We thought it was about time we did a Repumatic Review. This article is about the Repumatic Online Reputation Management platform.

First of all, let me say, I hope that you never need Repumatic, or any other reputation management service.

Have you ever upset someone, in business or personally? Has anyone ever felt so strongly about something you have said or done, or are alleged to have said or done, that they want to make life uncomfortable for you?

Well – now they can! Quickly, easily and without leaving their seat.

If someone has a gripe about your business, the service you have provided or a product that you may have sold, then they will usually let you know in a reasonable way, perhaps a complain by email or a less than complimentary review. The important thing is to respond in a polite and helpful way – and be seen to be doing so!

Reputation management isn’t just about fixing things when they are broken – although that is the point at which most people begin to sit up and take notice – Reputation Management is an ongoing process that should, in the vast majority of cases, prevent the problem ever getting out of hand in the first place.

Online Reputation Management Rule Number 1 – Monitor & Respond

Somebody, somewhere, right now could be saying something nice, or something nasty, about you online. A review, a comment on your blog or a post on your website, or, if they are really miffed with you, they may decide to take things further and, for example, create a Facebook page to tell the world how bad you are.

The Internet has many benefits, no doubt about that, but it has its drawbacks too 0 and this is one of them. If I don’t like to the way you have treated me I can tell the world about it by blogging about you, leaving bad reviews and creating online properties to use as a platform to slag you off. worst of all, there’s precious little you can do about it unless the comments made are libelous and untrue. If it’s true, even justified maybe, then you have a problem.

So, before we start to look at ways to deal with the above, lets try and prevent it in the first place. Get yourself a package or subscribe to a service that will enable you to monitor your online “Buzz”. Hootsuite, BuzzBundle and many other services will enable you to set up a monitoring system for any keywords or mentions of your name or brand. You will be alerted when these occur and be able to interact and respond to them. In most cases you will be able to deal with the issue before it escalates into something more serious.

Online Reputation Management Rule Number 2 – When the Talking Stops it’s time to begin Online Reputation Management with Repumatic

If you are unable to resolve your differences by talking or negotiation and the other side have decided to start a campaign online to discredit you then you must not ignore it. There are some very powerful ways in which they can damage your reputation online and you must be aware of these and respond to them as son as possible.

This is when an online reputation management platform like Repumatic can really help.

Repumatic works on the principle of “pushing down”. The Repumatic system enables you to set up numerous “branding sites” or microsites that should be optimised around a small number of keywords, preferable only one or two. Because these sites are, in fact, subdomains of much larger sites which are well indexed on Google and other search engines, the get indexed quickly and enable you to get first page position in a fairly short time – if you do every thing right.

Furthermore, because the sites you will create are subdomains,there is no way to trace these sites back to you so no one will be aware of what you are doing. You should be careful of linking from or to such sites however as this may create a trail that can be followed in order to work out your strategy.

The main advantage with setting up these sites from a reputation management point of view is that when they get first page positions on Google they will push down the sites that carry negative content about you or your business and once a result is pushed down onto page two or further it has effectively disappeared and is unlikely to be seen very often. It can take a while for this to happen but it is well worth the wait.

The other reason why you may want to use Repumatic is to create branding sites. Here, you just want people to be made aware of your business name or brand so the sites you create should be built with that in mind. Again, it is best to optimise them around a limited number of keywords which are low-competition, (see my articles on Keyword Research to find out how to find out which ones to use).

By combining the facilities on Repumatic with other methods such as setting up social media pages and blogs it should be possible, over time, to push down the negative listings below the point where anyone is likely to see them.

In the shorter term there is something you can do to help matters. If you discover that, for example, the negative listings are appearing for a particular set of keywords, then you can bid for those keywords using Google’s AdWords system and have an ad shown at the top of the Google page. Because the search phrases in question are unlikely to be heavily competed for, you should be able to do this for a small budget. Now that Google allows ad extensions it is possible to  occupy quite a lot of the pace “above the fold” – the part of the screen where people need to scroll in order to see – effectively putting it out of sight.

I’ve used this tactic on several occasions and it certainly does the trick but be careful to set it up correctly or it could end up costing a lot of money whereas it should only cost a few pence. This is one area where it may pay to use a specialist.

To sum up; If there is someone out there who is giving you a hard time online then respond quickly, don’t let it fester. Try and defuse the situation if you can by responding in a positive way and being apologetic and helpful. If this doesn’t work then take a look at what Repumatic has to offer and if you are really concerned, use the services of a specialist – it will save you money in the long run.