Regular readers of our SEO company’s blog know that we were at the Search Engine Strategies Chicago conference this week, and we attended some great sessions, especially the ones that covered blogging for business and online reputation management.

Many SEO firms will advise their clients to start a blog; after all, we all know that websites with consistently updated content tend to rank well - search engines love fresh information.  However, our SEO agency knows that a great blog can be so much more than that.  From that session, we took away a few other reasons to blog: to showcase your individuality, to give and get feedback on your products, services, or solutions, to allow your clientele to develop an emotional investment in your brand, and to create a sense of reliability and foster trust in your users.

That said, it can be difficult to maintain a regular blogging schedule (that is why our SEO company as well as our online business development division includes content creation and copywriting as one of our services), but creating an editorial calendar and using Google alerts and other info tracking services to keep up with the latest news in your field can help streamline the process.  Furthermore, a conversational style tends to work well for blogging - write posts that sound similar to how you actually talk.  In many ways, blogging is essentially relationship marketing.  You are developing a relationship with your readers, and they are investing their time in your brand - making them much more likely to convert into loyal customers.

The session also covered pitching bloggers, whether you are asking them for a link, a product review, or a guest post.  It is probably obvious that you should personalize your pitches, but it never hurts to be reminded that in order to get something from a blogger, you should comment on their blog, approach them like a human rather than a journalist, or otherwise participate in their community or niche.

Reputation management has also been a recent hot topic in the search engine optimization, PPC, and online marketing world.  It seemed to be agreed that PPC ads are mostly good for quickly responding to a crisis, but that is the extent of their rep management capability.  After all, according to data presented in the session, 77% of users click solely on the organic results, 68% never go beyond the first page, and 37% assume that the top ten listings are the major players in that particular keyword’s space.

One of the biggest reasons that reputation management growing in importance is that increasing numbers of people are looking to the web to learn about others’ objective experiences and opinions.  Therefore, buzz monitoring - keeping up with what people are talking about online - is essential.  Tracking not only your brand name, but the names of key products, individuals, and even your competitors helps you nip a potential crisis in the bud as well as recoginize potential opportunities as soon as they arise.  Buzz monitoring can be a key part of launching something new - it helps assess the current and market and therefore you can determine how to position yourself in the industry.  You can also use historial data to gain insight into seasonal and event-driven discussions.

It is also important to remember that you can influence the internet buzz , but you can never completely control it.  That is where reputation management comes into consideration.  In addition to pushing negative reviews or bad press down in the SERPs, a good reputation management company can help turn negative commenters into brand ambassadors if you turn the situtation around (just look at “Dell hell“).  First, you need to understand the negative commenters and their motivations - do they feel wronged or ripped off in some way?  Can you possibly remedy the situation through customer service, or is it a lost cause (e.g. one crazy person or disgruntled employee who is never going to turn around)? Accountability can go a long way towards salvaging a damaged reputation.

Reputation management experts know that search results offer an amazing opportunity to present your brand in a positive light and place your best foot forward.  If you provide useful information and helpful content that is not only relevant, but portable and shareable (you want your audience to be able to spread your message as easily as possible), you can maintain an excellent online image.  Remember that interesting and innovative content can go viral and create loyal customers who build a community around your brand, and even defend it from attacks on your reputation.

If any of our readers attended SES Chicago, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!