1. Keyword in Title
2. Keyword in Meta Tags
3. Keyword in URL ( a killer factor in MSN)
4. Anchor Links with Keywords.

Bingo! you’re on top 10!

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In recent years, I have come across several lists of Search engine optimization factors which tell you, in a checklist type way the factors important for your website to rank well in search engines. I just thought I will put up my top 5 factors that really don’t matter and seo’s still waste a hell of time fretting over them.

1. Link Exchange
   Link Exchanging with websites who link you from their Link Pages. Come on guys, google and other search engine are smart enough to detect those link pages. If you want to exchange links, stay away from these types of pages.
2. Submitting Articles in Article Directories
   This is over-beaten to death and everyone and his cousin knows how to submit their crappy article in “hundreds” of article directories. Rest assured, search engine simply ignore them.
3. Submitting your site in hundreds of newly popped up directories
   Read what I wrote above for article directories. Though I strongly advocate submitting your site in the top 15 or 20 quality directories like Yahoo, Dmoz etcetera.
4. Keyword stuffing in titles and copy
   Titles are really important. But inserting strings of keywords will make them no more relevant than they are. So just relax and write a neat clean title that entices a user to click.
5. Site-wide links -
   Getting several links from the same website will be considered one link. Simple!

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Almost anyone from your ex-employees to unhappy customers might contribute to damage your online reputation easily. However some preventive and proactive measures mentioned below should be taken in order to avoid a PR disaster.

What is Online Reputation Management?

Proactive companies tend to apply an online reputation management plan that improves visibility of positive PR of the company into search results. I have created a basic-level online reputation management plan

Monitor What People are Saying

The first step is to keep track of what is being said about you or your company online. There are a number of free to paid tools available online for the purpose. I am going to list down a few

• Set up Google and Yahoo Alerts so that whenever a search result with your company name appears in the top results, you are notified by email.
• Regularly search blog search engine Technorati to see if there are any blogs discussing your company
• Go to http://www.socialmeter.com/ and see where and how you have been discussed in the social media network.
• Often search for your company name in search engines to see how positive the top results are
• Type of websites to watch for are
  • Blogs, Forums, and Consumer Opinion Sites
  • Consumer Complaint Sites
  • Social Network Sites
  • Competitor Attacks
  • Trademark Infringement
  • Counterfeit Products
  • Counter-intelligence
  • Crisis Management Developments

Influence Results
Once you are closely monitoring your reputation online, you might come across web pages, blogs, forums where discussion is not in your favor. If those pages are appearing in the top 10 or 20 search results, a number of potential customers and existing customers might be reading them too. What you need to do is

• • Participate:You can influence online discussions by actively participating in them. Of course you need to have sharp PR management skills to handle direct attacks tactfully.
  • Optimize your online properties Your websites, your blogs and whatever websites you own should be optimized to rank high on search engines. You can get help of a professional seo consultant for that matter.
  • Create New Sites or Sub-Domain You can also create new sites about your brands, or services and link them up to get more share of the search engine results. This will keep the negative PR sites out of the top 20 results.
  • Start a Blog Blog is a great tool for personalized communication online. You can use it to your advantage by communicating with customers and also creating positive PR for your company’s name
  • Employee Blog Some senior partners and employees in your organization can also start their blog to create positive PR for the company in a more untraditional manner.
  • Paid ReviewsThere are websites that allow you to ask for reviews about your company by a number of bloggers for a fee. Examples are www.payperpost.com www.reviewme.com

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