new, and positive content is continually generated. Google loves great, relevant content.
ORMs go beyond simply posting on your behalf. They can use high-level strategies to change the Google algorithm and rank your business higher up in search engine results. This can give your company a leg up against the competition when it comes to web traffic.
The Bottom Line
If you’re looking to permanently delete any public records — from juvenile records to death certificates to marriage certificates to mug shots — from the Internet, working with an ORM can singlehandedly address all of your needs. It may seem daunting to try and even begin the mugshot search, let alone deletion, but clearing one’s evidence of criminal history online can positively impact your future, whether it’s in the job market or your personal life. There are proven resources to help, and state laws are slowly developing to address the overall issue as well.
If you’ve been wondering how to get your personal information off the web once and for all, GuaranteedRemoval can help. Contact our team today by dialing 941-304-5206 to learn more or to receive a free removal analysis.
What to Do If Someone Has Your Phone Number and Why It Matters
A scammer can use your phone number to harass you and your close ones and steal valuable data and sensitive information while impersonating you.
The huge progress of technology and the vastness of the Internet has brought many things, both good and bad. And somewhere in between people found a way to use someone else’s phone number and get away with it unnoticed.
And with all the breaches that have happened lately, there’s a possibility that you may fall a victim to phone spoofing scam.
Can someone steal my phone number?
Most definitely, yes! Your mobile phone number is present throughout the Internet, and it’s prone to being an easy target for scammers to try and hijack it and gain access to all your data, social media accounts logins, apps logins, and text messages, etc.
There are plenty of ways your mobile phone number and your privacy may be compromised and used for malicious intent:
Data mining
The simplest form for scammers to use your mobile phone number is by putting it through people search sites – where in a swift method the scammers can acquire enough information about you. All those search sites sell your personal information to hackers and scammers.
What’s scary is that there’s plenty of data they can find about you just from putting your mobile phone number through a people search site.
Your address, criminal records, and close relatives’ names among other things are at their disposal to be used by the scammers to blackmail you, hack your social media accounts, and even commit identity theft.
Phone spoofing
To put it simply, phone spoofing is when a scammer makes your phone number appear on a recipient’s caller id when you didn’t even make the call. Essentially, phone spoofing is used to hide the real identity.
And there are plenty of reasons why it’s done so frequently:
- Access to valuable pieces of information: A standard method used by private investigators and collection agencies to lower the risk of being detected while gathering sensitive data through spoofing.
- Business purposes: Plenty of businesses spoof real local phone numbers to mask their identity to protect buyers’ and sellers’ phone numbers, and to prevent transactions from happening outside their platform. Each of them gets a number that can be temporarily used for calls, and once the period expires the spoofed numbers are reassigned to other parties.
- Commit fraud: This goes without saying. Phone spoofing is used to persuade and scam potential victims to make big purchases or to provide plenty of valuable information that may be used to access bank accounts which results in the victim losing his money.
SIM swapping
A sim swap scam is a danger that lurks frequently and the things that can be done with sim swapping can cause some serious trouble.
A scammer usually searches for a weak spot in two-factor authentication and two-step verification. Also, he will use social engineering techniques to exploit the service provider to port the victims’ mobile phone numbers to the fraudster’s SIM card.
Once the sim swapping has occurred, the scammer will now receive any text messages and voice calls that were intended for the victim.
And because he now has the number, he could easily bypass the two-factor authentication methods and gain access to any account that is tied with the number, from your contact list, your address, and area code up to your financial accounts, social media accounts, etc.
This will leave an open space for him to either transfer money from the victim’s bank account, extort him, or to sell his data on the black market on the deep web which can be used for identity theft.
Things go further down the line. You may not even be able to get your cell phone number back once the scammer managed to fully convince the telecom service provider.
How to protect yourself from phone spoofing?
Now that we’ve made it clear that your phone number can be spoofed, we’ve compiled practical ways to deal with this potentially serious issue:
Change your number, get a new SIM card
The first logical thing to do is to change your phone number.
Yeah, it may be a hassle to get a new SIM and retrieve all the contacts that you’ve accumulated throughout the years, but changing your phone number sometimes may be the only option
Contact your telecom provider and change your phone number as soon as possible.
Leave a voicemail message
To let your contacts know that you’re a victim of phone spoofing, leave a voicemail answering message that says your phone number has been spoofed and that they should not engage with the caller.
Make sure you also tell them to block the number so that it will lose the value for being utilized by being blocked numerous times.
File a report to the FCC
If you are sure that someone is using your cell phone number, filing a complaint to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may be the best option to sort this issue out.
Just go to their website and fill in all the information needed or call their hotline.
Protect your privacy
Discretion is advised. Do not put your phone number on your public profile or any online account.
Update your information on all accounts, and use different usernames and passwords on all online accounts for extra security.
Additionally, check your credit card bills, phone bills, and bank statements. If something seems odd, report immediately to the financial institutions and let their work professionals check for everything.
Bottom Line
The best way to not fall a victim to spoofing is early prevention.
And even then there’s still a chance that a scammer will find a way to use your phone number to commit a crime or to scam other cell phones.
If the worst happens, freeze everything! Freeze your cell phone number, and your bank accounts and contact all the service providers that can help you sort the problems out.
Additionally, keep track of all the call logs and messages you’ve done so that you can protect yourself from being held responsible for any potentially illegal activities committed by phone calls using your number.
Take all these things into consideration and apply every step for much-needed security.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is caller ID phone spoofing legal?
According to the United States Truth Caller ID Act of 2009, phone spoofing is allowed but it’s considered illegal when a person ” knowingly transmitting misleading or inaccurate caller identification information with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value”. And if there’s plenty of evidence that states they have violated this act, their actions are considered illegal and they will face a penalty. - How do I know if callers are using spoofed Caller ID?
To quickly identify if the caller is using a spoofed Caller ID, dial the number that appears on your display. The cell phone number may be busy or give you an inactive message and you even may get a person to answer your calls to tell you that they didn’t make an attempt to call your cell phone number.
If you’ve been wondering what to do if someone has your phone number, GuaranteedRemoval can help. Contact our team today by dialing 833-873-0360 to learn more or to receive a free removal analysis.
How to Find Out If My Information is on the Dark Web: Your 2022 Guide
Wondering how to find out if my information is on the dark web? With our guide, we help you locate your details and remove them, protecting your online privacy.
There are vast possibilities for people that are into the dark side of internet usage – the Dark Web itself. For people that are trading and selling data, this is a place where they can do that freely.
Criminals use a plethora of hacking forums and websites where they are trying to learn the black trades of the internet and trade or buy credit card accounts, personal information, bank statements, social security numbers, and many more sensitive data.
When it comes to getting your own details, internet criminals are trying to collect your data from various phishing scams and data breaches. There are way too many options for them to trick you and press you to share your personal data, not knowing that you are a victim of a fraudulent activity
Every user on the internet should be careful and not share bank accounts, financial information, and credit card numbers and avoid saving passwords on Google Chrome. This stolen personal information has its own price on the web and these cybercriminals are trying to benefit from it.
To get a better grasp of what is the dark web, internet gurus separated the internet into three layers:
- Surface Web
This is the web that all people are using and everybody is already acknowledged of. This is where everything legally is happening and most websites are hosted. Social media platforms, news outlet websites, e-commerce, and all the variations of the websites we know are here and this is the safest place on the internet when in comparison to the other two layers. - Deep Web
The deep web hosts the sites that are invisible to the casual user and this is where most of the websites that require invitation or login are hosted. Many confidential data details like photos and videos that are in possession of certain websites are hidden on the deep web. This is considered the middle layer of the net and this is where bank statements, credit reports, and social security administration are hidden. - Dark Web
This is the area that falls under the deep web and it is only accessible with special browsers and authorization. All the content that is shared and hosted on the dark web is not indexed and cannot be found with the regular search engines. This is the place where illegal stuff is going on and where you can set up a private network, called a darknet.
But how does everything work? How these people are actually getting and selling our data? Stay with us and understand how the dark web works and how can all of us be exposed to such scams and identity theft cases.
How does the dark web work?
The dark web is the space of the internet that is not easily accessible. This is where most of the illegal stuff is happening and you will need to use a specific browser to surf this area of the internet. Once you enter the dark web, you will need to know how to navigate it and locate what you are after.
To protect its users, the dark web browsers are using many layers of encryption and are providing the customers with very high anonymity – suitable for trading or selling forbidden products and services.
To access the dark web, you will need to use the Tor browser which actually is one of the largest browsers for such use and most people are going with this one when they access this side of the internet.
Tor ( The Onion Router) redirects the data via multiple encrypted layers and it helps to lose track of the actual location. Most of the websites where you will be able to find your misused data end with the extension .onion
When it comes to using the Tor browser, everybody can use it and access the dark web, since it is free and you can download it on your computer. The thing is that the US government and the state department are behind this browser, making it legal to be used by everyone.
To summarize the usage of the dark web, we can freely say that there are only several legit businesses and companies that are using it and aside from that it is mostly used for any unusual activity – mostly criminal.
How do dark web scans work?
Scanning dark web sites is not a simple process. This is called dark web monitoring and when companies that are hosting certain darknet are releasing a data breach or dumping data that goes public, this is an opportunity to stroll through this data and check if you can find something useful.
The term data dump refers to releasing usernames and passwords to certain webs that require login on all three layers of the internet. Besides the credentials, there are also dumps from credit bureaus, online health records, medical records, driver’s licenses, and social security numbers that various identity thieves gathered all around.
Once these details are used, they are dumped and when no longer needed can be posted on the dark forums where are finally sold to any interested party. The dark web scan refers to checking these leaked details that are found on the dark web.
So if some tool or service provider is scanning the dark web on your request, in case they find your details, they will let you know that you’ve been found on any of those databases.
Do not be fooled that they will be able to scour the whole dark web. They are only checking the web lists that they are aware of and any public leaks they have access to. There is no possibility to scan the whole dark part of the internet.
What should I do if my info is on the dark web?
Before we continue with some steps that you can do in order to take action about your data found on the dark web, we want to suggest some guides to protect your data before the leak happens.
For starters, try to use some password manager service or tool that will protect your credentials from possible data breaches. If your data is secure, then you should not worry about unwanted exposure. Also, for additional protection, activate two-factor authentication on the login pages where this option is available.
The next point that you need to avoid is to connect to any public wi-fi networks. No matter if you are using Tor or any regular search engine like Google, you will have your details exposed. Since these networks are open, there is a possibility for a hacker to enter your device using the network – and if this happens, your data is available to them.
Unfortunately, besides contacting the dark webmasters and request removing your data from their websites, there is nothing much you can do if your details are already publicly available on the dark internet.
You will not be able to post fraud alerts or monitor the entire dark web. But do not fret, there are some additional steps you can take in order to prevent any potential misuse of your details. Here is what you can do:
- Place a credit freeze in order to avoid hackers opening credit in your name and misusing your bank account.
- Obtain free credit reports and check if there are any fraudulent charges. The credit report will show your status regularly since if you are a victim of identity theft, this might help you restore your credit standings. This is a free service that you can use if you find your data exposed.
- When it comes to suspicious activity on your social security number, you can create a mySocial Security account and claim your number with your name to avoid anyone else creating an account in your name. Also, you can report this to any Social Security office physically.
- In terms of protecting your account passwords, try to generate new passwords and have a habit of changing passwords regularly. Have secure email accounts that you are going to use as backup emails to recover passwords.
- If you locate your driver’s license details on the dark web, the one thing that you can do is to report that to the Department of Motor Vehicles with the details that your license is compromised.
- A passport number can also are traded online. Report this to the closest police station, no matter the country you are residing in.
To be truthful, sensitive information is traded online daily, and many other online accounts suffer from identity data theft. The entire dark web is full of such details and this is the place where online privacy is damaged the most.
The world wide web and the normal web browsers are in focus for attack since they have the most users with minimal experience, being careless with using their credit card number and sharing sensitive info. If you do this, you are exposing yourself to being attacked and having your data traded or sold.
Need more help with getting your information off the web? Click here to contact us now!
Getting Spam Calls from Sierra Leone? Here’s What to Do
Getting spam calls from Sierra Leone? Learn how to fight back with our comprehensive guide.
The Internet is a place full of scammers who are using every chance to get to your hard-earned money. One of the latest scams is the phone calls that are coming from Sierra Leone and in some cases from Mauritania as well.
This kind of spam call became very common recently and people (especially elders) need to be informed about what to do in these situations before they make outgoing international calls without knowing. The scams became so famous and the most recent scam with calls coming from Sierra Leone was called the “Wangiri” scam or better known as “One Ring Scam” where scammers collect money from return calls which can add some big numbers on your phone bill.
In this article, you will be able to find more information about Phone scam calls and also some suggestions on how to protect yourself in these situations.
Why do I get calls from Sierra Leone?
If you are getting a call from Sierra Leone and you don’t have any relatives there, then you are part of the “One Ring Scam” where the caller wants you to answer the phone or make a callback. Once you make a call back you will be charged long-distance fees and additionally some of the information that you may share can be used for identity theft.
More info about Sierra Leone Phone Scam
Many people will think that Sierra Leone is actually a name of a person but it is an African country and is involved in one of the biggest phone scams in recent years. There are thousands of people in the US who reported that are receiving calls from Sierra Leone and some caller identifications cannot recognize and are reading the number as a United States number.
There was a report from Federal Communications Commission that says scam robocalls aim at specific areas across the country and make calls to U.S. residents.
In the first scenario, they will call you and wait for you to answer so they can try to get some personal information or lead you to buy something you don’t really need.
In the second scenario, the callers are ringing only once or twice and they are hoping for you to call back. Once you call back you will get charges for long-distance calling and callers will try to keep you on the line as much as they can (so you can receive bigger charges on your phone invoice).
This scam is designed to make you call back because the charges for calling overseas, especially to this destination in Sierra Leone are pretty high. You will get charged $20 once you establish your connection and additionally you will get charged $9 per minute.
Those robocalls ring only once on your phone expecting to get your attention so you will call back and because of that, this method is called “One Ring Scam”.
Please keep in mind that numbers who are calling you from Sierra Leone (area code 232), Mauritania (area code 222), or Dominican Republic (area code 809) may appear on your caller ID as U.S. numbers that include area code and seven digits.
How can I stop spam calls from Sierra Leone?
In case you are getting an enormous number of calls from some of these countries, there are some steps that you can take in order to block and stop them. There are a few steps that you can take in order to get rid of those calls. Feel free to try some of them added below:
On Android phones:
- Go to “Recent Calls” on your phone.
- Long tap on the number that is bothering you and when the collapsing menu appears just select “Block contact”.
On iPhones:
- Phone > Recents and click on the info button which is next to the number that you want to block.
- Select “Block this caller” and then tap “Block Contact”.
On iOS 13:
- Activate the new iOS feature “Silence Unknown Caller”.
- Go to “Settings > Phone” and toggle the switch to activate “Silence Unknown Callers” this will protect you from scam callers.
Many scam caller robots are using dynamic numbers and because of that, this is not going to be a permanent solution.
Need help with removing your personal information online? Click here so we can help!
