How Many Websites Do You Need For Reputation Management?

It’s almost common knowledge now that Google will only rank a couple of pages per domain for the same keyword. That means if you want to dominate the search results pages for a keyword then you’ve got to have more than one domain. But how many is enough?

For reputation management purposes, you’ve got to think a little bit deeper than keywords and SERPs. What you want are search results positions. But not necessarily the top 10.

Your reputation is your name. And your company name. So you aren’t concerned about generic keyword rankings when thinking about reputation management. You are thinking about your name and brand. And, remember, you want search results positions. Not websites.

Sure, websites can help you achieve rankings. But you can only have one domain name with yourname.com. After that, it’s a matter of variation and it would just look silly to have a string of domain names that used variations of your name and that basically repurposed all the same old information about you that no one else wants to read. So let’s get creative.

First and foremost, you do want one domain name that includes your name in it. It doesn’t have to be much. A few pages. Maybe a blog that you write to once in a while. Make this your reputation hub. Include a CV, some educational and professional history, maybe even some personal information. It’s a place for people who want to know a little bit about you to come to for information. If it is for your company then make it a company reputation hub.

After your own domain name and website, start utilizing the various social media sites. Stick with the big ones and be active in them. But don’t overestimate how much time you can spend working them. With just one hour a day you can be active in the top 5:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Your industry’s top social network

If you’re active enough on these sites and you make your real name (or brand) your profile username then you will likely rank pretty high for your reputation management term on each site. That’s 5 good positions right there.

There are plenty of other reputation management strategies to add to this basic structure, but the key is to manage your reputation across the entire web and not just in the search engines or on your own sites. Make everything you do count for something.