Over on the TIMMGuru blog, Shi has posted an excellent article about Online Reputation Managment.

As more people are using Google as their primary source of information and reviews, it is now critical that every single company in the world at least have a website (it doesn’t have to be a self hosted site at all!) which is search optimized for their company name.

… if not the consequence are very severe. Because of the proliferation of blogs and social media, the situation is more real that you think.

Some advice from TIMMGuru:

Even if your business do not have any online marketing campaign or advertise aggressively online, you still have to manage your online reputation… Because you cannot control what people write in their blogs.

… Don’t wait for negative publicity to surface on the Internet before you take action… Because that can be too late and costly.

And I feel this does not only apply to companies, but to professionals as well. For one, have you bought a domain name which corresponds to your name? If not invest in $10 and get it NOW.

This is something you should do immediately. Even if you have nothing to put up, just get the domain name first. Don’t wait.