SWOT Analysis
This analysis will help you and your company undercover any issues when dealing with both internal and external strategies and ideas. Making sure you have a clear understanding of what a SWOT analysis is important. Please note “SWOT” is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Let us break this down a little more for you.
— Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power —
Strengths:
These are the first key indicators you want to look out for, so grab a piece of paper and a pen. Write down everything that helps your company, inside and out. Any expertise on the topic you are providing clients with or maybe your website is designed at a higher degree making competitors appear obsolete. Maybe you have the lowest prices!. In addition, if you have a strong and productive work environment that could be considered a strength as well. Anything you feel makes your company better should be listed in this category. Focus on building trust.
Weaknesses:
Now it is time to make a list of the negatives or the opposing sides to your strengths list. As many hey experience a lack of resources and knowledge and this can be detrimental to the overall success or online reputation of your company. Having a poor customer experience is never the goal to make sure your employees go above and behind to ensure a client is happy, poor communication can be the end of you. Pay attention to what could possibly hurt you and start devising plans on how you can rectify this, otherwise known as “opportunities”.
Opportunities:
Once you have sat down and compiled a list of strengths and weaknesses it is now time to look at your opportunities. This is more of an external focus as you will come to learn. Creating a powerful networking system can assist in many ways. The generation of ads will increase your sites visitor volume and that shows Google and others that people are interested in the content you write about and/or what you provide. Other ways to look at opportunities include:
- Creating a new niches
- Leveraging a new product or service
Threats:
Lastly, it is now time to evaluate your potential threats (internal/external). Examples would be a competitor is outranking your website online or clients are starting to take interest in other sites over yours. Make sure you keep your information up-to-date, nobody wants to read outdated information. If you do this correctly, you can turn this into a strength quickly. Your threats should consist of all things that can and will harm your company.
Why should I use a SWOT Analysis?
As a business owner or blogger, you need to know what is affecting your website and how. A SWOT analysis is designed to better help you identify and understand key issues or benefits. This should not offer solutions but simply a list of influencing factors.
After you have completed your SWOT analysis you will have a better grasp of how you can better utilize your resources. Vice versa, you can also pinpoint useless issues you are currently spending time with and reallocate that effort to a more important threat or opportunity. You will start to see operations work smoother as you will be dealing with lesser risk once you have a generalized idea of where you stand amongst your competitors.
What to do After Performing an Analysis.
Once you have listed all of your components within your SWOT analysis it is time to sit down with your team and discuss solution possibilities. Begin by pointing out your strengths and how much power you actually have on the internet. Now take those positives and see what threat you can better improve upon. Going over your options on a monthly basis is a great start. During your performance meetings just go around the room asking everybody what they like or dislike. Taking care of your internal efforts has positive repercussions.
Call us today to see what options you have. One of our very knowledgeable advisors can design a plan perfect for you. Now it is time you know more about your company. Be in the know and act quickly.
Importance of Positive Online Content in 2021
Do you know the importance of positive online content? In this article, we will uncover the advantages and importance of curating positive data online about yourself.
The worldwide web and Google grow more widespread in our everyday lives. Therefore, the significance of your internet reputation has never been more important. Nowadays, companies thrive or die according to their online reputation.
With the simplicity and accessibility on the internet, everybody has access to Google. Where negative information is easier to obtain now more than ever before. The impact and severity of the negative post will differ, greatly impacting SMBs while larger corporations have more of a “safety net” when it comes to their online reputation.
At GuaranteedRemoval we all understand the importance of positive online content and how to improve upon a preexisting damaged reputation. Some cases can be quickly resolved by removing negative content as well that may exist online. Other cases take time, today we are going to discuss your options.
Want to learn more about how GuaranteedRemoval can assist your online reputation efforts? Please complete the form below to learn more about our process
People Are Looking You Up
Every single day, more people look for information online before meeting them in-person or going into business with them. In a poll conducted in 2018, it had been determined that 86% of consumers frequently read testimonials online as well as research social media platforms. This virtually means that society as a whole is becoming increasingly more tech-savvy and are now able to quickly validate or criticize a specific individual or business online.
Additionally, 84% of people trust online testimonials just as much as in-person recommendations. This is why suffering from negative reviews (justified or not) is destroying your business or career as an individual.
Contrary to the information where news obviously fades away with time. The internet may keep stories relevant for several years after the fact. If left untreated, negative content may be the catalyst for big problems down the road. When it comes to protecting your online reputation, it is important to be proactive at all times. Never wait until something negative happens before you decide on building a safety net.
Learn how to avoid and deal with cybercriminals and trolls with GuaranteedRemoval.
More than Simply a Corporation
Especially with internet content, individuals are searching to find out as much information as possible. When consumers research online they spend more time validating an unknown business when compared to inspecting products or service descriptions. Consumers want to settle with a company they can trust, this is accomplished via online reviews and social media. Among the greatest examples of this can be Wendy’s Twitter accounts that the firm used to increase earnings by $64 million annually.
Wendy’s Twitter accounts are now famous for its extremely witty and energetic with customers. They are now a gold standard from the social networking marketing business for how to utilize online platforms to gain your business. At Guaranteed Removal, we highlight those social websites among the greatest reputation strategies to enhance your online reputation. However, it has to be used properly to avoid irreversible harm.
A Sprout Social study revealed that nearly 60% of respondents found that the brand was not using social media at its optimal levels. Most users reported only seeing discounts and sales instead of educating new potentials customers or their benefits and company beliefs.
Establishing Brand New Personality
Creating a new personality type on social media is important since it reflects your organization and your worth. However, the most significant part of a new online personality is the fact that it’s consistent. For instance, Wendy’s Twitter account presents a lighthearted joking character. But this does not indicate that is the sole way of increasing internet interaction. We view Wendy’s Twitter account as a means to improve repeat customer visits and steer them away from competitors.
The most significant part of online reputation management is to make sure that your organization remains engaged with your internet community. Additionally, the information you produce is of the constant quality of work.
Here at GuaranteedRemoval, we all are aware that the significance and importance of positive online content being key. For a lot of us, it’s the very first line of contact a possible customer will make with the organization. If this interaction is unfavorable, the sale may be over before it began.
By creating a positive online image, not only do you help combat any possible negatives you now have but to get future evidence yourself by establishing a bank of goodwill that helps to mitigate potential troubles.
Contact Us | Importance of Positive Online Content
If you are still curious regarding this topic or require further guidance or assistance please complete the form below. One of our knowledgable specialists will reach out to you via phone or email to address all of your concerns. Let GuaranteedRemoval help you discover the importance of positive online content today so you can be proactive about how you appear online. Guaranteed Removals is an affiliate of Web Presence, LLC dba NetReputation.com
Rome was not built in a day. However, let’s make sure you are building a viable and evergreen foundation for the long-run. Protect yourself today with our professionals, what do you have to lose?
How Are Employers Viewing Background Checks?
Employers are viewing your background. You may be wondering whether your prospective employers are looking into your background. The simple answer to that is: “yes, they are”. They do this for a variety of different reasons. You may need government security clearance or have significant financial responsibilities. In addition, you may be working with vulnerable people and employers want to know if they can trust you.
Either way, more and more, background checks are becoming a standard procedure during the hiring process and it is vital that you are aware of this. A recent survey by Endora reveals the extent to which background checks are conducted – and why, sometimes, they aren’t.
While more than 98% of businesses conduct pre-hire background checks on potential new employees, less than one-quarter of businesses proactively screen current employees – exposing CEOs and Boards to significant safety, security and compliance risks.
Is it Legal for Employers to View My Background?
Thus, if you are curious whether there are employers viewing your background, there is nothing wrong with prospective employers conducting a full background check. You will usually have to give permission, which means you will be aware of these checks. Furthermore, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is there to protect your rights as well.
The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) promotes the accuracy, fairness, and privacy of the information of consumer reporting agencies. There are many types of consumer reporting agencies, including credit bureaus and specialty agencies, i.e., about check writing histories, medical records, and rental history records.
Employers viewing your background take into consideration the FCRA regulations, which also stipulates how old the information contained on these reports can be. This means that you should know yourself exactly what a prospective employer will find out about you. Should any of that information be less than positive, you may consider disclosing this before the search is complete.
That said, prospective employers also perform other types of background checks. One of these is to ask you for past references. These will usually be employment references, unless you are fresh out of school or college, in which case they can be academic or even personal references. These references are designed to get to know you as a person and worker.
What About Internal Privacy Policies?
Keep in mind that, even if an employer asks for the background information listed above, and it is legal, the former employer does not have to answer. Many companies limit what they will disclose about former employees. Sometimes this is for fear of lawsuits for defamation. Other organizations may not release information due to internal privacy policies.
The other thing that many employers will do is screen your social media profiles. This, they believe, will give them an even greater insight into who you are in your personal life.
Employers Viewing Your Background, What’s Next?
Be aware of the fact that employers will look you up before they hire you. Clean up your social media profiles, get copies of your credit report, arrest records, and “Google” your name for more information, etc. Therefore, to make it difficult for employers to view your background online remove any negative items you find about you.
- Remove them yourself. Ask the website owner (s) to delete the damaging information about you.
- Contact a removal team who works with a legal team to remove your negative data
Either of the above two methods will eliminate any doubt about what others will find when searching your name in Google. In fact, you should ask for a copy of your personal Lexis/Nexis Accurint Person Report, which is a free report. This report prepares you for what a prospective employer will see about you. If you don’t like what you see, then contact a reputation management firm, like Guaranteed Removal, to help you improve it.
Employers are viewing your background, unfortunately, if you have questions about how to clear your background quickly and safely, contact our professionals.
How To Suppress Bad Comments Online?
Suppress bad comments online is a top priority for people concerned with their online reputation. The online world is completely public. Whenever someone makes a bad comment online about you or your service or product, the entire world can see it.
Unfortunately, people tend to make a judgment about you based on a number of different things, including:
● How long it took you to respond to a negative comment
● Your response.
● How the customer felt about your response
● The resolution of the complaint
The internet is all about speed. When someone makes a bad comment, it can go viral and around the world in the blink of an eye.
People are also online 24/7, which means they can access information at any time during the day.
Hence, if you care about your online reputation, you need to have your finger on the pulse at all times.
Suppress Bad Comments Online – Your Quick How-To Guide
There are a number of things that you can – and should – do if online comments attack you. As explained above, the fact that you respond and that you respond quickly are of key importance. You should also:
1. Never be Defensive
When you notice bad comments being made against you or your business, it can be tempting to respond in an emotional and defensive way. However, you must avoid this at all costs.
When faced with a negative comment, don’t consider it a reflection on you personally or on your business. Avoid being defensive when handling the comment. A defensive reaction from you can quickly escalate the issue. It’s best to be accommodating, polite and truly listen to the person complaining.
Remember that a bad comment does not mean that you are bad. It simply means that someone is not 100% happy, which can be due to a variety of different reasons. Don’t take things personally, but handle them professionally and politely instead.
2. Apologize and Offer a Solution
Bad comments are negative, by their very nature. However, they are actually a good thing, so long as you treat them properly. They are good because they offer an opportunity for you to learn how you can be even better. They are also an opportunity to show other customers that you know how to listen and you truly care about your customers. Hence, when you see a bad comment, you need to apologize and try to offer a solution.
“This is your opportunity to turn a disgruntled customer into your brand’s evangelist! This person (or people) obviously had some sense of loyalty to your brand if they’ve spent their money with you, “liked” your Facebook fan page, and/or followed you on Twitter.”
Did you know that only 20% of people who are unhappy take the time out to complain? This means that those who have left the bad comment are still approachable for a resolution, or they wouldn’t have contacted you at all. Furthermore, by apologizing to them and offering them a solution, you are doing the same for the 80% of complainants who did not take the time out to talk to you. This is one great way to prevent the need to suppress bad comments online.
3. Post Fantastic Content About You
Last but certainly not least, when you suppress your bad comments online, you need to make a full commitment and effort. What this means is not that you physically remove each item, one-by-one. As you can imagine, this can be almost impossible to find everything. If you highlight many positive things, these will go up the search results while the bad things will quickly drop down in the search results.
You’d be amazed at how consistent educational, informative, and inspirational posts and efficiently good press can outweigh anything bad. Learn how to remove articles from the internet while promoting yourself in a positive light.
Be quick, be apologetic, offer a solution, and be proactive in terms of sending out information that is positive and places you in a good light. Those are the best options available to you in terms of dealing with bad comments online.
Suppressing each bad comment about you or someone you care about online can be time-consuming. If you are ready to get started or have additional questions to suppress bad comments, contact us today.
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How Online Reputation Management Works in 2021
Online Reputation Management Process Explained
Are you interested in learning how online reputation management works? In this article, we will define what online reputation management (ORM) is and share some of the most influential approaches and methods we use every day here at GuaranteedRemoval to resolve issues for our clients.
There are a lot of delusions regarding online reputation management. Some individuals think it’s simply monitoring your online presence, while others assume it has something to do with public relationships, yet some literally have no clue about how it can affect businesses and their bottom line.
In this guide, We are going to clarify the purpose of online reputation management in today’s market and business world.
Businesses of all sizes can profit from obtaining a precise framework of its core theories.
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Why Online Reputation Matters
Not only do individuals see the internet as their primary expert of data, however, they also believe what sites such as Google shows them.
Moreso, individuals make choices based on what they discover online. How scary is that?
- 66% of people view the internet as the most credible reference for information about a person or a company
- 70% of business directors have denied an applicant due to something they saw online.
- When scanning online for a nearby business, 97% of individuals religiously read online reviews
- More than 80% of reputation damages arise from confusion or misinterpretation amidst the buzz and what is the truth, or reality
After viewing those statistics, it’s obvious that what happens online influences your life, before, now and in the future.
Mixing On/Offline
In this digital age, the online world is shifting into more of a necessity as they need it to deal with the rest of our activities.
Even if you need to touch a computer, you are using technology every single day. This may be driving your car, adjusting your smart thermostat or even cruising around in your new Tesla.
99% of United States citizen-consumers some form of technology or “smart device” on a daily basis.
This suggests that there are an infinite amount of ways for you to create your digital footprint. Whether it be positive or negative.
Furthermore, you may not believe that individuals are searching for you online, however, there is a great chance people are.
With over 7 Billion people on Earth, it would be crazy to think that not one of them is not looking you up.
Typical causes involve:
- Companies doing pre-interview analysis
- Landowners researching potential renters
- Children seeking to find details of their parents
- Inquisitive significant others, both past, and present
- Previous co-workers hoping to bestow professional opportunities
- University admission committees assessing soon-to-be students
- Insurance firms performing risk evaluations
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How Online Reputation Management Works
Help like this utilizes a combo of public relations techniques coupled with high-level SEO methods in order to build positive online content. These tactic works to push anything negative off of the first page on each search engines’ results.
May entail:
- Designing and optimizing domains
- Generating high-quality backlinks
- Thoughtful management posts
- Social media control
- Managing online reviews
- Content curation
Why Online Reputation?
It doesn’t matter if you are the CEO of a large corporation, a sales director, business executive, a diplomat or even a small business proprietor, your online reputation is your most important asset.
