Your brand identity matters a lot to your business if you are to succeed in online business. There is so much to protect which includes your business name, brand reputation, domain name among other elements that make your business. Unfortunately, your business is faced with a lot of threats that one might wonder if it is worth doing business online at all. Cyber squatting, intellectual property theft, domain hijacking, hacking are some of the few things you will have to worry about. Identity thieves have become more organized and might even be hard to spot them out. However, all is not lost, there are some few tricks and web properties that are a must have it you are to protect your business.

Focus on Search Engine Optimization

Your web content can do much more than just increasing your visibility; carefully created web content can increase traffic to your website. It can also place your business as an industry leader; although being successful will make you a target it will help you build lasting relationships with your customers. If you do have search engine optimization (SEO) basics skills, you can engage an SEO agency to create relevant content to your blog.

An SEO agency will provide you with vigilant content services to keep your brand name and image protected. The content generated will be used to diffuse negative publicity for your brand if you have been unfortunate enough to face such wrath. Effective SEO supervised by an inbound marketing professional will take your official web content to the first pages of search engines thereby suppressing negative and unauthorized content from the initial pages of searches. Unfortunately, most business owners are not aware of the power that search engine optimization has in protecting brands reputation and image. Most of them only think of the optimizing their content to increase visibility and ranking but not as a brand protection weapon. They rarely maximize their SEO basics skills.

Trademark brand name

A trademark should be unique to distinguish you from any other seller online who wants to sell goods or products similar to what you are selling. A trademark protects what you have trademarked for use exclusively by your from misuse by competitors. Your customers will have peace of mind knowing that the products they are buying are commissioned by your brand. Logos, taglines, names, packaging are some of the company assets you can trademark.

Trademarking also helps to prevent product confusion and or manipulation by competitors or other elements that mean harm to your business. Your customers will associate particular distinct attributes to either quality or your brand. Also, include a clear and visible notice to all visitors who visit your website on your stand for trademark infringement. Doing so will prevent customer hijacking and manipulation.

Content copyright protection software

Your content will give you online millage. You can use software on your website that scans copied content that is patented for your brand use. Such software will alert you when there is content copyright infringement. There is a number of content protection software available online for use. If you are not sure, you can consult with your SEO agency to advice on how to approach the topic.

If you detect infringement, you should take a legal redress against the infringing party. Suing for damages is an effective way you can use to get compensated for damages caused. Governments around the world have taken this issue seriously and they have enacted laws that protect your business from possible infringes. Drastic measures such as suspension, service termination, and limitation are some of the options available to your disposal to punish content copyright infringers. Make use of the avenues available to you to protect your brand.

Manage your reviews

The reviews you receive online for your brand will form a huge basis for influencing customers buying behavior. In fact, over 90% of your customers will trust the reviews left online as well as personal recommendations. Having your trusted clients leave positive reviews will neutralize negative reviews that might come in future.

Do not manipulate the reviews to your favor; it can be bad for business. However, offer excellent services to your customer online and offline and they will leave positive reviews on their own volition. Negative reviews can hurt your business in a huge way, and it is not good for your business. You want to protect your brand from any negative influencers if you are to succeed online.

Reinforce your firewalls and passwords

If you are running a website, your will have DDoS attacks attempts. These are malicious intrusion that will be aiming at hijacking your business. With the increase in cybercrime, you should leave nothing to chance when it comes to protecting access to your website. Attackers will be interested in accessing your database and perhaps leaking such sensitive information to the public.

If you are in the e-commerce business, your primary focus should be to protect the personal and sensitive information belonging to your clients. If your clients realize that it is not safe to shop from your website your business will be immensely hurt. Using complex passwords, strong, impenetrable firewalls should offer your website a layer of security that should be difficult to penetrate. You should not take the security of your website lightly; recently the top accounting firms including Deloitte have confirmed that they have been victims of cyber-attacks.

Conclusion

Brand protection should be at the core of your business security strategy. Due to the dynamic nature of technology, you should always be updated on the new trends, new protection strategies and new threats that face your business. Luckily for you, these five measures should give you a clue on what measures and properties your online business should have. However, you should not limit yourself to the ones outlined here. Unfortunately, threats to your business can come from anyone and anywhere and when they come you should not be playing catch up. They should find you prepared to take on whatever comes your way.

Author bio:

Joel House helps small to medium businesses grow their revenues through increased search traffic and SEO Rankings. As the owner of Australia’s highest ranking SEO Agency, he has a burning desire to help small businesses with SEO that actually works. When he isn’t helping small businesses grow, he is furiously reading to stay on the cutting edge.