SEO Services
Our highly consultative search engine optimization services include link building, on-page optimization, content development creation and more.
Social Media
We take a holistic look at Social Media strategy including blogging, Twitter, Facebook and industry specific social networks to come up with a campaign that works for you.
Local Search
Thunder SEO has extensive experience in creating and implementing local search campaigns for single location, regional and nationwide businesses.
Testimonials
Our company has been working with web designers and internet marketing people for over 10 years....
Reputation Management – Master List of Branded Websites and Profiles
A common strategy for reputation management is to claim profiles and websites that include the target business or person’s name. This increases the number of URLs that the business or person has control over. In addition, it helps prevent competition from claiming these branded profiles and creating false profiles, posting inaccurate or harmful information, or worse (yes, we know these examples from experience working with clients). Lastly, this process also results in valuable branded URLs that can then be “pushed up” (via link building) so that people searching for a business or person’s name will see specific content.
Here’s a snapshot of Google search results for some common branded profiles and websites:
I’ve been getting the question lately of how does someone find all these sites? There’s the familiar ones like Twitter, Yelp, Facebook, Linkedin and other well-known profile sites. And then there’s the profiles that you or your client might already rank for. But typically we’re talking one or two handfuls of sites.
In response, below is an ongoing list I’ve been building that includes common websites and profiles which can be utilized for reputation and brand management. These sites all allow for profiles or listings to be created, and the resulting URLs appear for brand name searches in Google. Again, the focus of this list is on sites that can be claimed using a business or person’s name, and that appear in Google search results for those name searches. This is NOT a comprehensive list of directory sites for local search, or social media profiles, or user generated content sites, etc. As mentioned above, this list is “ongoing” and I’ll update it in a couple of months. In addition, if you have some profiles that you’ve found effective, please let me know and I’ll add those too.
Okay, how to use this list.
Use this list to find websites and profiles that can be claimed for a business or person’s name. Some of the resulting URLs will rank quickly for branded search terms, which will be good candidates for “pushing up”. Depending on your particular strategy and reputation management goal, there’s a lot to choose from. Of course, the best rule of thumb for building a solid reputation management foundation is to claim them all.
So, let’s get to the list.
The sites are grouped according to type: Directories/Review Sites, Social Media Profiles, Press Release Sites, Video, Job Search Sites, User Generated Content Sites, Location Based Services, Coupon Sites and Other. The sites listed are general in nature. There are many industry-specific directories (such as real estate, finance, insurance, lawyers, etc.) which are not addressed here. (Note to self: Those might be good content for future posts.)
Each site is evaluated according to five parameters:
1) Business Name – This applies if the site or profile accepts business names. This is true for the majority of the directories. Here, business name includes a person’s name if that is their business name.
2) Personal Name – This applies if the site or profile accepts person listings, separate from business names that use a person’s name (as described above), hence “personal” name. Some sites are listed twice as the Business URL differs from the Personal URL (Facebook and Flickr being good examples).
3) Title – This indicates if the profile URL in Google search results includes the name in the Title.
4) Desc – This indicates if the URL in Google search results includes the name in the Description. This isn’t necessarily the Description Tag of the page as Google may pull its Description lines from the Desc Tag or from other content on the page. I’ve indicated under Notes some instances where the name needs to be used in the listing in order for it to show in Description lines on Google.
5) URL – This indicates if the profile URL includes the name.
Given the relative strength of the domains for each of these sites, Google does not treat these equally. Within each site category (e.g., Directories, Social Media Profiles, etc.), they are generally organized with the more significant sites at the top.
Have fun! (Oh yeah, please let me know if you find any mistakes. Thanks!)
|
Thank you for all the work you put into this list. We are just beginning reputation management at our company and find this information to be extremely valuable!