Perversely, whether your search results display positive or negative results, these listings will define the overall online reputation of yourself or your business.
So when is it important to have a positive reputation online?
- Driving an IPO
- Obtaining funding for a business adventure
- Drawing in new potential customers
- Forming a strategic business alliance
- Competing for public office
- Improving your career path
What Are the Benefits of Online Reputation Management
- Make sure your online reputation matches your business or personal brand.
- Lessen brand uncertainty within Google, Bing, and Yahoo’s search results
- Recognize and combat detrimental reputation brand crises
- Defend your reputation and your future with a decisive, accurate web appearance
- Create a network of online connections in order to create more trust and credibility amongst your customers
- Respond to negative and untruthful reviews, posts, and/or news articles.
- Elaborate on preexisting online marketing campaigns that showed success
- Ascertain yourself as a trusted expert online as well as across all social media platforms
You have presumably recognized by now that reputation management does not come with a step-by-step how-to or should you see fast results.
ORM is a long-term plan to preserve and strengthen your online reputation for what happened in the past, what’s happening today, and what you expect to happen in the future.
What type of difficulties can a well constructed online reputation management strategy fix?
Negative Online Reviews
Negative reviews on Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Ripoff Report will cost businesses hundreds of billions of dollars each year. These are sites where customers can leave an unbiased opinion, it is essentially a place where disgruntled customers come to slander and defame businesses. (Click here to learn how to remove negative online reviews)
This is because consumers overwhelmingly believe online reviews when trying to learn about particular products and services prior to visiting their store or website to make a purchase.
Even worse, customers infrequently distinguish the truth amongst genuine customer complaints and fraudulent lower star ratings.
However, don’t panic. GuaranteedRemoval.com can assist you with review management. This way you know what consumers are saying about you at all times. The best part is now you can act fast before the situation worsens.
Unfair Competition
Customers do a lot of investigation online prior to making that final purchase. Moreover, corresponding posts have a notable influence on their ultimate decision.
Wistfully, hundreds of product connection sites are associated with one of the products they are relating to. So that means that many of those sites are in fact controlled by the same company
Unwanted News Articles & Posts
Negative articles are a tremendous online reputation problem for most of our clients. Distressed press pulls down a company’s reputation, and quickly.
This can affect a company’s total revenue, hiring, and employee retention as well as funding. So, financial firms succumb to a massive loss in clients. As investors unload stocks, and customers stop buying or talking about you.
However, negative Google results are not the only thing that affects businesses. False knowledge and public scandals help potential customers determine whether or not a particular company has a positive or negative online reputation.
Unfortunately, when reporters get ahold of a fascinating narrative, they oftentimes distribute it while it’s hot, this means before the truth is released. Even if the story is ultimately disproved, it may stay on the internet indefinitely.
Damage is further increased as false stories are distributed out to hundreds or thousands of readers.
Brand Crises & Attacks on Your Reputation
Online slander is possibly one of the worst obstacles you can have when operating a business. It’s not enjoyable, as a business owner, when negative content is referencing your business online. Furthermore, nothing is more damaging than malicious, opprobrious attacks.
Whether the cause is a dissatisfied past worker, a hostile ex, or a sneaky unethical competitor. You must combat this negativity at all costs. Nevertheless, be prepared as these situations can be remarkably fragile.
Consequently enough, it is sufficient to solicit advice from online reputation management experts such as GuaranteedRemoval before you end up making matters worse.
Uncertainty About Your Brand
Not all companies have uncommon names. If your business name is also a popular word then you may struggle to find decent online exposure.
This does not only limits your online marketing efforts, but it also deters potential customers from discovering your site. If you are interested in learning more about Online Reputation Management visit NetReputation.com
Lack of Brand Clarity
You may have an immaculate online reputation, nevertheless, others who talk about you online (your customers) may not be as careful.
Unfortunately, online personality disorder could cause someone else’s social media profiles, ellicit images, and mug shots to show within your own search results.
You may know which results are yours, however, others might not be able to distinguish between what is about you and someone else that has the same name as you.
Brands are in more danger online than ever before. Fictitious profiles are emerging and they have the power to severely undermine a business’ reputation only if customers think they’re your real accounts.
Misleading Online Profiles
GuaranteedRemoval clients consist of global business directors and contributors who have worked to help change the world.
Although, their personal search results did not explicitly reflect their lifetime achievements.
GuaranteedRemoval will help ensure that your online reputation management is both positive and authentic.
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SEO and ORM
You are a growing business, but your site is not ranking highly online when users are searching for a product you sell. You decide to implement a strategy in which you utilize keywords and phrases that will boost your views and ultimately bring more consumers to your site. This strategy is called search engine optimization (SEO) and is utilized by users that want to establish a presence online.
As your site begins to receive more hits, your product sales go up as well. You decide to check out a review site in which your product is rated and reviewed. This is where you see a list of unhappy customers that are very displeased with your product. You would like to hide this page from the public, so you decide to utilize a strategy in which you can manage negative reviews. This strategy is called online reputation management (ORM) and is beneficial to users that want to protect their online reputation.
Differences Among SEO and ORM
ORM uses SEO as a part of its strategy to take control of the online conversation, but it is not SEO. The two concepts separately are very different and have diverse goals. Here are a few of the differences between SEO and ORM:
- ORM focuses solely on online conversation control. Removing any negative content, boosting positive pages, and allowing users to maintain a positive image
- SEO focuses on generating traffic. This is how ORM uses it to boost pages, but only to generate traffic to positive pages that help it rank highly
- Both generate traffic and rank higher with Google, Bing, or Yahoo!
Although using these strategies separately is common, using them together can help your business grow immensely throwing proper management of your online reputation.
ORM and SEO – The Buying Process
Here are the are key steps in which SEO and ORM can play a role.
- Awareness: This stage is where the consumer develops a need. This could be anything from buying a new coat for winter or needing a new laptop for your job.
- Consideration: The user then goes online and looks for potential products.
- Purchase: The cycle then comes to an end after the user then purchases the product they favor the most.
Now, SEO mainly plays a role in the awareness stage. Where users looked up an article on what are the best attributes of a certain product. ORM plays a role in the consideration stage by hiding the negative reviews of the product and permitting the product to have a favorable online image. This is how ORM and SEO can play a role in improving the number of customers your business may receive.
Why SEO and ORM are Important
SEO and ORM are extremely advantageous to any business that wishes to expand its consumer base. ORM can also benefit individuals that wish to protect their online reputation. ORM helps to eliminate any negative information that may be available about them online. Most can handle ORM on their own. However, if you believe your situation is rather complex, contacting online reputation management may be a viable option and can successfully aid in protecting your online reputation.
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Business Reputation Management – Why You Need It
When you’re running a business, your reputation in the market is only as good as what your stakeholders (employees, customers, strategic partners, and suppliers) have to say about you. You could be spending a good chunk of your company budget on turning your business into a recognized brand, but one angry customer or employee can make all your efforts dissipate within minutes.
Information Spreads Quickly Online | Act Now
It takes virtually no time to damage your business’s reputation. Things, however, can be different if you have someone working on monitoring the reputation of your business online – someone that takes business reputation management seriously. Most companies use professional reputation management agencies instead of having an expensive in-house team.
The main job of these reputation management teams is to help you reduce any negative attention your brand attracts even if a single “bad” response goes viral.
In most cases, reputation management involves the following two courses of action:
- Removal of the remark in case it is abusive, rude, or constitutes for a legal problem
- Helping businesses coordinate a professional response to such claims and remarks
The idea is to solve the underlying issues, if any, in an attempt to make up for an unfortunate experience a stakeholder has with the company. Most of these efforts are focused on establishing and improving the relationship between a business and its customers.
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Now the question is: why business reputation management is so important for you and your business? Let’s explore the reasons for that:
Trust and Credibility Matters
People love sharing their experiences with certain products and services with their friends and family. They even post reviews on the internet. If these people are your customers, it is important for your business that they trust you and what you offer.
You want people talking about you, but in a positive context. Obviously, anything negative is bad for your business.
Because Your Future Sales Depend On It
Damage control is real. You have a couple of customers badmouthing about your business and the next thing you notice is that you start losing customers and experience an abrupt decline in sales.
However, if you can manage to do what’s necessary to change the opinions of unhappy customers saying all the wrong things about your business, it’s highly likely that the same people will change the negative picture they painted about you online.
Because You’ve Got to Maintain the Company Image
When a third party considers your business for any professional purpose, i.e., joint partnerships or mergers, your business reputation is one factor that prevents them from moving forward.
If a candidate is evaluating your business, either a possible employee or a bank, they will check your reputation. A simple search of your business’s name on Google will tell them a lot about you. If it’s positive, they will consider you a good choice. If not, you could lose many business opportunities.
For these basic reasons and more, it is imperative for modern-day businesses to pay attention to reputation management. It could be a decisive factor that helps you beat your competitors!
If your business is ready for reputation management, contact us today.
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Online Review Management
Online Reputation Management Done Right.
Before consumers will want to do business with you, they are going to look at what others have to say first. Online reviews have become one of the most trusted sources for consumers in finding the best companies to do business with.
That is was it is imperative that you have a strategy in place for online review management. This is extremely advantageous to businesses that have superb ratings but are harmful to those that may have had a challenging couple of months.
This is why managing your online presence is a must for businesses that are wanting to expand their consumer base. Successfully managing your reviews allows you to present a positive image online, which will ultimately bring more consumers your way. To do this, there are various places to look and options available that can effectively manage your online feedback.
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Finding Online Reviews
Reviews can vary from each site on the web, they will directly affect the amount of business you receive. Therefore, finding out where consumers are writing about you is a vital component in online review management. Read more about what reputation management tips you can implement today to better your online reputation! Make sure you know your options when working to remove online reviews yourself.
- Blogs (or Vlogs) – Whether it be through writing or on video, a critic of services within an industry can make or break for certain companies. Entire websites dedicated to blogging, which allows for many users to review your business through lengthy blogs and comment sections. This also pertains to well-known, trusted “vloggers” who rate products or services through videos on YouTube. Easily find out what consumers are saying about your business through online vlogs and the comment section underneath the video. Online review management gives you the chance to explain your side when confronted by “haters”.
- Review Sites – Obviously, looking at review sites will be the easiest and most direct way into online review management. These can be various sites such as Yelp, Angie’s List, Yellowpages, and others. These sites are designed for consumers to give in-depth reviews about services or products. As you may be pleased with the number of positive feedback you receive, you may also find out that these sites are not very open to taking down your negative posts.
- Social Media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even Google+ are platforms that enable users to review companies. Although many users do not write out fully-detailed reports like on Yelp or Angie’s List, they are still capable of praising your business – or enacting a full-on smear campaign. Social media sites also enable users to interact with each other, which allows them to collectively commend or criticize you. Online review management can gain massive amounts of followers.
Online Review Management – Ways to Deal with Them
No matter how successful your business is, negative reviews are going to happen at some point. Developing a strategy or utilizing various methods to manage or fix your online reputation can prepare you for negative reviews. Furthermore, here are a few ways you can manage your online reputation and reviews:
- Monitoring – Reading feedback on a daily or weekly basis permits you to view up-to-date comments about your businesses. This establishes a more proactive approach and enables you to manage negative reviews sooner.
- Promotion – This can be done either by persuading consumers to read your feedback or directly asking them to write one. This is especially beneficial to businesses that have older negative reviews that they are looking to push toward the bottom.
- Use Negative Reviews in Your Favor – When consumers are reading negative feedback and the business is nowhere in sight to correct the situation, it may display an uncaring appearance. Therefore, quickly responding to negative reviews (if there are not many) will show customers that you are prepared to fix the situation and are open to criticism. (Read more)
Your Online Review Management
Escaping negative reviews is impossible, but keeping a close eye on them is not. Utilizing this reputation guide will aid you and your business in combating negatives. It will also enable you to maintain a positive online reputation. Maintaining your positive image online will strengthen and expand your consumer base. Ultimately allowing your business to continue growing upward. Online review management control of how people perceive you’re and gain their first impresses. Don’t wait, call today for a FREE ANALYSIS on your online review management plan today! Lastly, if you are currently struggling with negative search results please read our blog about how to remove articles from the internet!
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Top Online Reputation Management Mistakes Businesses Need to Avoid in 2021
Online reputation mistakes happen to every business, but do you know how to combat the negativity? In this day and age, technology makes the world goes round. Online reputation management (ORM) is essential for any business.
Online reputation mistakes happen but let’s learn to deal with them. The top buyer behavior influences today are references and consumer reviews. If you or your company has a negative presence online you may be in trouble.
The internet is a double-edged sword, make sure you know your options. Having a positive reputation online is like having a “trump card”, you can say more because people believe you and know you can deliver. More importantly, make sure you are in control of how your company is viewed online. Whether users are on a Google search or on the Better Business Bureau. Even I rely on reviews for companies that I have never worked with or purchased from before. Here are the top 8 online reputation mistakes in our opinion based on decades of professional experience.
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Lack of Consistency
Make sure you are active with producing new content for your customer base to see. Create a schedule and follow it strictly. One key mistake many companies make is that they try and do everything all at once. Find what works for you and stick with it. By creating your own brand image or “brand voice” people can read an article or see a post as they will subconsciously say “Oh, this must be Guaranteed Removal”.
One easy tip to improve your consistency efforts would be through social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, many more.) and upload original content daily. Notice how we said original, this is important. People are tired of seeing reposted content over and over as they are less likely to click on your page or site because of that. Take the time (5-10 minutes) and create something only you have! Post at high-traffic hours or when users are online the most to better optimize your publications. This shows the clients you are interested in more than selling and you care about how they see your site.
When writing blogs and press releases stay in a relatively similar mindset and establish a “voice” for your company. A brand voice is a way you portray yourself in a way that makes you stand out from your competitors (in a positive fashion).
Not Setting Goals
Goals or objectives can give you a sense of direction, a map for where you are trying to get and how you are going to get there. Creating 30-60-90 day plans for our efforts is always a great start. Multitasking is an excellent quality to have, but if implemented poorly you could be being more unproductive than you think.
Stephen Covey, the author of “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” wrote about this in the first habit, “inside-out”. The best example of this would be navigating a big city like Chicago. and trying to get to your destination without a map. Now imagine if you are given a map of New York City while you are in Chicago. You can travel as fast as possible, only the get to the wrong place faster. Make sure all the tools you use are to your benefit. Guaranteed Removal will provide you with all the ammunition you need to gain success.
Aggressive Rebuttals
What draws the line between personal, and professional? Since the internet houses millions of websites that are easily accessible for any and all users, it is important to understand that not everybody is going to love your product/service. How you respond is what makes the difference. The best approach is to never get personal, point out the facts and admit fault as taking responsibility goes a long way. The saying “the customer is always right” is never a bad motto, a bad phone call could result in a negative review you are stuck with forever! Reply to the simple “thank you” reviews as these acts of kindness will play a role in the future when your potential clients are looking you up. It is okay if everybody does not love your service, there are plenty of fish in the sea.
