Blog search engines such as Technorati and Google Blog Search only care about the last word. If you can reply to a negative, hurtful brand hit, then you can dominate the conversation and win the debate in most cases.

Google cares about everything, but the latest word isn’t always indexed yet. In the world of Google, the better indexed site always wins. Maximize your knowledge about SEO and Google Sitemaps if you want to compete here.

You can’t control online conversation unless you participate. To quote Sernovitz, “you’ll never be able to control the blogosphere conversation. Don’t even try. You’ll never be able to manage your blog coverage like you manage the press. Don’t even try. But what you can do is participate, earn respect, and tell your story. Jump in, join the conversation, and be a part of it.” The only way to get indexed by Google Organic Search or Google News is to be an online opinion leader who has a site that has made it out of Bing and Google’s sandbox, and has an SEO and a Blog Search Engine strategy.

You have to initiate membership, become part of the conversation, build street cred, have an SEO and blog strategy, and become a respected online opinion leader before something goes awry. It is important that you begin establishing yourself as soon as you begin building your company. Visibility and influence online takes time, so it’s best to start building early, so that when your product or service is ready for launch, you won’t have to wait another six months to become visible.