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Business owners and branding specialists need to know what consumers are writing about on the Internet regarding their products or services.  If a consumer writes a negative review or posts misleading information about their brand it is important to know about the post in real-time.

By having this real-time information, a company then has the ability to respond appropriately.  Sometimes a business may need to take immediate action and other times saying nothing at all may be best strategy. Keep in mind that the longer a post stays up on the Internet, the harder it is to contain the possible damage it may cause.

The realization that business owners need this type of information is part of the reason why the Internet Reputation Management (IRM) profession is growing. As the profession develops, IRM consultants will become a part of most business development plans. Internet Reputation Management strategies have offensive and defensive components. I strongly advise every business owner to put in place a proactive reputation management strategy before they are hit with a negative attack.

A Free IRM Tool

You can get started with tracking what is being written on the Internet with a powerful, easy to use tool. Google Alerts is a free service that many business professionals are not leveraging.  Google Alerts allows you to register words or phrases that you want to track.  When that search phrase is found by Google on a blog, news post or website, Google will send you an email alert and link to the post.  These alerts can be in real-time or summarized once a day.

Business owners should have some basic alerts that include their brand name and product names.  If you own any trademarks they should be added to the list.  Add all the names of your top executive team on the list.  Anything that interests you or is a “hot” topic in your industry should be tracked.

Once you realize the potential of this free tool, you can make sure you are on the pulse of the marketplace for any topic.

Monitoring Your Competition

Google Alerts can also be used to track the public facing communications of your competition.  Track your competitor’s press releases and products posts in real-time.  This can give you good intelligence on your industry without having to hire an outside news clipping service.

For example, if you are in the Entitlement Management field and the competition launches a new hardware product call the “Whisper 500″.  You can set a Google Alert for the phrase “Whisper 500″. Anytime the “Whisper 500″ product is reviewed or written about you can get an alert.

The strategy is that if the product is flawed or if users discover problems with the product, you might be able to leverage that intelligence in a sales call.  Sometimes real-time competitive intelligence can make all the difference is a very competitive bidding process. If the product is successful, these alerts can compile a list of posts why consumers are so excited about the product.  This data can guide your future product develop strategies.

Are You Using Google Alerts?

I wrote this short post because so few people are using Google Alerts and it has proven to be an invaluable tool for my business. This tool is a great way to stay connected to what is happening across your industry and to read about what the thought leaders in your market are saying.

Setup your free Google Alerts account today.  www.google.com/alerts

We would like to you to attend a hands on demonstration regarding the strategies and steps required to update the META tags and Page Titles on your car dealer platform to mark your calendars for April 2, 2009 at 1:00 pm. 

I have been invited by www.DealersEdge.com to conduct a webinar to enable car dealer staff to update their websites to better comply with the recommendations set out in the Google SEO Starter Guide.  You can download a free copy of the 22 page booklet by following this link:  Google SEO Guide.

Brian Pasch will be showing participants how to research effective keywords to place in web page titles and META description tags.  I will be demonstrating how to update META tags and titles using popular web platforms that many car dealer already use. 

Anyone participating in the webinar can plan in advance to have PCG check out their platform and possibly include it in the webinar.  This is a hands on event so when participants are done with this webinar, they can have a positive impact on the visibility of the dealership website.

Register for Brian Pasch’s Webinar

If you would like to register for the webinar, the cost is $198. Without prejudice this is a great value.  By attending this webinar, car dealers can save hundreds of dollars in consulting costs if they had an outside party fix their website to be in higher compliance with Google’s SEO guidelines.

The register for the webinar, please follow this link;  Automotive SEO webinar

The PCG Digital Marketing, which services businesses from all areas of commerce, announces a new program to help car dealer survey existing clients and to request their participation in writing online reviews of their experiences at the car dealership.

The new service provide easy links for car dealer customers to write their own testimonials on popular websites like www.Dealerrater.com, www.Yelp.com, www.InsiderPages.com and www.CitySearch.com . 

The service is valuable to car dealers because their time is often limited and positive customer reviews can influence Internet car shoppers.  In the past, promoting online customer reviews has been a low priority for many car dealers.  Today, having only bad reviews can be a significant barrier for new customer sales.

By showing consumers how and where to post their comments, PCG Digital Marketing is reducing the time it would take for a consumer to share their comments.  In the end, both the consumer and the car dealer wins.  The consumer is guided through the process and the task is outsourced so that a steady stream of valid online comments is created.

If you would like more information on this service,  call our offices and request a free consultation on how the process works.