5 Ways to Protect Your Online Reputation and Why It Matters

By Cloris Kylie

What is the first thing you usually do before signing up for a company's services or meeting a potential business associate? You do an online search. And guess what? It's exactly what most people do before they agree to work with you. This means that you might be losing new career or business opportunities without even realizing it because of what shows up online about you.

Your online reputation is an essential component of your personal brand. When you protect your online reputation, you safeguard your brand, and a successful career or business can only be cemented on a rock-solid brand foundation. Here are five simple tools you can use to monitor and protect your online reputation.

5 simple ways to protect your online reputation

1. Conduct a simple Google search

Looking up yourself on Google is the simplest step you can immediately take to safeguard your reputation, and you must do it often—ideally once a month.

If one of the search results is damaging to your reputation, contact the site directly to have the content removed. You can usually reach the right people by clicking on their privacy or contact page. While there's no guarantee that a site will remove the content, but you must try.

No luck getting the negative content removed? Create new content that will be likely to rank high on Google search results. You could:

• Share articles on Blogger (Google’s blogging platform).

• Create an SEO-friendly LinkedIn profile.

• Update your Facebook and Twitter profiles.

• Upload videos on YouTube.

2. Set up a comprehensive Google Alert

Google Alerts will notify you of stories as they happen associated with your name. To get started, simply go to Google Alerts and follow the instructions. At a minimum, you should set up an alert for your full name. If you are a business owner, set an alert for the name of your business as well.

3. Take advantage of people search tools

Use people search tools such as pipl.com or whitepages.com to do thorough searches on your name. See if your phone number, address, or date of birth comes up; if they do, it makes it harder for you to protect your identity.

These websites compile their information from multiple sites, and they usually provide a link for you to contact each one of their sources directly. Contacting each site and requesting to remove your information will take some time, but it’s worth it.

More articles from AllBusiness.com:

• 5 Mistakes That People With Emotional Intelligence Never Make
• 14 Steps to Online Reputation Management
• The 5 Signs of Burnout—And How to Cure It
• 5 Tips for Effective Online Reputation Management
• 5 Ways to Use LinkedIn as a Powerful Marketing Tool for Your Business

4. Don’t allow anyone to tag you in pictures that might damage your reputation

And tagging doesn’t only refer to embarrassing pictures of you. Sometimes well-meaning friends decide to tag you in a picture of them engaging in behavior that should have been kept private.

If you find yourself tagged in an image you don't want public, immediately ask the person to remove the tag, and remind him or her to not tag you again. Also take a few minutes to review your privacy settings on your social media pages to ensure that your personal information be shared only with those who are meant to see it.

5. Think twice before you post

I always tell my clients, “What you share online stays online—forever.” Before hitting the “share” or “comment” buttons, ask yourself whether your action is aligned with your brand. As a rule of thumb, never post on social media when you’re angry, and regardless of your privacy settings, never publish negative comments about coworkers, business associates, or customers. To keep your brand strong, also always spell-check your comments and posts. Finally, keep in mind that what you post on the internet is your face to the world.

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