But what if you do business with people over the web, or by phone or mail? How can you build trust?

Of course, it is important to provide excellent products and services. Whenever customers decide to do business with you, they will know their trust was well-placed.

Here are some ways you can encourage them to make that first purchase:

Let people know you are for real. Put your name on your website and in your ads. Show your picture.

Give customers ways to reach you—email, phone, fax, pager, cell phone, physical address, mailing address—as many as are appropriate. And respond when they contact you.

Offer a guarantee. Let buyers know they have recourse if they are not satisfied. You’ll fix it, replace it, or give their money back. Then, honor your guarantee. (Note: You don’t have to agree to unreasonable demands from customers, but do what you can to make it right and make them happy.)

Use testimonials, from real people, with names attached. People like to buy from businesses others have given their “seal of approval.”

Make information available. Publish information in brochures, articles, and on your website. Answer questions honestly. Make sure the most common questions you hear are answered in your written materials.

In summary: Be open and honest. Be accessible. Say what you will do, then do what you say.

There are people who will sell anything, and will say anything to sell something to you.  Although you may encounter them anywhere, the Internet seems to be a breeding ground for those who continually hype the latest and greatest way to separate you from your money.

Everyone in business has to sell. It is how we stay in business. However, I decided when I started my business (back in 1994) that I would rather not make a sale then make a sale the customer or I would regret. My rule of thumb has always been that if I could not look someone in the eye while taking their money, I shouldn’t make the sale.

Even when I am not face-to-face with a customer, that rule has served me well. I have turned down opportunities to make money that, although they may have been profitable in the short term, would have damaged the relationships I have with  people who trust me.

Spend less time thinking about making the quick sale today, and more time looking for ways to build relationships. Do not try to sell something unless you truly believe that it is the right thing for your customer. And always treat your customers the way you want to be treated.

If you respect your customers, they will reward you with their continued business and by recommending you to others.

It is not as hard as you might think to get a little famous and, no, the paparazzi will not begin stalking you. Of course, publicity is a great way to gain fame, but you are dependent on the whims of the media for that.

So, while you are waiting for The Oprah to call, here are some things you can do today to make yourself a little famous. Many of these techniques are free, and all can help to create awareness of you and build your expert reputation while making you (at least a little) famous.

Become a famous expert by submitting tips to http://www.Lifetips.com/ and http://www.Lifehack.org/ Lifehack will give a live link with your tip, Lifetips allows you to mention your web site in your profile.

Put up a profile and some of your articles at http://www.EzineArticles.com/ They refer more visitors to my site on a consistent basis than any sites other than the major search engines.

Put your profile on LinkedIn.com, then connect with your network, and their networks, and their networks…this is MySpace for grown-ups with jobs or who are looking for jobs. No garish backgrounds or bad music, just the opportunity to make mutually beneficial connections.

Set up a page at http://www.Squidoo.com/. Post articles, photos, links to your site and more.

Post thoughtful comments on leading blogs in your field. Not sure who they are? Browse the directory at http://www.BlogCatalog.com/. You can also add your blog to their directory.

Distribute an online press release. When it goes out to the news services you will see an increase in traffic to your site. And there will be links to your site, well, forever. Get it done at http://idealady.prwebdirect.com/.

Put yourself on a t-shirt. Or a mug, a mouse pad, a necktie…at http://www.CafePress.com/ or http://www.Zazzle.com/.

Watch yourself get famous by setting up Google Alerts for your name, web site, etc. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and tell Google what terms you want to watch for. When they run across a term you want to know about, they will send you an email with a link to the page.

None of these things have to take a long time. Just select a couple actions from the list and get started today. A little weekly maintenance will take your fame to greater heights.

In fact, most major publishers will not consider a book from an author who does not have an established platform. Even if you do not plan to seek a traditional publishing contract, however, having a platform will make it easier to profit from the content you create.

So how can you create a platform for yourself?

Elements of a platform may include:

• Speaking engagements
• A newspaper or magazine column
• Internet presence, including a web site or blog
• Online social media presence (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Digg and other social sites)
• A mailing list (online and/or offline)
• Media exposure through your own television or radio program, a recurring segment on a show or many guest appearances on a variety of shows
• A high-profile job or political position
• Prominence in professional organizations (e.g., board member)

Although you do not have to have all of these things to have an effective platform, the more visibility you have, the better.

Consider what pieces you already have in place. Perhaps you have been active in your professional association. If so, you are probably well-known and highly-regarded in your industry. Perhaps you have a great web site, and regularly write articles that appear in trade publications. You are well on your way to building a great platform.

As you look for ways to build your platform, consider which elements will be most valuable to you. For example, having a lot of contacts within your industry, through holding an important job or a position in your professional association, could be useful for getting blurbs and testimonials or arranging joint ventures to market your content.

The people you know could also help you to get speaking engagements at conferences or with local chapters of your association. They may know media or others who can help to promote you.

Whether you plan to sell your expertise through products or services (or, ideally, both), you should definitely have an online presence and a mailing list. They are critical to your platform. If you do not already have these, start building them today.

