Should online reputation management be a concern to the normal person? What I mean by that is, many people that don’t own a business or website online may feel that they don’t need to worry about what is being said about them on the internet. Probably because they think it doesn’t effect them in their daily life.

But the fact of the matter is, your online reputation is important, even if you don’t own a business or website. Because more and more employers are checking your online reputation.

Here’s where we could start the discussion on the legalities of employers checking your Facebook or Myspace profile, or monitoring your Twitter updates, but this article is not about whether it is legal to do so or not. We’re not lawyers, and the point of this article is not to discuss if they can or can’t check your online rep. The point is that they ARE checking your online reputation, whether you like it or not.

Search engine savvy experts will tell you that the top searches done online are for people’s names and phone numbers, as well as their email addresses. Why are people doing these types of searches? Sometimes it is simply to find out who you are. But more and more these searches are being done by people considering you for a job, a business partnership, sometimes even a boyfriend or girlfriend. The days of needing to do a background check are quickly fading in the Google era. There is simply too much free information available with a few keystrokes in the search engines.

This is why it is super important for EVERYONE to monitor their online reputation. If you have negative stuff in the first page of the search results when you search your own name, you need to do something about it. It might just help you get that next new job you want.