Did you know one of the best ways you can improve your online reputation is by leveraging your existing business relationships?
I’ll bet it never even occurred to you!
And yet, it’s an easy way to improve how you look when you Google yourself.
In this post, I’m going to guide you step-by-step on how you can leverage every vendor you spend money with, so that you can get published on their website, and enhance your online reputation.
Why You Should Leverage Your Vendors
Your vendors are anyone you spend money with.
As you probably know, online reputation management is all about filling up Google search results with as much positive content as you can get your hands on. The stronger the website you’re published on, the better it will usually will rank.
And the cool thing about leveraging your accounts payable partners is you can do it yourself and it won’t cost you anything, aside from time.
Below is a quick sample of what I’m talking about.
This is a screenshot, (made anonymous), of a client who leveraged his relationship with a local radio station and got a 1,000 word biography feature on their website.
The areas in red are where his name, business name, picture, content and links appear on the page.
It’s 1,000 words long and when you Google his name, this page on the KPDQ website appears high on the first page of search results.
It ranks well because I helped him ensure it was well optimized – it has his name in the slug, the title, the H1 and is mentioned several times in the article itself. Even the image of him has proper SEO with an alt tag with his name.
Below are the steps you can take to implement this strategy yourself with all of your partners.
Step 1: Make a list of your Accounts Payable (AP) partners
Make a list of anyone you spend money with. Open up your bank account or get your accountant to print out a list of everyone you spend money with.
Your list might include:
- Advertising – all newspapers, trade publications, websites, radio/TV, podcasts that you advertise with. Be sure to include anyone you have trade agreements with.
- Charities and local community partnerships
- Chambers of commerce
- Accountants, bookkeeping, payroll services
- Lawyers
- Cleaning crew
- Suppliers
- Landlords
You might laugh at some of these, but any business you buy from that has a website is a potential source for publishing a profile about you.
Below is a short, sample list I created for a client located in Vancouver, Washington.
As you can see, our business owner advertises with KPDQ radio and the Columbian newspaper. He supports the charity Second Step Housing and is a member of the Vancouver Chamber of Commerce. He works with a local bookkeeper.
Step 2: Ask for a profile page about you on their website
Your goal is to get a page on each website that you advertise or partner with, so go ahead and ask them!
Some of these entities will already feature their advertisers/partners on their website:
- TV/radio/newspaper websites routinely feature “advertiser profile” pages in which they allow their advertisers to provide a testimonial about why they advertise with them
- Chambers of commerce almost always feature member profiles as a way to help promote them
- Charities are notorious for providing extra value to their sponsors by listing them on their website
Some entities (like your bookkeeper) probably won’t already feature their customers on their website, so it might be a little harder sell, but below I’m going to give you a killer template you can use to fill out a page that (1) they will love and (2) that will rank well for you!
Tip – if you’re about to spend money with someone, make sure to stipulate this as part of your deal:
[Entity] will publish a feature bio of my business on its website and I will provide that content, subject to your approval.
If they won’t agree to add you to their website, you might consider going elsewhere. It will literally take their webmaster 5 minutes to publish the bio you provide to them. Do they really want to lose your business over that?
Step 3: Create your bio on [entity] website
Here’s the template I recommend you use. You’ll see that it’s going to be good for you and really good for them, too. They’re practically guaranteed to publish it.
Section 1: Your personal bio
This opening section should be at least 500 words and written in the third person.
If you want it to rank for your personal name, then include 2-3 mentions of your name. For example, you would start your bio like:
“John Doe grew up in New York City. He studied business at Rochester University…….”
If you’re seeking online reputation management for your business, than tailor the bio to your business, like:
“Acme Electric Company was founded in 1987 in New York City. The business quickly grew from one to twenty…..”
This opening section should feature 100% unique content about you or your business. Do not copy and paste your bio from anywhere else on the internet. Write it so that it’s unique and make sure to make it long because longer content usually ranks better in Google.
Feel free to be detailed and you can also include personal items such as family and hobbies.
Section 2: Why you work with this [entity]
This is the part your partner is going to love because it’s all about them. It’s basically a testimonial for their business.
Use all or some of the following questions and be sure to give honest answers that are several sentences long. Replace [entity] with the person or business you spend money with.
- How long have you worked with/partnered with [entity]?
- How did you first hear about them?
- Why did you choose them?
- What do you like best about working with [entity]?
- Are there any specific times where you feel they went above and beyond to help you?
- How have they made your life/business better?
You can tweak the questions based on your needs and add others if you think it fits better.
Section 3: Include social media and website links
At the end of your document, include a “Connect with” section and include links to your website and a couple of the social media profiles you may use.
Ask that your partner make them clickable, so people can easily find you if they want to discuss your testimonial of you.
Section 4: Include an image
I recommend including an up to date image of your smiling face, business logo, storefront, etc to help personalize the bio.
Provide a high quality image that looks good. This will help to tie everything together.
Last: Get Proper SEO
In order for the published page to rank well for you, insist on the following SEO fundamentals. Each item below should include whatever name you want it to rank for, whether that is your personal name or business name.
Include your personal or business name in:
- Slug – this is what comes after the ” / ” in the domain name, ie, https://radiostation.com/your-name
- SEO title – this is the title of the web page as picked up by search engines
- H1 tag – this is the <h1> heading for the page
- Alt tag – this is how images are identified
Make sure the total word count of your article is at least 1,000 words because it will have the best chance of ranking if it is longer. Make sure it is 100% unique content, not a re-write of anything you’ve ever published before.
Wrap Up
If the entity you partner with already does features like the samples I mentioned above, then its simply a case of requesting that they publish a full-length bio of you or your business that you’ll provide to them.
In any case, you should be asking (demanding) that anyone you spend money with – even your payroll service! – publish a business or personal profile about you on their website.
Let’s face it, getting featured on high profile websites such as Inc.com, Entrepreneur, HuffPost, Forbes is very expensive; costs run into the thousands for featured articles on sites like these.
Even lesser known interview sites such as Inspirery and IdeaMensch costs hundreds of dollars, but still rank pretty well in Google.
But getting published on the websites of people you already do business with is an easy way of getting great content on a variety of strong websites without spending any extra money.
Plus, you can do it yourself.
Remember, you already have relationships with these organizations, all you need to do is ask them to feature you on their website and follow the steps above to get it done right.