SEO: Protecting and Repairing your Online Reputation with Justin Seibert (episode 098)

by April Buencamino-dy

Justin is the President of Direct Online Marketing, a top 200 Premier Google Partner who have clients around the world.. Justin and his team have been helping clients with their SEO marketing for well over a decade.

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About Justin

Justin got into digital marketing in 2001, working for a direct sales company where he started doing a bit of SEO and a lot of Google Ads, since the latter was the important thing at that time.

When he moved to the other side of the United States and looked for work, he accepted side gigs because there were a lot of opportunities. This eventually turned into an agency and to be able to offer clients what they needed and grow the business, Justin learned more about SEO.

Online Reputation Management

Justin defines online reputation management as how you make sure that when people are checking you out online, what they find reflects well upon you and reflects accurately as well.

Look at this as an opportunity for you to improve. Take the honest feedback you get from the web and use this information to further enhance your processes.

Building Up Your Search Engine Results Pages

The main concept is that it’s really important to build up those SERPs now before you have an issue.

In case you find yourself dealing with a negative issue, do the necessary clean-up afterwards. But the biggest thing is doing the work now even before you have an issue.

Protecting Your Online Reputation

Justin recommends to at least squat on to a good domain with your name so that you already have it, and you can choose to do what you want with it at a later time.

The other thing you need to do is to own as many different profiles as possible, including major social media profiles. For companies, there are other relevant places such as Crunchbase, Medium, or Quora. Be as consistent as possible with your naming, and even your address and phone number because this is important from the point of view of reputation management.

How To Get Started

Make sure your own site or anything that you control is completely optimized, and that your social media is optimized for your name, with the proper SEO done such as link building.

For businesses, Justin again mentions building profiles on sites such as Quora, Medium, and Crunchbase. The latter also acts as a feeder for other sites so by listing there, your name is also going to show up in other places.

Reputation management is a constant process, so work on it consistently to build your reputation up.

Insider Tips

If we’ve inspired someone to take their first step with SEO – what do they need to know to give themselves the best chance of success?

Have that consistency in terms of owning as many different social media profiles and domains, and make sure that the name listed is also consistent. This is regardless if it’s a personal name or a company’s brand name.

If you’re a company, Justin recommends checking out Glassdoor and work on getting good reviews on the site.

Once you’ve started of course you’ve got to ‘keep optimising’! So what’s your favourite way to improve SEO performance?

Justin’s big tip is review sites, with the most important one being Google. It’s a free resource, and it’s still a place where people can leave reviews, so make sure you’re taking advantage of it.

Additionally, when you already have the reviews, include them on your website and mark them up with schema. This is so you can have the rating you worked so hard for, show up in the search for your company name.

If someone listening wants to learn more about SEO is there one cheap/free resource you’d recommend?

Justin mentions Moz, which has plenty of good information about SEO on their website.

Crystal ball time – what’s coming up in the next 6-12 months that we should be getting ready for in SEO?

A cross between SEO and reputation management, Justin says Reddit is becoming a huge force because it’s being used so much.

Justin suggests that you monitor what’s being said on Reddit about your brand, and when appropriate, take it to the next level by being transparent and responding or talking through.

Interview Links

Justin on Social media:

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