Pay Per Click

If you are not prepared to do the hard work and earn your place amongst the organic results that appear down the left hand side of the results page, or if you simply do not have the time to wait, Google provide a service called AdWords that allows you to place bids on your chosen key words (search terms) and appear amongst the Sponsored Links in the column on the right hand side of the results page. If someone clicks on your link, you pay Google the agreed cost per click. Google can optionally place your adverts on the pages of other topically related web sites. Once again, if someone clicks on one of your adverts, you pay Google the agreed cost per click and Google pay the web site owner their share.

Google AdSense

The Google program that pays you each time someone clicks on adverts that Google places on your web site is called AdSense. Google will pay you anything from a few cents to a few dollars each time an advert on your web site is clicked. For web sites with a high volume of traffic, this is a good way to generate additional income for your company, however, it is definitely not a "get rich quick" scheme.

Reputation Management

So you've done all the hard work and managed to get your company web site to the number one spot on all the major search engines. You're probably thinking you can sit back and take it easy as your Internet generated sales figures go through the roof. Well, maybe. What if one day you are checking your hard earned top spot by testing your key search terms in Google and you find that just below your link, a jealous competitor and an angry customer have both posted some really negative reviews about your company. Page one may now contain two or three links to pages that you would really prefer your existing Clients and potential new Customers did not see.

This is where Reputation Management comes into play. The challenge is to have new links appear on page one that point to more positive pages about your company. These new web pages and links have to be strong enough to force the negative links further down page one and preferably onto page two or even lower down the search engine rankings.

While this is definitely possible to do, be aware that it is very time consuming and can work out to be quite expensive. Unscrupulous competitors and Internet savvy consumers alike are becoming ever more aware of the power of the Internet and the search engines in particular, and some will use these tactics as a way to make their voice heard. The old adage that "a happy Customer will tell a few friends about your company, but an angry Customer will tell the whole world" has taken on a whole new meaning. Be prepared to use Reputation Management if this happens to your company.