Inactive in Community
Networking and customer relations is a huge part of business nowadays. It is especially beneficial when it comes to managing your online reputation. Being active in the community not only shows the people you care but it also shows your employees you are here to provide an honest and valued service that you truly care about.
Quick fixes for online reputation mistakes:
- Charitable Donations
- Volunteering
- Hiring local college interns
- Social Media
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Online Reputation Mistakes Will Not Fix Itself
Thinking reputation management is not important is a terrible assumption most business owners make. They assume everything will just “fall into place”, it won’t. In fact, ignoring the issue could make things worse if you are doing nothing to combat the negativity. Your business may have stellar reviews today but one negative review could turn that around in a heartbeat so make sure you are constantly reminding your users and customers to give feedback. Incentives work, offer a free gift or a discount if a review is provided. This gives your customers a sense of belonging.
The more effort your users see you are putting in, the more likely they are to purchase your product/service. Having a personable contact at a company is another heavy influence or consumer buying. It is all about making sure they know it is money well spent. According to various studies about 50% of users online will take the time to check reviews and articles about your company before they buy anything. Never get too relaxed, the effects of negative information online is harmful to your success rate.
Blackhat SEO
This is a common mistake some make without even realizing it. Blackhat SEO refers to the use of aggressive search engine optimization tactics that forces search engines to believe one thing when your website shows something completely different. A common occurrence would be placing keywords at the end of your sentences and turning the text to white, this is a huge red flag. The readers will not see the text but Google will recognize it from the HTML code and rank your site higher.
Search engines like Google, Bing, and AOL have stepped up their preventive measures to ensure these practices stop. Your search visibility will be dramatically lower and in some circumstances, Google will noindex your entire site! There are many effective ways to promote your business, SEO takes time and unfortunately, there are no quick-fixes when working on the internet.
Over Promising and Under Delivering
Working as a startup or in sales, many employees say or do things that they may not be able to deliver in order to close the deal. Having the mentality of making the sale over results is the worst decision you can make.
So, be upfront and honest with your clients. It may take a few more calls with that prospect that could save you a lot of headaches down the road when things go pear-shaped. It is better to give a general overview with an elongated time frame and finish early than to ever miss a due date. This is how negative articles and reviews start to appear online.
A company’s success is embedded in their morals and beliefs. Make your word your bond with your customers so they can rely on you to get the job done.
Doing it Alone
Don’t. It is wise to have a team of professionals to review your plan, vision, and website. From there we can implement various campaigns in order to restore your reputation or the image of your company online. In many cases there are minor adjustments one can do to prevent your online reputation from crumbling. Call us now for your options, what do you have to lose? Online reputation mistakes have long-lasting effects on your reputation, make sure you’re protected.
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What is a Reputation Gap Analysis
The benefits of working with our team are that we have the ability to always remove negative and defamatory content. We stand out from our competitors because we always perform a gap analysis whenever we take on a new project.
In regards to the reputation management industry, a gap analysis is what allows us to access potential threats and opportunities.
We’re going to give you an inside look into how our gap analysis works and why we perform one.
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The Gap Analysis Let’s Us Know If We Can Help You
A gap analysis takes place during the research part of our process. We use it to compare your results with the results of companies or individuals that are similar to you or your company.
The idea is to investigate websites with offending content and compare their entries to our list of strong domains that can be used to suppress problematic content.
Why We Perform a Gap Analysis
The gap analysis is so important because it influences the entire strategy from start to finish. Basically, it allows us to develop a concrete plan to get you the results you deserve.
For example, once we have the results of the gap analysis, we are able to create a list of controllable web properties that will allow us to display you in a positive light. This newly created content will then bring in organic traffic for your business, provide positive social mentions of your business, and most importantly get you inbound links.
The Art of Content Suppression
Only by performing a gap analysis is it possible to know how to suppress a piece of content. The entire concept of online reputation management is to have a piece of content suppressed so it no longer appears on the first page of Google for a specific search term.
When defamatory content doesn’t make the first page of Google it’s practically invisible since the average visitor doesn’t go past the first five listings. Therefore, it won’t have a significant impact on your online reputation any longer.
Why Not Ask the Website to Remove a Piece of Content?
he first thing our reputation management team will try is to contact the website to have the negative content removed. However, the websites aren’t required to remove negative content in most cases.
It is true that you could attempt to take legal action. However, this is expensive and time-consuming. Plus, there’s a good chance that it won’t result in removal so content suppression is a guaranteed option to fix your online reputation.
That’s why a gap analysis becomes so important.
Last Word – A Gap Analysis is the Start to Getting Your Reputation Back on Track
A gap analysis requires a team of reputation management experts to gather and interpret the results. This is why we recommend that you contact us for your free consultation today to see if we can help you get your reputation back on track.
You’ll get better results and have a guarantee that defamatory content will be removed from the public eye.
Do you need help protecting your online reputation?
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How Are You Viewed Online? 2021 Solutions
Viewed Online | Most of us spend a lot of time online looking at other people’s social media accounts. Recent research has shown just how much of an impact this has on people. For instance, it stands to reason that those who post a lot of negative things online as negative people.
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Yet, those who post a lot of positive things can come across negatively as well. Those who talk quite openly online about how happy they are with their relationship tend to be happier in themselves but liked less by others. What you share online is also very important. People who talk about themselves and their achievements can often come across as bragging.
One thing that few people consider, however, are the responses they receive online and how that clouds other people’s judgment. Psychologically speaking, we find second-hand information about an individual more reliable because individuals will usually talk about themselves in a more positive, but perhaps not entirely honest, manner. You can not believe everything viewed Online
The Impact of Positive Posts on Facebook
A recent piece of research has been completed that looked at the impact of positive posts on Facebook in particular. Four positive status updates were created on four different profiles and they belonged to four categories, as shown below, and their responses were very interesting:
Personal self-authored, meaning that the profile owner wrote the post and talked about himself or herself in a positive light. Readers saw this individual as more competent and physically attractive. They also saw these individuals as very confident.
General self-authored, meaning that the profile owner wrote the post and talked about an activity or opinion, rather than his or her own achievements. Readers saw this as even more competitive as well as being more appealing as a friend.
Personal friend-authored, which means someone else wrote about the profile owner in a positive light. Readers saw these individuals as more appealing as a friend. They also saw the profile owner as more popular and modest, but not as confident.
General friend-authored, meaning someone else wrote the post and didn’t talk about the profile owner. Readers saw these individuals as modest.
What Does This Mean?
It essentially means that someone who shares a lot of information about themselves may be bragging. Someone who is talked about by others in a positive light is someone who is more likable and popular.
That said, this study looked specifically at the impact of social media. If you look yourself up online, plenty of other things may appear as well. Past and current work history listed, as well as criminal convictions. There has been a surge of the latter in recent history because criminal records are now being digitized and there are third-party organizations that have made these publicly available.
You may also have been featured in a newspaper or other sources of media, and those documents are publicly available. All of that has an impact on how people see you when they look you up online.
Finding a Balance
Everything seems to be about finding a balance. If you appear in many different professional publications, you may come across as an expert in a certain field, but this could be intimidating to those with lower standards of education. Similarly, if you have featured in an opinion piece, you could attract those who share your opinion and alienate those who don’t. A criminal record, viewed online unsurprisingly, is never a positive thing and will not portray you in a good light.
Social media (read more) is complex because it is very different to look at yourself through the eyes of someone else. It is important to consider, therefore, what you post and in what tone you post it. Perhaps there is something about sticking to cat videos when it comes to sharing information on social media, although it is likely that there are some people who would find you incredibly boring for doing so. Learn how to remove negative articles on the internet with the help of our experts.
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7 Branding Mistakes to Avoid When Building an Online Brand
Are your branding mistakes costing your business? Learn the top branding mistakes and how to avoid them.
You’re building an online brand, which means you’re trying to dominate your target market and rise above your competitors. You believe you have all of the right tools, but for some reason, your online presence is not as large as you wish for it to be.
This means you are making some of the common branding mistakes that businesses around the globe have made when they first began building their online brand. These mistakes are prevalent amongst newcomers to building their online brand and can hurt their credibility and authority online, which is why it is so crucial to avoid these branding mistakes. Without further adieu, here are seven mistakes to avoid when building an online brand.
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The most common branding mistakes to avoid when building and monitoring your online brand include the following:
1. Not Standing Out
Why do you think that companies like Apple, Facebook, or Twitter stand out among the crowd? This is because they were some of the first companies to do what they were doing. Instead of modeling other businesses and competitors, they took their own approach and did their best at becoming different from everyone else. Instead of attempting to blend in with the crowd, try to stand out and become something unique.
Internet users love to boast about finding the newest application, product or service online. By differentiating yourself from industry standards you can put your company on the map quickly.
Many business owners examine what their competitors do, and simply mimic those strategies. They think, “Well if this company is succeeding while using this method, I will simply emulate what they’re doing and succeed as well!”, sadly this is often a direction for mixing into the group, instead of standing out.
2. Inconsistency
Consumers do not like to feel like they are confused about what you have to offer. Confusion can usually lead to consumers being distrustful and ultimately steer them away from your brand. For example, if one day you are posting updates on Twitter about how you are empathetic about a certain situation, and then the next day completely changes your tone to something more angry and harsh, then your followers will be extremely confused on what you are really feeling. This is why making sure that what you post is consistent and reliable and easy for your consumers to understand will steer them toward you instead of away.
In addition, remain consistent by always posting at the same time throughout the day. This creates further engagement as after awhile individuals will go onto Facebook at 5 pm because they know you will be posting new content. They want to see what is new with you and what new products/services you may have to offer.
Learn how on how to effectively grow your brand and combat negativity by learning how to remove articles from the internet.
3. Branding Elements & Value Don’t Match
You want to make sure that your colors, fonts, voice, etc. are all consistent with your values and overall what your business stands for. It is important to make sure that your branding elements and values match up to make sure that your consumers do not get confused about what you have to offer.
Believe it or not, if your branding colors do not match up with what you have to offer, this can deter individuals from purchasing from you due to the uncertainty of what your product really may be. Matching branding elements and values are key for building your online brand.
4. Losing Your Cool on Social Media
This happens quite frequently today and can cost companies tons of business. If the owner (you) of a company is seen online tweeting or posting racial slurs, arguing with consumers, or dishing out insults to competitors, it may cause customers to avoid doing business with you in the future.
I know it sounds like something most people would know not to do, but at the moment it can be hard to reason with yourself why you should avoid this. Overall, interacting with consumers in a negative way (especially online) can just lead to customer loss and hurt you more than anyone else. Therefore, avoid losing your cool on social media!
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5. Not Monitoring Online Views
It is essential to monitor your online views when trying to build your brand. When consumers are trying to find a company to do business with or buy a product from, they usually will look to the reviews to see what others have to say.
If you are not monitoring your reviews online, you are not only not viewing what positive things customers are saying about you, but also not viewing what customers dislike about your business. Also, you are leaving these customers without a response from you. When you leave a response, it shows consumers that you are working to improve your business and your product.
Overall, monitoring your reviews online will aid your business by developing more consumer insight and locate the aspects of your business that customers can do without.
6. Customers Can Not Find You Online
If customers can not find you online, of course, you are not going to be able to improve your personal brand. If your social media platforms and website is not properly optimized for your customers to be able to find you easily, then you are missing out on significant opportunities, followers, traffic, and leads for your business.
You need to ensure that when someone Google’s your business name that you are on the front page (preferably the first result) and that you are able to easily be found. Read more about Google reputation management!
7. Not Monitoring Mentions of Your Brand
If you are unaware of what people are saying about your business online, then how can you address any feedback or potential concerns? Staying on top of what people are saying about you online will ensure that you are immediately available to people that have any questions.
You can make sure and always be aware of what people are saying about you online through utilizing tools such as Social Mention, Hootsuite, and Google Alerts.
Another way to manage and control your online presence is through the utilization of online reputation management. Online reputation management has become a key component within businesses that wish to improve their overall online presence and further build their brand online.
Online reputation management can also remove personal information from Google that comes up about you or your company online and ensures you to have a positive online image to your future employers and consumers.
Guaranteed Removal – Contact Us
Guaranteed Removal (GR) is an online reputation management company that works around the clock to effectively eliminate any negative information about you online. Online reputation management is key for businesses that wish to take control of their online presence.
GR can adequately enable you to do the following:
- Establish a positive online reputation
- Remove or Suppress any negative content related to your business
- Learn how to generate more positive online reviews
Take your online reputation into your hands and make sure that you are presenting the most positive image of yourself online. Click for more information on online reputation management mistakes!
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Leveraging Online Business Reviews
Reviews and declarations from your current customers are exceptionally vital for your business, and especially it’s online reputation.
People can compose online reviews (good or bad) for you whether you are marketing goods or services.
Any online recommendations and reviews act as substantial proof that you are effective and valuable and worth working with or purchasing from.
Furthermore, it is necessary that you realize that you are the only individual who can’t leave/post an online review or a testimony for your business.
This would most likely damage the trust built between your business and the potential audience that you’ve worked so hard to build thus far.
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Monitor Search Engines For Social Mentions
If you are anything like most people who have the plan to purchase something from someone else.
You will need to understand what others have said and how they think that their experience went prior to even considering your business. Did their expectations match reality?
If a large percentage of online reviews or client testimonials are negative, consumers will most likely buy elsewhere online.
Think about it, if you saw two businesses with the same good/service but one had favorable reviews… which one would you choose?
If that other business has a higher level of positive online reviews and testimonials, your customers will most likely want to order from the latter.
Depending on the industry of specific business vertical you operate within, depending on how saturated your business market is, obtain a single bad review has the capability to ruin a local business for good.
There are essentially two popular misconceptions that a person can make when he or she is about to purchase something. Especially when it is online since it is easy and convenient.
Companies Need Reviews & Consumer Testimonials
Furthermore, when we talk about reviews and testimonials whether positive or negative, as a business owner you should be working 24/7 to curate new business reviews.
New potential customers will appreciate these resources compared to a company with no reviews.
Sometimes the only way to prove yourself to an indecisive customer is to provide them with positive reviews showcasing your business’ abilities.
It is that simple.
One simple way to advertise and showcase your online business reviews for leverage is by creating posts on your social media featuring your positive reviews.
Most business owners do not realize how influential online business reviews are for growth.
So if you are a business owner with no reviews, we suggest you pick up the phone and contact some of your previous customers.
After you work to generate reviews across a plethora of review sites, make sure you give your team access as well. The more hands-on-deck the better on a situation such as this.
So what do you go about this?… The answer is organization.
Sustaining High-Levels of Organization
In order to keep generating an increase in new business from online business reviews you must stay current. It is important that you do not get too complacent or comfortable.
A lapse in online business reviews generated could leave potential customers wondering what happened. Why hasn’t this company received any new reviews in months?
Leverage Online Business Reviews by Responding Quickly
Let’s be real, if you provide a quality solution you will presumably receive an influx of positive star rating reviews.
However, mixed in with the positive reviews are probably a small number of negative ones as well.
When dealing with negative online business reviews, it is imperative that you act quickly.
