How much does it take to destroy a reputation? What does it take to drastically shake up the career of a powerful person? In Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s case, it was a 46 word email that was sent to a mid-ranking Treasury official that has resulted in ute-gate; allegations of inappropriate financial conduct with a car dealer by the name of John Grant. Whether the allegations are true or not, Rudd’s reputation is being called into question and, if you run a website that is important to you, you should take care to make sure that the horrors of ute-gate do not happen to you!

The truth of the matter is that a good reputation can take years to build up and days to shatter. It’s unfair but true that what people remember most are things that go wrong. If you run a website that has a good reputation, remember that it is very important for you to look after it. Some users are inherently suspicious of using the internet and they will be drawn to a trustworthy and reliable website. So if something goes wrong with your website, even something small and relatively innocuous, if it affects the reliability or security of the website, you will need to carry out damage control on your website credibility. Consider some of the important factors about website credibility:

First, have you considered all the ways that your reputation might be destroyed? If you work with people’s money, a security breach that grants access and data to unauthorized persons can certainly shake your clients’ faith in you. Similarly, you will also find that if your website is unreliable when it comes to processing purchases, it only takes a handful of complaints before the online community gets wary about purchasing from you. You may also find that your reputation is in dire straits if you create blog entries without regard for who might be reading them or if you are unnecessarily cruel towards a target that people have sympathy for.

As you can see, a loss of reputation can come from nearly any quarter, and you need to think about what preventative measures can be taken. Remember that, for a secure website, you should always have good security testing of your site and ensure that data is kept secure. You should also regularly Google your company’s name and your own name to make sure that you know what is being said. To further your website credibility, make sure your SEO measures include good back links from quality, well ranked sites. Use article services to put good information out there and to establish yourself as a quality source of information.

A good reputation is something that takes years to build up, but when things start going wrong, it can feel surprisingly fragile. Take some time to ensure that yours is a reliable website; consider what your reputation means and how you can preserve it. At this point, it is a good bet that the PM wishes he had!

Tags: reliable website, ute-gate, website credibility