ClickZ's Patricia Hursh has an interesting article on managing your online reputation. She looks at the power consumers have in this day and age of blogs, review sites and the like to either build up a company's reputation online or damage it. Add to that the increasing number of people that go to search engines to learn more about a particular company and we have a situation where more and more business owners are concerned with what the consumer might find there.

"Your customers' opinions -- good and bad -- can have a significant effect on your bottom line," Patricia writes. "Customer reviews have become an instrumental piece of the online local search experience. Instead of opening the big yellow book to find a local service provider, people now go online and use services like Judy's Book, Insider Pages, and ServiceMagic."

Unfortunately many companies are asleep at the wheel when it comes to managing their online reputation. They are either unaware of the increased speed of dissemination and the expanded scope of influence customers have online or they simply do not care. Even worse, many have no idea what to do about it when it all turns sour.

Patricia provides some tips. Her first thought is to "monitor the conversation" using tools such as Google Alerts, Technorati, Bloglines and FeedBlitz. She quotes our very own Jennifer Laycock, who reminds local business owners to also keep an eye on their own Web logs. "Oftentimes, a spike in a particular referrer means someones talking about you and linking to your site."

Her second thought is to "help influence opinions" where Jennifer is quoted once again, "If a customer is happy about something you did, ask them to take the time to post a review on Yahoo Local or another site. Then, thank them with a coupon or another customer benefit." There are additional thoughts but the bottom line is to get involved in the conversation.

Catch the article in its entirety at ClickZ. I also recommend Andy Beal's Online Reputation Monitoring Beginners Guide if you want more in depth information on how to successfully manage your online reputation.