For example, if you receive a bad Google review you can respond to rectify the situation in a timely manner.
At the end of the day, as business owners, you hate negative reviews.
However, a negative review online can teach you more about what people really think about your company, employees, or even you as an individual.
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Optimize Marketing Efforts Based on Custom Metrics, KPIs & Analytics
Learning how to analyze your own data online can benefit you in uncountable ways. By reviewing your online analytics, you can learn who your target audience really.
This allows you to create buyer personas on a more detailed scale to improve your marketing efforts.
You can target people you know are interested instead of individuals who may leave negative remarks.
There are a variety of online tools such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, and MOZ that allow you to do a deeper dive into what your insights truly mean.
Your data analytics will showcase where you should make improvements.
For example, you could add follow up emails to your marketing mix in efforts to generate new reviews for recent customers.
It is crucial that you hold your finger to the pulse of your business, never get comfortable.
Increase Leveraging Capacity By Boosting Total Online Business Reviews
If you go the traditional route, as most businesses do, you have probably not invested much into getting or leaving reviews online.
Most small businesses just hope that if they perform quality customer service, their good reviews reflect this.
However, in this digital age consumers turn in Google for everything. That even include where they want to go for dinner.
Having online business reviews will not only increase your visibility but it will also give you added credibility, boost your professional reputation, and provide you with value-added brand exposure.
Wrapping Up: Leveraging Online Business Reviews For Growth
Online business reviews and testimonials are important to your brand’s future prosperity.
Online customers might do extensive research on the various products and services before even deciding to visit their location or online store.
This is where the implementation of enriched data snippets and customer review listings come into play.
So if you feel that you haven’t been capable of collecting enough online business reviews don’t worry this is a long process.
Users are more likely to review a small business online after poor customer experiences moreso than if they had a pleasant experience.
How you leverage your online business reviews will depend on how much repeat business you achieve or how much you increase new traffic for your business (both online or in-person, if applicable).
Online business reviews are one of the only ways that a person will determine whether or not to they want to buy from you.
Users are becoming smarter and smarter each day. You can no longer simply put “Best Company” on your window or on your website without backing it up with proof.
So if you are a business owner struggling to leverage online business reviews currently we can help.
Please complete the form below to receive a FREE CONSULTATION on how you can work to generate more positive online business reviews today.
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Brand Crisis Management
Brand crisis management measures can be linked to many diverse processes within strategic reputation management such as procedure formulation, implementation, and evaluation.
The degree to which businesses can change from being crisis-prone to being crisis-prepared may well correlate with the fact that they are ready to disseminate crisis management and strategic management processes at any given time.
Moreover, the strategic assessment does not fully address dilemmas that could be encountered in the long term by administering and supporting a preferred brand crisis management strategy.
This, of course, is mostly caused by changes in the business ecosystem.
Consequently, a well-known facet of strategic and brand crisis management is examining the business’s internal and external environment. Doing so will help indicate that some strategies are more crisis-prone than others.
- 60% of businesses are equipped with a crisis management plan
- 56% of the businesses with a plan have chosen a crisis management team
- 50% of the businesses with plans have directed crisis exercises or simulations
- 38% of the businesses with plans have faculty qualified in crisis management arts
- 90% of the businesses with plans have formal education once per year
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Create Efficient Communication Plans (Internal & External)
Perhaps the most important element in the crisis management process is the intention of the organizational structure that will come into play during the crisis event.
In numerous cases, a brand crisis management model appears to be the most desired and effective structure choice.
The second issue which must be addressed is the selection of the crisis team.
When selecting which individuals are to be assigned to the team, deliberation must be given to the magnitude of the required task. In addition to whether or not it will require a long term as opposed to a short term commitment by its members.
Next, the designed crisis team manager is tasked with strengthening the group into an effective working unit. Throughout this method, the manager must continuously be aware of the purpose of the unit.
Whereas, in this case, it is to deal with any and all brand crises while still enabling the remainder of the organization to work in line with a regular routine.
The evolution of this team is accomplished through the examination of goals and functions as well as each group and individual processes.
Once the team members understand these issues, the change into a useful cohesive unit commences.
The fourth step in the process is the conception and implementation of the crisis audit. This embodies the tools that collect information and further categorize them into goals.
Brand Crisis Management Priorities
These priorities are not separate and distinct from the organizational objectives.
The priorities are in reality steps needed to guarantee that organizational goals can be achieved in spite of the crisis factors.
Once the team goals and crisis priorities have been established. The next issue to be addressed is the implementation of the crisis plan.
For many organizations, the plan will usually consist of five elements:
- Building a Foundation
- Developing Goals
- Brainstorm Theories
- Identify Trigger Mechanism
- Decide of Effective Action Moves
The foundation gives a summary of the crisis situation. While the goals and objectives are designed to precisely outline the purpose and reduce generalizations and uncertainties.
Your theories will reiterate those circumstances over which we have little control, yet will have a major impact if they transpire.
A trigger mechanism is a notification tool that brings the plan into activation.
It must be structured in such a way that it will not be inappropriately executed or limited in any way.
Once implemented by the trigger mechanism, the plan, now fully implemented, moves the team into the action phase.
Why You Need a Brand Crisis Management Plan Now
Before we get started, these issues change how we need to address the response. Here are a few structural components that we want to consider:
- Do we have the right people to address this situation?
- Who does what?
- What tools do you have to manage incoming information?
- Is the visibility of our stakeholders affected?
- Do we have a means for managing social media and crisis communications?
- Will our staff/customers/stakeholders have trust that we are in control?
The problem of when to have a proactive plan breaks down into two parts.
- Why do I need a crisis management plan?
- How does it need to be proactive?
To acknowledge the first part, it is worth examining some common interpretations of crisis management and crises.
Monitoring Social Mentions
Another perspective of crisis management has also developed over the last years; the constant media coverage through internet news websites and popular social media channels.
Companies are constantly defied and beaten with new data resulting in a crisis that evolves hour by hour. Necessitating that the crisis must be managed through rapid response.
Long Term Ideas to Combat Brand Crises
Other experts in the field have also identified the common long-term property of the two management fields and how they deal with emergent situations and are concerned with organizational survival in the future.
The strategic plan of an organization or a nation is incomplete unless it includes the integration of crisis management.
What Makes a Crisis Plan a Success?
Planning in order to prevent crises requires a strategic approach and mindset.
Managers, when developing corporate strategies, should be aware of potential events that may lead to crises.
Crisis Response Plan to Improve Brand Reputation
Although the circumstance has improved over the last few years, traditional crisis management is still observed as a separate planning process and not intertwined with policy.
Notwithstanding the developing interest in the strategic value of crises, our understanding of the area is limited.
One key point is that the precise relationship between a firm’s strategic environment and its crisis management decisions remains to be completely blueprinted.
Furthermore, there are several articles discussing crisis and strategic integration focus mostly on the coordination of activities within two separate management fields.
To conclude, the indicative lack of focus on the crisis aspect of strategic management could be a problem in future crisis handling. This should be addressed more thoroughly by business managers.
Build your business a safety net now and be proactive. Don’t wait until a brand crisis appears before you decide to take action. To get started today on building an effective brand crisis management plan please complete the form below.
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Restore Your Reputation
How To Restore Your Reputation Online (2019)
Together with the broad popularity of the world wide web, there’s an increasing tendency to rely on top search engines for special information regarding services and products. Sites that get recorded on the first pages of the search engines get the most amount of consumer attention.
Internet reputation management is all about appropriate planning and implementing significant online procedures which will help build a positive identity for your company, goods, and solutions among internet users. In the event, your site’s reputation was tarnished in some way or it is essential to revive it if you would like to keep your foothold in the competitive world of business.
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Many top companies within the industry of search engine optimization supply cost-effective services for online reputation management. Many of those search engine optimization companies maintain an expert staff and use innovative tools for monitoring the negative information on customer sites. The key protective activities undertaken by them comprise of the following:
- Powerful content writing
- Eliminating any unwanted content or hyperlinks
- Submission of favorable posts
- Generation of sites and user engagement
- Brand security
- Generation of successful backlinks
On certain occasions, the firms even go for lawful processes for the protection of their customers. It’s essential to pick the ideal firm for dedicated and quality services that will help restore your reputation.
The chief elements contributing to the success of almost any business organization is the belief and confidence clients have in your services and products. So maintaining a superb online reputation is crucial. To attain this, you can count on trusted search engine advertising and positioning providers, that follow ethical methods to restore your reputation various administrative actions. We’re a well-established online reputation firm providing quality solutions for individuals and companies of all sizes.
5 Steps to Restore Your Reputation
Be Proactive When Your Repair Your Reputation
If you don’t do it, somebody else will (and you likely won’t enjoy it). Disgruntled clients or ex-employees can certainly render negative feedback of the experience with your business on popular review sites. Sites such as Yelp, or on social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook. And as a result of its viral nature of the world wide web, that one poor review may spread like wildfire. Furthermore, leaving you with a significant public relations nightmare on your hands.
Remain Transparent With Customers
This attribute helps you better compete with bigger chains and businesses. Disgruntled clients are more inclined to keep on doing business with you when they feel just like you are making the attempt to understand their needs. This is accomplished by reaching out and responding to their opinions online forums, blogs, and social networking websites.
Avoid Timewasting Tasks
Stop wasting unnecessary time on minute tasks. There’s not any denying that the world wide web is a valuable tool for anyone. Regrettably, in addition, it makes it simple for corrupt individuals to distribute unwanted to negative content across the entire internet. However, business owners possess a strong influence in order to fight any emerging brand crises.
Ammend Disgruntled Feedback Quickly
Bad press online does not have to imply your online reputation is permanently tarnished. However, it does mean you need to take action, and quickly. As a result of the ability of search engines, you are able to track, address, and work to amend complaints regarding your goods or services. Before they have an opportunity to escalate.
Moreso, a few calming words and guarantee of activity from you can go a long way towards un-ruffling a couple of feathers and restoring your reputation. Take the time each week to review your online customer feedback and respond where necessary. Learn more about how to respond to negative reviews here. Plan out a response plan before jumping in headfirst.
Do you know your Reputation Score? Find out today
Protect Your Bottom Line
So, safeguard your bottom line, period.
Furthermore, when prospective clients and business partners Google your name, what they view in the search outcome could very well decide whether they decide to work with you. Bad reviews or poor results can put you out of a job. It can also cause significant harm to a bottom line in the form of lost revenue, leads, as well as business opportunities.
Conclusion
So, thank you for taking the time to read our blog on how to restore your reputation online. Remember, it is imperative that you remain proactive throughout all of your online reputation management efforts. This is a long-term battle that you will win with the assistance of GuaranteedRemoval’s expert team of reputation specialists.
Lastly, f you are someone you know is struggling to restore their reputation online, know there are options. Complete the form below and one of our specialists will reach out to you within 24 hours with a detailed plan of attack as well as a price and timeframe the project is expected to be completed by.
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36 Hotel Industry Statistics in 2019
Here are the hotel industry statistics you need to know in the year ahead.
To persevere in the aggressive hospitality industry, hotel owners and management require a powerful reputation that draws in a steady flow of new clientele. One of the greatest methods to achieve this is to handle your business’ online consumer reviews.
The subsequent hotel industry statistics reveal how online reviews and search results can further assist to improve your hotel in 3 primary methods.
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Getting Potential Guests to Notice You
According to these 5 hotel industry statistics, most individuals plan out their vacation or travel arrangements online. Therefore a large portion of their research when booking entails reading a lot of online reviews.
Consequently, if your hotel has an inadequate online reputation, with little to no reviews, potential tenants may overlook you and decide to select another hotel with more positive reviews.
Some techniques to get more reviews to involve claiming your profile on review platforms, habitually asking for more consumer reviews, as well as making it as simple as possible for your tenants to post reviews.
- Nearly 70% of Americans begin preparing a trip by doing an online search.
- 81% of people often or perpetually read online reviews prior to booking a hotel.
- 52% of people would rarely book a hotel that has zero reviews.
- 96% of tourists believe reviews are an essential part of examining a hotel.
- 79% of people will look through 6 and 12 reviews before booking their stay
Hotel Industry Statistics: Gaining Consumers’ Trust
These statistics show that reviews are an influential form of social proof.
People feel they can believe you if you accumulate high star ratings and provide polite answers to previous tenant reviews. Doing so shows that you care about providing your customers with the best possible experience during their stay.
This also highlights your hotel’s openness and originality.
- When choosing between 2 comparable properties, 79% of consumers are more likely to book a hotel room with a higher star rating.
- Customers will appreciate guest ratings over a hotel’s brand 72% of the time.
- 88% of tourists won’t even contemplate hotels with a star rating of fewer than three stars.
- 32% of likely guests eliminated they thought of particular hotels with a star rating of fewer than four stars.
- 80% of people believe hotels that reply to tenant reviews worry more about their customers.
- 85% of individuals say a hotel’s friendly answer to an online review enhances their impression of it.
- Consumers who answer online reviews earn 12% more reviews and see an average increase of 0.12 stars.
Helping You Earn More From Each Booking
This collection of statistics exposes the connection between your reputation and your bottom line. Unsurprisingly, customers are prepared to spend more for a better quality hotel trip, and the price they are willing to pay undeviatingly resembles the level of star rating that a particular hotel has.
Additionally, you should make sure future tenants and guests can see a plethora of positive online reviews. One way to do this is to attach a URL link to consumer feedback on your website.
You can additionally distribute powerful customer feedback on your social media profiles. So, when other individuals search for your hotel’s name, they can quickly locate lots of actual word-of-mouth recommendations regarding your property.
- Guests will pay 24% higher fees for a hotel with a 3.9 star-rating over another that’s rated less.
- Guests will pay 35% more for a hotel with a 4.4 star-rating over another hotel with only a 3.9 rating.
- When a hotel increases its online rating from “fair” to “great,” they can potentially see their website CTR (click-through rates) increase up to 4%.
- If a mid-scale hotel increases its reputation score by 1%, the profits available per room can increase to roughly 1.42%.
- Hotels have the ability to upcharge each room by 11% (standard fee) for every additional 1 star added to their overall star-rating.
- 76% of hotel guests are ready to spend higher fees at a hotel with better online review scores.
- In recent years, TripAdvisor’s online reviews and reputation score controlled approximately $546 billion in travel spending.
- Over 90% of tourism and accommodation business owners think online reviews are amongst the three most significant determinants influencing the future of their business.
Miscellaneous Hotel Industry Statistics
- 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business.
- 90% of consumers read less than 10 reviews before making purchases
- Online reviews have been shown to impact 67.7% of purchasing decisions.
- 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation
- 74% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a local business more.
- Every one-star increase in a Yelp rating means a 5 to 9% increase in revenue.
- 82% of Yelp users said they typically visit Yelp because they intend to buy a product or service.
- 80% of consumers will change their mind about making a purchase due to negative information online.
- 85% of tech buyers read up to 10 online reviews before making a purchase.
- B2B buyers complete 57% of the purchase process before ever engaging with a vendor
- 93% of consumers find user-generated content helpful when making purchase decisions.
The Power Of Search Results
- 91% of online adults use search engines to find information on the web.