Many times, people looking for information will simply enter the name of a person or company followed by “.com.” Voters wanting to learn about the candidate may enter his name and end up on a site set up by his political enemies. People who do not read the attack brochure carefully may even think that the “JohnSmith.com”  site is the candidate’s official site.

Fortunately for this politician, when you do a Google search on his name, his real campaign site comes up first and the attack site was not in the top results. However,  you can not be certain that this will happen if you are ever the victim of this kind of identity theft.

You may think that you do not need to own <yourname>.com. You do business under a company name, and you do not ever plan to run for office, so why do you need to register your name as a domain name?

Well, even if those things are true today, they may not be in the future. And if you decide you want to own the URL of your name, you do not want to discover that someone else owns it. Especially if that someone else is a political opponent or someone else who may use the site maliciously.

It is possible to dispute another party’s ownership of the URL of your name; however, that will probably not do this politician any good as it is unlikely to be resolved before the election. Plus, it is a pain in the rear to have to deal with the dispute resolution process. Is it worth $10 a year to avoid that?

It is also possible that the person who claims “your” domain name will have just as much right to it as you. If they share your name you would have a hard time convincing anyone that you have more right to the URL than they.

When I registered my first domain name, I did not register my name. At that time registrations were much more expensive and I did not see a reason to claim my name. However, a couple of years later, I noticed that someone was buying a lot of names of prominent Internet personalities. I decided I should strike before I became prominent enough to be a target for a squatter.

For a while, I pointed this URL at IdeaLady.com, my primary site. When I decided to set up a blog, CathyStucker.com seemed like the right URL to use.

Also think about registering common misspellings. Lots of people spell my name with a ‘K’ so if you try to go to KathyStucker.com, you will end up here.

Not sure what you should do with the URL of your name? Why not create a business card site?

And once you have your URL registered, start thinking about your identity on social media sites. Although there can be an unlimited number of “John Smith”s on Facebook, on Twitter there can be only one. Do your best to lock up your name, business name or nickname in as many places as possible.

Is there anything you can do to get this negative publicity off the Internet, or at least keep customers (and your mother) from seeing it? Although you may not be able to get all of it completely off the Internet, there are several things you can do to make it less visible. Let’s take a look at what your plan should be.

First of all, if the offending material is on a site you control, remove it. This may include a political rant on your blog, or a late-night, alcohol-fueled essay about your love life on your MySpace profile. Note that this will not necessarily remove all traces of the items from the web. For example, they may be available at the Wayback Machine or in Google cache. However, this will probably stop the pages from coming up in searches within a fairly short time.

If the material is controlled by someone who likes you, ask them to remove it. Your friend may understand that although you had a great time downing Tequila shots with him in Acapulco, you would prefer that the evidence of that evening not be posted in full color for everyone to see. He may agree to remove the photos or at least remove the tags that identify you by name.

Of course, if someone has attacked you, they are probably not going to be interested in removing the attack. Asking them to do so may simply invite further attack and ridicule. The temptation is to register several accounts and start posting rebuttals under different names, all saying how wonderful you are. Not only can this backfire (big time) by inviting more attacks, it keeps the topic active and more likely to keep showing up in the search engine results. Instead, you need another tactic: Bury them.

That is not as hostile as it sounds. All it means is putting lots of other stuff on the web so that their snotty little blog post gets dropped lower and lower in the search results. Eventually, that item will be ranked so far down that no one will see it. Face it, even your mother is not going to get to result number 132 when she Googles your name.

Cleaning up your reputation and burying the bad stuff can be an involved process, and it does not all happen overnight. However, there are a few steps you can take quickly and easily to get the ball rolling. First, set up profiles on several highly-ranked sites. You might start with these:

http://www.Amazon.com/
http://www.EzineArticles.com/
http://www.digg.com/
http://www.flickr.com/
http://www.Facebook.com/

You will also want to add content to these sites (e.g., write reviews at Amazon, post articles at Ezine Articles, upload photos to flickr, etc.) but the first step is to set up the profiles.

Next, start a blog and submit it to blog directories. The fastest (and free) way to set up a blog is at http://www.Blogger.com/. Be sure to fill out your profile page. Do not just post once and abandon the blog. Add a new post every few days for at least a few months.

There are many directories to which you may submit your blog. A few of the largest are:

http://www.Technorati.com/
http://www.BlogCatalog.com/
http://www.Blogarama.com/
http://www.MyBlogLog.com/

Continue looking for sites where you can post articles, photos, videos, profiles and more. Add unique content to these sites (i.e., do not just post the same article to 56 article directories).

Offer guest blog posts to high-ranking blogs in your niche. Bloggers are always looking for quality articles (and a way to take the day off). Give them an article written just for them. Not only will you get a great link out of it, the blog post may rank well for your name.

Build up your site with new content, and get lots of links pointing to it. One way to get links is from your profiles and the content you post on the sites listed in this article.

There are many other sites and techniques you can use to help create a powerful online presence and minimize the effects of negative things about you on the Internet. The ideas in this article will get you started.

Copyright Cathy Stucker