The recent volcano in Iceland that grounded thousands of plane flights across Europe made me wonder how many small business owners were in panic mode because they couldn’t get back to their businesses and keep the doors open. It’s a real problem with small business owners.

If you are involved in every step that is taken in your company, you have created a job for yourself that could hold you prisoner and keep you from enjoying the fruits of your labor. When I was consulting with small business owners, this was one of the biggest business issues.

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Online Reputation Management, as defined by Wikipedia, is the “practice of consistent research and analysis” of your personal or professional, business or industry reputation as represented” by the all of the content across that appears anywhere online (on the internet) on all types of online media. If someone has mentioned your name or your company name, and that comment is not a very positive one, your reputation could be at stake. Certainly nowadays, online reputation management is very key, especially from a public relations standpoint. If someone says something that’s not positive about you or your company, then you need to respond quickly.

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We have heard that content is king ever since the dawning of the commercial Internet. We hear it because it makes sense and, for the most part, is completely true. Sure there are other techniques and tactics to get someone to a website but sites don’t convert if the content on the site stinks.

You can get a site ranked because of incredible link building efforts but when the visitor gets to the site and the content doesn’t match the ranking expectation (in other words most people think a top ranked site by Google should be a good well written and well thought out site) then all that effort is for naught.

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So you have a really great product but no one knows about it yet right?

Maybe it’s the small clothing store you own and operate every day where your blood, sweat, tears and dreams are quickly going down the drain because your stuff is great but no one can find you because your location is lousy.

Whatever the case, most of you may not realize how very important social media is to your business or product. After all, when was the last time you picked up a yellow pages to look up a product or saw an ad on TV and was like “By golly, I need to go out and visit that business.”

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