- 65 percent of people see online search as the most trusted source of information about people and companies. That’s a higher level of trust than any other online or offline source.
- Nearly 50% of US adults who Google themselves say the results aren’t positive.
Impact On Business Revenue
- Businesses risk losing 22% of business when potential customers find one negative article on the first page of their search results.
- Businesses with two negatives on the first page of search results risk losing 44% of its customers.
- If three negative articles pop up in a search query, the potential for lost customers increases to 59.2%.
- Have four or more negative articles about your company or product appearing in Google search results? You’re likely to lose 70% of potential customers.
- Nearly half of U.S. adults said they have Googled someone before doing business with them.
- 45% said they have found something in an online search that made them decide not to do business with the person.
- 56% have found something that solidified their decision to do business with the person.
Additional Information
If you would like to learn more about how we can assist you in cleaning up your search results and restoring your online reputation, please fulfill the contact form below. One of our knowledgeable reputation specialists will present your options and explain every step along the way.
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Social Media Privacy Mistakes
Top 6 Social Media Privacy Mistakes
Approximately 70% of our nation’s adults can be found on some social media platform, however, most are not privy to the most up-to-date privacy settings and controls. Yet after a plethora of colossal information leaks, as well as Fakebook’s Cambridge Analytica incident, some people proceed to distribute important, personal and private data that others can use against them.
Here are six of the most prominent social media privacy mistakes that individuals make on a daily basis—their consequences—as well as some suggestions for managing your data securely online.
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1. Distributing Personally Identifiable Information
Personally identifiable information (PII) includes all types of information that another individual can utilize to distinguish who you are—this can be accomplished on its own or consolidated with other data available on the internet.
Here are a few examples:
- Email accounts
- Driver’s license number
- Social Security number (SSN)
- Banking Information
- International I.D. (Passports)
- Online Login Credentials
- Hospital & Medical Records
According to a survey conducted by Experian, Americans average posting roughly 3-4 of delicate data online for the world to see. Many people think that their subpar credit or low income decrease their chance of becoming a victim of identity theft. Nevertheless, this is an excellent argument because—everyone is vulnerable to these crimes.
In particular, the identical study revealed that more than 50% of the participants had either underwent identity theft personally or had a close friend or family member who did.
Criminals can collect an overabundance of information if they know where to look. This can be a name or birthdate. This alone exposed even the best and most prestigious individuals to different types of identity fraud. This would include gaining additional credit, tax filing, theft of statewide benefits and all of your financial and banking accounts.
Furthermore, cyber criminals can keep records of what they discover on social media in order to launch social attacks upon you to gain even more knowledge. This is why posting too much about yourself online and on social media is so dangerous.
Since your PII is so important to offenders, they are searching online 24/7 for whatever they can find. On the other hand, you must think again before posting a photo of your car for example and forgetting to alter or blur the license plate.
2. Geolocation & Geotagging
Tagging your photos with a geolocation tag is a great idea if you want your pictures to get noticed by more social media users in that specific region. However, if not done carefully you can potential disclose more than what you bargained for.
For illustration, what you post a geotagged photo onto your social media accounts it allows a large group of strangers to pinpoint your exact location. This can be great when you are actually looking to meet new people, however, if you do this at home and a criminal sees, now you’re in trouble.
Likewise, by publishing geotagged images of your everyday habits and routines, you are allowing strangers, data-gathering firms, and anyone else the ability to track your every movement.
Additionally, criminals who see geotagged images when you are on vacation know that they have loads of time to take all your valuables without worrying about you returning any time soon.
80% of burglars glance at social media when choosing what house to rob.
3. Proper Use of Social Media Privacy Settings
As the amount of information privacy scandals proceed to rise, most Americans are not being proactive about ensuring their privacy is protecting them as much as they could be.
Roughly 44% of Americans are regularly taking advantage of the privacy settings within their social media accounts and mobile apps. Most of the time users click agree because reading the terms & conditions, leaving them vulnerable to various cyber-attacks.
At the very least, you need to protect your phone number, birth date, email accounts, and geolocation in your social media profiles. This helps to reduce the risks of becoming a sufferer of identity theft.
Additionally, we recommend that you adjust the privacy settings on each social platform in order to refine who can actually view your posts.
- Facebook’s Basic Privacy Settings & Tools: This page tells you how to modify your privacy frameworks for current and past publications online. You can also discover how to form lists to block specific individuals or audiences as a whole.
- Twitter’s Safety and Security: This page has all the data you’ll want to improve the secrecy of your social media profiles. For instance, you can discover how to stop someone from researching you through your phone number or email address. You can also explore how to check if your posts are visible to others.
- Instagram’s Privacy and Safety Center: This page guides you on how to switch your account to private and how to modify who can see your photos. There are many directions depending on whether you are working on Instagram through a browser or the Instagram app on a smart device.
Still, it is imperative to keep in mind that even if you have switched your social media accounts to “private,” you do not know who viewed or copied your personal information before you went private.
Your relatives and friends may eventually share your posts with someone you are not familiar with—this is usually done on social media or by word of mouth.
This means that your private data may still find itself in the wrong hands. No matter how cautious you are.
4. Do You Know Who Your Social Media Friends Are?
Receiving and accepting a friend request from another individual that you don’t know presents that person with access to your information and interests. All the personal information that might contain on your Facebook is now available to a complete stranger. If you are on Facebook, it also lets them send you a message. Cybercriminals can utilize Messenger to transfer phishing information.
Befriending people you never met also increases your vulnerability. When it comes to courtship scammers who try to coerce you into giving them money or delicate private knowledge about yourself.
An added issue of approving these friend requests is that it makes your profile more exposed to being cloned or copied.
Have you ever received a friend request from an individual that you are now friends with? These requests stem from criminal scanning to expand their networks by employing fake accounts “borrowed” from real users.
If you ever noticed a fictitious account please report it to Support right away:
- Facebook: Facebook’s reporting mechanism allows you to report a fraudulent profile or page.
- Twitter: Report any account professing to be you or someone else that you know.
- Instagram: If you suspect your account has been hacked or someone is impersonating you, fill out this form.
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5. Granting Access For Games & Surveys
To guarantee that you are not inadvertently transmitting your personal information, you ought to think again prior to using any online quizzes (Buzzfeed) or engaging with games on your smart device(s).
Enjoyable quizzes such as “Let Us Guess Your Age” “What Game of Thrones Character Are You?” or “What Career Fits Your Personality” are frequently just ways of collecting your personal data and passing it off to data-mining firms.
This popular quiz, “What Disney Character Are You?” for instance, tricks you into giving up your name and date of birth. Identity thieves can connect this with other information in order to steal your identification.
One representative of an organization clandestinely hijacking your information through online quizzes is that of Ukranian cyber thieves working for Cambridge Analytica. The 2 individuals collected personal data on more than 60,000 American users through quizzes like “What Country Would You Rule?” and “What Is Your Spirit Animal?”
By partaking in the quizzes, users unknowingly give forth personal information such as their name, picture, as well as age. These sites also gave cybercriminals access to their friend’s list.
While not every online quiz gathers and sells your information. It’s always a great plan to understand each quiz’s terms of service before you engage and turn over any information. That way, you can fully understand what sort of data the company receives and how it uses it.
Also, you need to keep in mind what sorts of questions a quiz is asking. Even the most ordinary data can be dangerous if it is the answer to a well-known security question such as “What was the first of your first pet?”
6. Keeping Personal Data Private
Apart from bypassing the five mistakes noted above, there are several ways you can keep your personal information more secure on social media.
- Utilize two-factor authentication: Two-factor authentication—such as a one-time phrase transmitted to your phone, this adds an additional tier of protection for the login process. Minimizing the possibilities of another individual hacking into your account. In particular, a Symantec study reveals that two-factor authentication could’ve stopped 80% of all data infringements.
- Don’t forget to log out if you ever have to have to use a public computer. If you are using a public pc, you should never leave before ensuring that your successful log out and close any programs that may contain personal information. This includes your social media accounts. Forgetting to do so makes your account extremely open to be taken over by the next person that using that specific computer
- Make sure that you devise a strong, unique password for each of your social accounts: Gone are the days where you could simply make your password ‘1234’. Think of something that nobody can guess. Instead of making your password ‘password9559’ try ‘PaSsWoRD955(‘ or something that will be nearly impossible to guess. To better track, your passwords across all of your social media profiles create a spreadsheet that is password protected. This way you will only have to remember one password, you can even add an additional preventive measure and implement two-way verification as previously noted.
- Never use any part of your username within your password directly. It may seem like an easy way to remember it, however, you are making hackers jobs 100% easier. Even worse, if another person steals your social login credentials, they can also obtain access to all of your third-party accounts as well. Scary.
More Information on Social Media Privacy Mistakes
If you fall into one of the categories above and have unfortunately used one of the six social media privacy mistakes mentioned above and are still struggling to restore your reputation we can help.
Please complete the form below and we will reach out with assist as soon as we can. Thank you for taking the time to read our article.
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Crisis Management Strategies
Crisis Management Strategies for 2019
What are the best crisis management strategies this year?
Have you ever wondered how brands hide scandals and negative press online? What do business owners do if they obtain a dreaded negative Yelp review? What happens if you as an individual get arrested and find your criminal records online?
The answer is simple, crisis management.
In this article, we will walk you through how to effectively handle a crisis whether it is for an individual or a brand. Working online is a double-edged sword, it is important that you know your options.
We will help to create a pre-crisis plan through traditional media and modern PR methods to ensure your brand (or yourself) has a positive web presence.
The bottom line is you must constantly monitor and remain proactive online when it comes to establishing or restoring your reputation. About 90% of internet users turn to Google and related review platforms more than listening to a friend and family member’s recommendation.
Please take a few minutes to watch this short video below to get a better sense of how we operate here at GuaranteedRemoval.com. We have been a leader in online reputation management for over a decade with hundreds of reviews and a handful of awards to back us up.
If you or someone you know is currently struggling with negative information online please fill out the form below and one of our knowledgable reputation specialists will reach out to you within 24-hours with assistance.
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What is Crisis Management?
In short, crisis management is how you as a brand or as an individual cope and combat negative mentions of your name online.
Here at GuaranteedRemoval.com we generally see our clients suffer from unfavorable content every 2 to 3 years.
A crisis not only disrupts the internal morale of your brand but you can potentially lose large percentages of revenue from scaring potential customers or clients away with a single negative review.
In order to effectively work to restore and maintain a reputation online you must be effective in the following categories:
- Public Relations (or PR)
- Reputation Marketing
- Social Media Management
As the internet progresses and users become more aware of the resources they have on hand the tried and true, or traditional marketing methods may not always work.
Sure, if you are being slandered or defamed by a small business with little to no authority online you may be able to issue a PR blast about something positive happening with your company as that may suffice.
However with larger sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor and the Better Business Bureau (BBB) you need to have additional tricks up your sleeve when traditional methods do not work.
When working to establish a crisis management strategy think like Stephen Covey and “keep the end goals in mind”. These are not short term changes, your crisis management plan is an ongoing, well-oiled machine ready to combat any negativity online that you may encounter.
Without well-managed crisis management strategies, you may lose stakeholders, customers may view your brand (or yourself) as inadequate and lastly, without a crisis management plan the time it takes you to bounce back into the limelight is greatly delayed.
What Are Some Crisis Management Techniques?
So what are the best methods to prevent negative content from appearing online? Here are the top 3 ways our crisis management team works to assist our clients.
- Press Release Coverage
- Social Media Management
- Custom Domain/Website Creation
You do not have to be extremely tech-savvy to control your online presence. The most important aspect is knowing when to act.
There are 3 major elements you want to cover when creating your crisis management strategy.
Image Search
It is important to keep in mind that users will search until the end of the earth when researching a company with little to no online presence or in this case, a negative reputation.
To ensure your image results are positive one of the best methods to implement is launching a press release campaign and include as many photos as you can. Since you have published new content through highly authoritative websites the odds are greatly in your favor for those new images to rank on the first page of Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Routinely monitor your online images on all popular search engines. You can also sign up for Google Alerts, this way you will receive an email notification anytime something referencing your brand is published online. This enables you to act fast and deploy your brand crisis management strategy as soon as possible.
Online Reviews
The internet as we previously discussed is changing the way consumers interact with brands and businesses. Within seconds individuals are able to pull up your feedback from previous customers or clients.
90% of consumers reportedly read online reviews before visiting a business. This means if a negative review appears in your most recent reviews you are losing tons of revenue.
If you are a new business lacking reviews, that is okay. A reported 74% of online consumers will trust a business after reading one positive review.
Social Media
The emergence of social media networks in the 21st century is at times unfathomable. Starting with sites such as Myspace, consumers now have dozens of highly authoritative platforms to grow their brands and increase their audience.
You must proceed with caution when working and promoting your brand (or yourself) on social media. People can be extremely critical and relentless. To ensure that the information you post and publish is not only factual but culturally unbiased. This means stay away from discussing politics and religion.
When working to better your online presence through social media efforts it is vital that you remain consistent when publishing your content online. When a crisis hits your brand, turning to social media as a tool if a powerful asset to have for your business.
The general rule when working on sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter is to not only stay consistent but to publish 3-4 pieces of content on a daily basis.
How Can Public Relations Be Used to Manage a Crisis?
Reaching out to local news media outlets can be a quick and efficient way to get newsworthy content on the first page on all the major search engines.
Seeing as websites such as DigitalJournal, BostonGlobe, and YahooFinance (just to name a few) hold extremely high authority in the eyes of Google. Articles published on these media outlets tend to rank highly and very quick.
Again, it is important to include as many pictures as you can within each publication to increase your efforts of building a solid foundation under the images tab within each search engine. 2-3 pictures should suffice however most PR companies have a limit for how many you can add.
A general rule of thumb is to create 1-2 monthly press releases. This way if something negative should appear online it will have to outweigh the content you have previously published. While it is still possible, it is unlike to show on the first page of Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
What to Do If You Are Currently Undergoing a Brand Crisis
If you are currently undergoing a brand crisis it is important that you never freak out. Remaining calm and acting fast should be your utmost priority.
When you undergo a crisis there are two facets that you must consider. First your internal structure. If you own a large brand the word around the office may cripple your team’s performance so remaining transparent and open about the situation will work wonders.
Make sure that your team is doing everything in its power to combat the negativity. This can be accomplished by them sharing any new press releases to social media in efforts to again flood out any negative mentions of your brand.
Depending on the current status of your brand and the popularity levels you may have to worry about external threats that arise during these unfortunate times. This can be as simple as consumers sharing and commenting on the negative articles about you.
As bad as the article maybe you can always voice your opinion and comment within the story itself. Although we advise you to do this as a last-ditch effort. Taking responsibility and the blame works surprisingly well depending on the situation at hand.
For the following month, your marketing department or branding manager should be kicking all of your promotional ideas into gear. Sometimes you can turn a negative into a positive by repositioning yourself in your specific niche or industry.
Take Johnson & Johnson, for example, decades ago during the Tylenol crisis where traces of cyanide were from in their product that launched a full-scale PR blitz and here we are decades later with nothing negative online about Johnson & Johnson.
