How much does vanity play into the online game? In this post, we’ll learn more about how vanity URLs can be used to not only protect your brand or image online, but make it stand out.  Everybody wants to be different.

In today’s landscape of the search engines, internet reputation management is something every business owner who has an established brand online OR is trying to establish one should be working on.

With social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter, the power of ‘they’ is stronger than ever and influences consumers worldwide.

What do I mean by ‘they?’

They are the ones who are talking about your brand. Your consumers today not only have the power of word-of-mouth to people they know. ‘They’ have the power to talk about your brand to millions of people who use the internet.

Reputation Management Considerations

Internet Reputation Management or ORM (Online Reputation Management,) has become a practice many brands have become to know by force or by choice. If you’re a small brand, it is a fairly easy practice for the time being, but as your brand grows, it gets harder. Large brands already have their online marketing teams engage in this practice as social media can have a big impact on your brand.

For the purpose of this post, I’m going to focus on how to protect your brand using social media tools, specifically how you can protect your brand using these social media hubs by creating profiles with vanity URLs.

What is a vanity URL?

“A vanity URL is nothing more than an URL that is associated with an identity or online presence, and it usually takes the shape of https://domainname/username or https://yourname or https://productorservicename. The former is the standard for web services and social sites that support vanity URLs for users, the latter are domain names that people and companies register to reinforce branding on the web.” (definition from openforums/amex site)

Steps You Can Take – Brand Protection Success

Step 1:

Register your company with websites such as Facebook and Twitter which have really high authority with the search engines.   Take for example the query ‘TARGET.’ Target is one of the largest U.S. companies and must get many search a month in the search engine as consumers also shop on Target.com. If you type in the keyword ‘Target’ itself, look at the top 10 results.

In the top 10 results, you’ll the first 3 are Targets website results then is the Target WIKI followed by their Twitter and Facebook listings. The reason the Twitter and Facebook profile rank so high is because of their authority with the search engine. These channels really help you connect with current and future consumers and help protect your brand by responding to negative comments by consumers. On a quick side note, Myspace is an authoritative website so if you’re trying to push out any negative listings in the organic search for your brand, a profile from Myspace with some activity can easily rank for your brands keyword.

Step 2:

Make sure to register your websites name with WORDPRESS and BLOGSPOT. Blogs are also a great way of keeping in touch with consumers and exposing your brand. There are certain platforms which are of high authority and will rank word for your brands keyword.

Step 3:

Social websites such as Digg.com (even though declining in popularity) or KillerStartUps.com rank well also. It is very easy to see where you should register your websites name by doing a query search of any big brand (even your competitors) and see which organic listings are in the top 1-15. Even if you aren’t ready to start using that service for any specific reason, it’s better you register the name and have it rather than have someone else register your websites name.

These vanity URLs can really help you manage your brands reputation online and help you manage organic negative listings.

Pablo Palatnik blogs for PalatnikFactor.com.

His blog focuses on online marketing and he is the SEO specialist for Fortune3, a shopping cart software company.

P.S.

NOTE TO WRITERS, BLOGGERS, AUTHORS:

If you are a blogger/writer in the SEM space, please contact me so we can discuss posting options. YOU might be the next guest writer of posts to my SEOM blog.

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Entrepreneur Magazine says Jon Rognerud is one of the most sought-after Digital Marketing Experts. His clients extend from high-end brands and middle-tier businesses in both B2B and B2C. His SEO website optimization book, "The Ultimate Guide to Optimizing Your Website" from Entrepreneur Press is in bookstores now.