Examples of Crisis Management
At the end of the day, anything that causes harm or a loss of business towards your brand can be considered a crisis. For example, negative reviews, unfavorable photographs, bad press articles, poor social media mentions, and much more.
Your job is the establish a way to flood out all the negative connotations tied to your name to ensure no business is lost along the way.
There are many elements such as natural disasters that are out of your control however most crises that emerge can be avoided by implementing a few simple techniques that will not only save you time but also money down the road.
One of the worse crises that can potentially close down a business is negative online reviews. Over the past several years we have worked with thousands of small business owners that claim Yelp reviews have a tremendous impact on the overall success of their business. Apart from pay-to-play allegations many owners have against Yelp, there are ways to obtain prospects even as you struggle to combat a negative review.
Here are some of the most popular negative mentions that we see at our agencies each and every day:
- Negative Reviews
- Unfavorable Yelp Profiles
- Negative Social Media Mentions
- Ripoff Report Posts
Stay Proactive & Create a Pre-Crisis Plan
The best time to implement a crisis management plan is now. Do not wait until a crisis emerges before you decide to take action because you will be late to the party.
Our crisis management team works on your behalf to quickly and readily publish new, high-engaging content in efforts to “flood out” the negative search results. This method is accomplished via press release campaigns, custom website creations, search engine optimization (SEO), and social media management.
It is imperative that each employee and stakeholder is well versed in the art of combatting negativity on the internet. In a crisis situation, you have only minutes before the situation begins to snowball.
Ensure you have adequate means for media coverage at your disposal and ready to deploy when the time arrives. Risk management is a sensitive subject, however, when implemented properly you limit the number of negative impacts onto your brand (or yourself).
Whether you believe you need an in-house crisis manager or not it is never a bad idea. If your budget does not allow for it, take the time and train an existing employee to assist you with your crisis management efforts.
Ensuring you have a proactive crisis management plan intact, you will be ready to fight off any and all unwanted content related to your brand.
Your crisis management strategies should include how your company can bounce back from the negativity while still getting your mission or key messages out to your audience.
Final Thoughts on Crisis Management Strategies
When all is said and done you must remember to stay in front of the negativity. That starts today. So after you finish reading this article head over to your Google Docs and start devising a brand crisis management strategy.
It is not a matter or if you will need one, it is a matter of when and how soon. Still at a loss for what to do or how to get started please fill out the form. We will reach out to you with a detailed crisis management strategies for your brand.
So, what does Google say about you?
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Reputation Score Explained in 2019
What is Your Reputation Score?
Your clients are continually talking — yet would you say you are tuning in?
Decent notoriety focuses on a sound brand, which implies you are dependable and give outstanding client experience. Negative reputation? Development stagnation and income misfortune are unavoidable side-effects of working in the business. However, it is about how you overcome adversity that sets you up for success instead of failure.
Do you know your reputation score? You can’t respond to this inquiry precisely without access to refined client information, in light of the fact that your reputation score has little to do with your (one-sided) view of your image. Your clients are the ones who drive your score, with their online reviews, feedback, and communication. With a couple of words, they can either support it or tear it down.
You have critical command over your reputation online — as long as you are checking your Reputation Score and utilizing the information to improve your clients’ encounters.
Determining Your Reputation Score Yourself
Your Reputation Score reveals to you whether your online nearness is aiding or harming your mission. It fills you in as to whether you would:
- Pass an on the web/internet based life individual verification
- Come up short an on the web-based life individual verification
- Exceed expectations in an on the web/internet based life individual verification
- Our Reputation Score is the main innovation that precisely scours the whole web to coordinate your pictures, internet-based life, Google results, and more against a known database of warnings and strengthening factors that businesses use to screen you. Your Reputation Score resembles a FICO assessment for your computerized impression.
Like a FICO assessment, your Reputation Score can run from “Poor” to “Astounding”. Your genuine score best out at a limit of 800. Individuals with higher scores are factually bound to win profession openings than individuals who have lower scores.
Ways to Improve Your Reputation Score?
Furthermore, what can you do for free and at home to work on improving your online reputation score? How can you start to make a positive impact on your name when others are searching for you.
Aside from things such as your credit score, your reputation score can sometimes easily be skewed or spiral out of control. But the good news is there are many things you can do to restore your reputation is its former glory.
Just like businesses have online reviews, individuals can utilize networks such as social media to voice their side of the story in order to give their readers some background knowledge about them before jumping to any rash conclusions.
Most individuals assume that it is impossible to keep constant control of their online search results when in reality (if you are not a celebrity) minimal efforts can alter what shows on Google, Bing, or Yahoo.
Here are the top 4 tips we recommend so you can start to create a positive image for yourself online and improve your overall reputation score.
1. Improving Your Google Search Results
Start by researching yourself. Act as if you know nothing about who you are.
What type of impression do your search results give? Are they positive? Is there anything at all?
After doing some thorough research you can either compile a list of the websites that mention your name or you can simply start to create new content yourself!
By using content creation sites such as Canva.com you can easily design beautiful artwork that you can share on social media! Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram tend to high favorably on Google so don’t be shy. Share, share and share as much quality content as you can.
However, make sure your name is included somewhere on the post in order for Google to match it accordingly.
2. Online Reputation Management Campaigns
You can hire online reputation management or content creation agency such as GuaranteedRemoval.com.
Our specialists can handle anything from removing negative or unwanted content from Google, Bing, or Yahoo. To creating personalized exact-match domain websites to showcase your talents, guaranteed to rank highly on each search engine.
The point of online reputation management campaigns is of course to improve your existing reputation score. So if you are interested in learning more about how we can help you, please fill out the form below and we will reach out to you as soon as we can.
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3. Create a Personal Brand
Are you looking for a new job, new home or possibly giving online dating a shot? If so, creating a personal brand for yourself is absolutely imperative.
Not only will you stand out and increase the number of positive search results about yourself but you are also showing future employers or business connections that you take pride in yourself and your work. You go the extra mile to showcase it.
Watch this short video below to get a better understand of how you can begin to develop a personal brand that works best for you.
4. Dive into Social Media
We live in a digital era where individuals spend an average of 10 hours per week on their smartphones or laptops/computers. Facebook alone has an active user base that well exceeds one billion people.
In the past people who chose whether or not it was “worth it” to create social media accounts however now (unless you want to live off the grid), it is important that you not only create these various platforms but post on the monthly, weekly or even daily.
By putting out more and more positive (self-published) content about yourself you are slowly but surely working to improve your overall reputation score online.
Here are the Top 10 social media websites you should create a profile on as soon as possible:
- YouTube
- FB Messenger
- Tumblr
- Quora
- TikTok
How We Can Help Better Your Reputation Score
Begin by focusing on any slanderous substance in reference to your name and amend the circumstances in an auspicious way. On the off chance that you didn’t post a photograph of yourself and might want it removed, our team of removal specialists has the capacity to remove the data effortlessly.
Call us today at 833-873-0360 to talk with a proficient SEO specialist. We offer campaigns for anybody, regardless of the spending we will do everything possible to guarantee your reputation score is positive.
All in all, GuaranteedRemoval emerges from the pack on account of our restrictive monitor programming. No hazard and high reward seem like a formula for success. We anticipate talking with you soon.
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How to Remove News Articles From The Internet
In this post, we’ll show you the proper way on how to remove negative news articles from the internet. In addition to any negative news articles or unwanted personal pieces of info that may ruin your name on Google, Bing, and Yahoo. We’ll conjointly reveal a way to knock down negative search results on Google in addition to the negative news articles if you are struggling to combat these posts yourself.
Here at GuaranteedRemoval.com, we receive countless phone calls in regards to assisting both individuals and businesses with removing unwanted or unwarranted information online. Learn the best practices to effectively remove negative news articles from Google, Bing, and Yahoo in as little as a few weeks. Take pride in how you are viewed online, your reputation is everything.
As we all know seeing negative reviews online can hinder your success tremendously. Statistics show that with a single negative news article online, businesses risk losing in upwards of 22% in revenue. Furthermore, if a company suffers from two negative news articles on the first page of Google, the potential loss in business doubles to nearly 44%.
The reason many businesses fail is due to a lack of brand awareness. Try ‘Googling’ your business as if you were a consumer. How do the search results appear? Be honest with yourself. Everyone makes mistakes but you need to control the narrative if the entire first page is negative news articles about your company. You need to remove negative news articles from the first couple pages by doing more good and creating a solid reputation management startegy.
If you are not in complete control of the first few pages on Google, Bing, and Yahoo for the main service offerings you provide, you need to make a change. Online reputation management maybe your missing puzzle piece to find new customers, remove negative news articles, and increase your revenue tenfold.
Throughout this article, we are going to be teaching the average person or business owner how to not only remove negative news articles but also alter their search results if they are seeing something they do not like. Although this is no easy task, our experts here at GuaranteedRemoval.com are happy to assist you throughout the entire process of successfully getting rid of negative news articles in Google search. We can even do the heavy lifting for you so you can stay focused on what matters, your business. Branding mistakes happen every day, how you deal if the negativity will either make or break your business.
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Getting Negative News Articles Removed, Is It Possible?
When you look at the internet, it is home to various types of information, both positive and negative. But what do you do when a negative news article appears online referencing your name or business? Where do you start? Most companies in 2018 have admitted they do not have a brand crisis management strategy ready to deploy if they were to be negatively impacted by a negative news article or other negative news stories on Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
In the past, society used outlets like the newspaper to hear about recent current events happening around the world. So if something negative appeared you would simply wait until another company or individual messed up and “outshines” your negative article. You could wait out the negative news article because other negative news stories and news articles would pop up about someone else and take over the narrative.
But with Google search and the internet one negative news article becomes many news articles and an entire negative news story in the search results. And unlike that negative news article in the newspaper these never go away. In order to manage online news publications and negative articles you have to suppress negative news articles with positive Google search results about your business.
There are a few important factors to keep in mind when learning how to remove news articles from Google. Before we get started with the rest of this article on how to remove personal information from Google. Let’s break down the top 3 characteristics or key points you should remember throughout this process:
- If you do not own the information, Google will not remove news articles because you simply “do not like it online”.
- If the website in question has legally obtained the information and has the right to publish it, there is no legal stance on removing the information. No matter how bad it is.
- This will takes a few months to complete yourself so remaining consistent and do not give up when you do not see quick results.
Delete Information You Control Online First! Get Off Google FAST!
After you Googled yourself or company, start by making a list of each of the news articles you find negative. Create a spreadsheet with the words you searched on Google to find the article and the link (or URL) to the article itself. Improve upon your existing Google reputation management by deleting anything you control that could harm your business in the long run.
This way you can refer back to it at any time without researching it on Google, Bing, or Yahoo. It is important to create this list because every time you click on a result within Google you are essentially telling Google that you “like” this article. This may potentially move that negative article up in the search results.
Keep your personal information private with GuaranteedRemoval.com
DO NOT CLICK ON THE NEGATIVE LINKS ON GOOGLE.
When working to remove articles on the internet there are two types of information. Controllable and uncontrollable content. What does this mean?
Controllable content is information you published yourself. This can vary from blog articles, press releases, social media posts, and photos. If you are seeing negative information that you know you or your company published, find the source and delete it directly.
Controllable information is the easiest type of content to remove from the internet because since you posted the information only you can remove it.
Suppress and Delete Articles Out of Your Control.
On the other hand, removing articles from the internet that are not under your control can be daunting.
When working to remove articles online that are out of your control please remember that Google does NOT own anything. Therefore, making attempts to contact Google in order to remove content will get you nowhere. You must contact the source of the post and request them to alter or remove the information.
When attempting to locate the website owner there are a few steps you can take:
- Locate a “Contact Form” on the website. This form or a link to this form is generally located on the homepage or in the footer at the bottom of any page mixed with other options such as “Terms & Conditions” or “Privacy Policy”. It is important to remain calm and polite when requesting information to be removed from the desired website. Again, if the website owner has the right to publish the content, removing it would be a courtesy and not a right.
- Utilize ‘WHOIS’ tools to locate the website owner’s email or address. The simplest way to locate contact information is by visiting Google and searching this “whois www.website.com” If the website is public, Google should prompt any and all emails. In addition, you can download the Chrome extension called Hunter.io that finds any and all emails within a specific website for you in no time at all.
- Contact the hosting company. After searching for the WHOIS information on your desired website. You will also be given the hosting company where this website is parked or managed. Call the hosting company and request the information on the website owner (if private they may not release this information to you).
Once you have made contact with the site owner it is at their discretion whether to remove or keep your article public. For the most part, if you have a just reason for removing this article they will comply and just delete it. However, there are many factors that could get you disapproved. This is the quickest way to remove your name from Google.
What Type of Articles Can Be Removed
Reaching out to website owners is an excellent step forward in removing your unwanted articles online. Here is a shortlist of reasons why your article should be removed. If your negative post falls into one of these categories we would suggest contacting the website owner day after day until you hear a response. The key is to remain persistent and polite at the same time, this will give you the best opportunity at having your article removed from the internet.
CyberBullying & Harassment
If you are seeing an article within Google, Bing, or Yahoo that is clearly harassing yourself or your business that may be immediate grounds for removal. Google has a very strict cyberbullying policy to combat any slanderous or libel articles within their results.
Although Google does a great job of monitoring its results, some articles do slip through the cracks. By sending a simple email to [email protected] you are able to bring this to their attention. After your request has been made it may take a few days to hear back. Although you are not removing the article from the website directly, it will be nearly impossible for other individuals or customers to locate unless they are familiar with the website (this is rare).
Typically once you remove an article from the first two pages of Google, it has the same effect as removing it from everywhere.
Illegal Content
After years of working with online reputation management, our team has seen it all. Posts about minors, drugs, the dark web, and much more. We have come to find out these are the easiest articles to remove.
This includes pictures or content infringing anyone else’s legal property right, something portraying statutory offense imaging, rape, organ sale, human trafficking, vulnerable animal product, illegal medication, prescribed drugs to the illegal market, graphic or gratuitous violence, and content created by or on behalf of terrorist organizations.
Offensive Content
Content containing profane, obscene, or offensive gestures and language are going to be removed.
Hateful Speech
Speech condoning or promoting violence against persons or teams supported faith, disability, race, ethnic origin, gender, age, veteran standing, sexual orientation, or position is prohibited from search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Spam
When addressing reviews, factual posts, or different content, it ought to mirror your actual and real expertise at whichever location you visited. Duplicating content from multiple accounts also will not be tolerated and are typically removed from sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Glassdoor and many other review platforms.
We often see this occur amongst competitors. Companies will openly bash their competition because they presume it will deter consumers from the competition and choose them instead. This tactic rarely works and if caught can ruin your business.
How To Suppress, Push Down and Remove Articles from the Internet Yourself.
While working to remove articles from the internet that you have deemed negative you have many options when attempting to bury it onto the back pages of Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Although removing information online is nearly impossible when you cannot contact a specific website owner there are many routes you can take to suppress or “push down” the negative article yourself.
Social Media
In this digital era, consumers are using various social media platforms to express themselves in a positive light for the world to see. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram alone have created hundreds of entrepreneurs and positive reputations through the use of photos, webinars, and short articles. Share who you are with the world.
Social media is your safety net for when (or if) a brand crisis should emerge. You can turn to your pre-existing following and explain your side of the story. Being personable online, especially as a company, goes a long way when generating brand awareness and working to create a strong audience.
Social media profiles typically rank highly on program results (Google, Bing, and Yahoo). Having your personal or business name on social media is a sure-fire way to win one of the highest spots on Google. Take the time to create profiles on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn at a minimum.
Our team at GuaranteedRemoval will conjointly facilitate your founded alternative resources and profiles that add up for your business (i.e., native resources, government sites, university domains, etc.).
Publish Content Regularly
As you attempt to suppress and remove articles from the internet you will come to find out that in order to move a specific article you must publish higher quality and highly engaging content that people will actually view and more importantly, enjoy!
After creating your various social media accounts it is important that you keep these accounts up-to-date with current topics and discussions along with creative photos or infographics that teach your audience something new. This could be a motivational quote of Twitter every day in the morning, or even weekly Instagram story posts of “behind the scenes” at your company.
Your posts should take little to no time to create (5-10 minutes per day). Make sure you are posting 2-3 times a day when you start to keep your followers engaged. Once you start to learn what type of content your audience loves, double down and promote that type of content daily.
Marketing yourself online is an art. You will not be able to post once a week and hope for your Google results will change.
We have a saying here at GuaranteedRemoval.com, “Consistency and Persistency Move Mountains”, it is important that you stick with your social posts and do not get discouraged when you do not see the desired results within a few days. Again, this process does take longer when attempting it yourself, remain positive and keep in mind your reputation lasts forever so even though your new content has not surfaced yet, it will in the future when your following begins to grow more and grow day after day.
Create Custom Domains
Register domain names that match your name and business and their variations, exact-match keyword phrases do the best on Google. For example, if you are a local florist named Jane Done you can buy janedoeflowers.com. If you are unable to locate any exact-match domains, get as near to your desired keywords as you’ll be able to (ex. flowersjanedoe.com, etc).
Add fresh, distinctive content on an everyday basis. Begin with a few blog articles about what you do and how you started. Begin and maintain an expert blog on your domains. Google loves blog articles, especially well-written and informative articles. Whenever possible, produce and share multimedia system content on your blog (and your social media channels), as Google has been best-known to rank content such as this higher in the results.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine improvement (SEO) improves the visibility of your content. SEO is extremely important if your business operates in a highly saturated industry with lots of competition.
It is important that when a potential customer Googles the service you offer that you appear on the first page. This can be impossible for certain keywords, however, for the most part, you can optimize both your on-page and off-page efforts to maximize your potential growth.
If you are just creating a custom domain and have little to no information on Google related to you it may take some time before you notice any changes in SERPs (search engine results page).
We recommend starting with 30 blogs on your website as a minimum, no less than 1,500 words each. Target lower searched phrases by utilizing tools such as KWFinder or SEMrush to uncover which keywords are right for you.
If you are unsure about what you should be targeting, contact us to receive a complete SEO audit on tips you can start to implement today to boost the web presence of your business.
Become an Expert
Showcase your trade experience and get rewarded with a high ranking search result by writing for associate authoritative news websites or trade web blogs. These websites typically earn prime placement in search results. If you happen to get your name on their website with an excellent article, you’ll probably be able to take over a desired spot within the results and further build your online name.
Show you are an expert in your field by writing high-quality press releases. Have your PR team write interesting things that are happening for your business or alternative high-profile ventures that you can showcase on publishing sites such as The Boston Globe, Digital Journal, PRweb, Cision and much more.
Be Yourself
Ideally, you want to use your real, full name on all of the websites you’re utilizing – as well as blogs and social profiles.
Your company is a representation of you, so make sure only to showcase yourself positively and never post out of anger or spitefulness as the repercussions (as you may already know) can take months to reverse.
Social Sharing
One easy thing Google checks for when ranking particular articles is the amount of connection it has amongst other websites or social media platforms. For example, if you write an article and have 100+ friends and family share and comment about it on Facebook, Google will see that your article is interesting which in turn increases the authoritativeness and boosts your article upwards in rankings.
Avoid dangerous link schemes or black hat techniques, ensure you’re operating with an honorable name management company such as GuaranteedRemoval.com.
Do not pay for share socials, views, likes, etc. Not only does this destroy your audience insights within each platform but having robots like your content is essentially pointless if they are not going to purchase from you.
The only benefit of paying for likes and followers is to build “social proof”. What is social proof? Social proof is when consumers are more likely to interact with your brand if they see your posts already received hundreds or thousands of likes and comments. This is a great way of building brand trust, a great characteristic to have if you are a local SMB (small and medium-sized business).
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Routine Monitoring
Maintaining and monitoring yourself online can assist with dealing with future issues you may face. By checking on your search results and reviews daily or weekly you are alerted almost immediately about any negative articles or bad reviews. Remove complaints from google search results quickly with the use of monitoring software such as Google Alerts. Online review management is essential in any business, without positive reviews prospective clients may be less likely to do business with you.
We suggest setting up Google Alerts for your full name along with the name of your company. By doing this you will be sent automated emails from Google’s team when a new publication online references your name. If you deem the article negative you can follow the steps above and contact the website owner quickly after publication to minimize the damage it has onto your business.
In Conclusion
When working to remove articles from the internet there are many things you should be aware of. Do you own it? Who owns it? How can you contact the owner? Does it breach any privacy laws on Google, Bing, or Yahoo? What can you do when a website owner does not respond to your requests?
If you are struggling to remove articles from the internet and do not know where else to turn. Please contact us, our team will perform a FREE ANALYSIS to uncover any and all unwarranted posts online. All solutions are 100% guaranteed. If you have any further questions please email [email protected] for assistance.
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How to Talk About Your Criminal Record
The job search alone is difficult enough, but the job search with a criminal record can be almost impossible. This is why it is important to understand the fine line between being honest and saying way too much.
Your interview will be mainly about your past, so trying to avoid the subject altogether will do more harm than good.
Therefore, whenever the moment comes about, there are a few tips you can use to explain your criminal record and still have a chance of getting the job.
Background Checks and Employment
In a 2009 study, approximately one-third of Americans have been arrested by their 23rd birthday, with a large majority of those arrests being nonviolent. While these nonviolent crimes are no threat to society, it still may show employers liability, which they will do anything to avoid. This eventually leads to difficulty in obtaining jobs and leads to re-incarceration later in life. This why finding a job that you can stick with shows other employers that you have learned from the past and moved on. Here are a few laws that pertain to the criminal history and background checks:
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Civil Rights Acts of 1964
While this law deals mainly with discrimination, it also pertains to individuals with a criminal history as well. The act establishes that employers can use background checks in hiring decisions whenever the information is related to the job. This is to combat any employers that use someone’s criminal history to completely disqualify them from the job.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
The EEOC states that criminal records can be incomplete. There are also many mistakes within criminal records, such as inaccuracies and other jurisdictions that overlap. This allows individuals with a criminal history to have equal opportunities when it comes to being hired.
Knowing this information can be extremely beneficial when interviewing for a job, but before you even get your foot in the door, you have to answer the dreaded criminal history question.
Handling the Job Application Criminal History Question
Filling out the criminal history section of the job application is a must because if left out and your employer finds out, it can mean the automatic dismissal of your application. This also can depend on when your conviction or arrest took place, which is why it is important to know the dates that are important before filling out an application.
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Now, although they’re more than likely will be a criminal history question, read the question thoroughly; the question could pertain only to arrest, convictions, felonies, or even misdemeanors. Then figure out if it is just a yes or no question. If it is, you do not have to share the story on your application. If it is not, be honest, but you do not have to share details. Anything considered dishonest to your employer can easily be located online and will lead to dismissal of your application.
Write an Effective Letter About Your Criminal History
There are a few tips you can use to write an effective explanation letter about your criminal history:
Do Not Make Excuses
Blaming the arrest on anyone else but yourself just shows the employer that you have a tendency to not take accountability. Even if the arrest was not completely your fault, take the blame for your portion. This is a much more professional and righteous path to take.
Keeping It Brief
You do not have to go into full detail about everything that happened in the situation. Just give a brief summary of what happened and how it pertains to you. Going into detail about the situation may present the misconception that you are glorifying what happened and are somewhat proud of it.
Stress That You Have Changed
The past is the past, and stressing how you are not the same person can really show the employer that you have changed or want to change. Stress that you have learned from the experience and are looking forward to a positive future.
Along with writing a letter about your criminal history, using online reputation management can aid in getting rid of any personal information about you online.
Using Online Reputation Management (ORM)
A criminal record usually means a mugshot, which is plastered all over the search results for your name. Online reputation management (ORM) can help with removing a mugshot from the busted newspaper (and many other sites) and allow you to present your best foot forward with employers. For more information on online reputation management needs, contact us!
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Tips on Fraud Prevention
By definition, fraud means a wrongful or criminal deception intended in financial or personal gain. In other words, you cannot trick somebody into doing business with you under false pretense. Fraud prevention is the efforts made to combat this criminal activity to ensure your personal information is safe. Some of the most popular forms of fraud include; financial statements, asset misappropriation, larceny, healthcare/insurance, and consumer fraud. Many individuals are unaware of fraudsters even when they are right in front of them. Make sure you know your options in case you, unfortunately, become a victim. Do not make the mistake of not caring now.
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Why Does Fraud Prevention Matter?
Fraud prevention is crucial for any business. Security risks or financial crimes may leave many corporations vulnerable to such fraudulent schemes. It is important to have a plan intact that is ready to combat fraud when needed. Constantly monitoring and improving detection features makes this process a lot easier for many businesses. It is imperative that you locate and eliminate these issues from the start. Waiting until it is too late might be your business’ demise. Here are some of the best free online reputation management tools.
Tips On Fraud Prevention in 2018
Know Thy Enemy
In 2018, the digital world is booming. Having said that, this gives a large opportunity for thieves and hackers to steal your information. It is crucial to learn as much as possible about an individual before you do business with them. Start by reaching out to previous clients they have worked to get a better sense of their credibility. See if there are any news articles about the CEO. Another viable option is to take a look at the reviews for that specific business. Review sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor or the BBB are excellent resources when determining if someone is reputable or not.
Secure Payment Methods
Nowadays, with various secure payment vendors, it is nearly impossible to see fraud occur here. Merchants such as Authoize.net or Payline Data grant the ability to process payments safely knowing you are protected. Once the payment information is entered and processed, the card information is gone for good. The only three entities that see this information would be you, the customer and the merchant account. Another popular platform for this type of solution is PayPal in my opinion. However, there are several other routes you can take, another popular choice is SquareUp.com.
SquareUp caters and works for any size company, no matter if you make under $250,000 annually or more. If you operate in the field of food, health, retail, or service and repair we highly recommend you check out this option. Why? Because you can not only process cards online but you can actually swipe their credit card at the time of purchase.
Safeguard Personal Information
The best example of a business being infiltrated is the impersonation of top management, especially CEOs. Nobody wants to make the CEO wait so when employees receive an email request from “their boss” many will answer without asking a single question. Fraudsters love to prey on administrators or secretaries as they have access to most of the important information. DO NOT provide any financial credentials unless you are paying for something. In addition, be overly cautious if somebody you currently work with is asking questions about the information they should already have. Phishing is another popular tactic in an attempt to retrieve information such as passwords or account numbers.
Monitoring
It is important to constantly monitor your accounts to ensure there is no fraudulent activity going on. By reviewing monthly/quarterly statements this will show you right away if anything suspicious is going on internally. There are many types of different software you can download/purchase. LifeLock, partnered with Norton Antivirus handles anything and everything to do with data breaches. Lifelock allows users the ability to freeze accounts at a moment’s notice so you are fully protected. How you appear online, or how popular you are may determine how frequently these attacks occur.
Call GuaranteedRemoval.com today if you are struggling with combatting fraudulent activity online. We offer an extensive list of services and solutions such as content removal, monitoring and credit restoration. It is time you finally start focusing on what counts, your business. Let our professionals handle any efforts made to minimize your chance of a cyber attack. If you are not careful you could make matters worst trying to resolve any issues on your own.
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SWOT Analysis
This analysis will help you and your company undercover any issues when dealing with both internal and external strategies and ideas. Making sure you have a clear understanding of what a SWOT analysis is important. Please note “SWOT” is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Let us break this down a little more for you.
— Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power —
Strengths:
These are the first key indicators you want to look out for, so grab a piece of paper and a pen. Write down everything that helps your company, inside and out. Any expertise on the topic you are providing clients with or maybe your website is designed at a higher degree making competitors appear obsolete. Maybe you have the lowest prices!. In addition, if you have a strong and productive work environment that could be considered a strength as well. Anything you feel makes your company better should be listed in this category. Focus on building trust.
Weaknesses:
Now it is time to make a list of the negatives or the opposing sides to your strengths list. As many hey experience a lack of resources and knowledge and this can be detrimental to the overall success or online reputation of your company. Having a poor customer experience is never the goal to make sure your employees go above and behind to ensure a client is happy, poor communication can be the end of you. Pay attention to what could possibly hurt you and start devising plans on how you can rectify this, otherwise known as “opportunities”.
Opportunities:
Once you have sat down and compiled a list of strengths and weaknesses it is now time to look at your opportunities. This is more of an external focus as you will come to learn. Creating a powerful networking system can assist in many ways. The generation of ads will increase your sites visitor volume and that shows Google and others that people are interested in the content you write about and/or what you provide. Other ways to look at opportunities include:
- Creating a new niches
- Leveraging a new product or service
Threats:
Lastly, it is now time to evaluate your potential threats (internal/external). Examples would be a competitor is outranking your website online or clients are starting to take interest in other sites over yours. Make sure you keep your information up-to-date, nobody wants to read outdated information. If you do this correctly, you can turn this into a strength quickly. Your threats should consist of all things that can and will harm your company.
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Why should I use a SWOT Analysis?
As a business owner or blogger, you need to know what is affecting your website and how. A SWOT analysis is designed to better help you identify and understand key issues or benefits. This should not offer solutions but simply a list of influencing factors.
After you have completed your SWOT analysis you will have a better grasp of how you can better utilize your resources. Vice versa, you can also pinpoint useless issues you are currently spending time with and reallocate that effort to a more important threat or opportunity. You will start to see operations work smoother as you will be dealing with lesser risk once you have a generalized idea of where you stand amongst your competitors.
What to do After Performing an Analysis.
Once you have listed all of your components within your SWOT analysis it is time to sit down with your team and discuss solution possibilities. Begin by pointing out your strengths and how much power you actually have on the internet. Now take those positives and see what threat you can better improve upon. Going over your options on a monthly basis is a great start. During your performance meetings just go around the room asking everybody what they like or dislike. Taking care of your internal efforts has positive repercussions.
Call us today to see what options you have. One of our very knowledgeable advisors can design a plan perfect for you. Now it is time you know more about your company. Be in the know and act quickly.
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