Search Engine Rep­u­ta­tion Management

How to pro­tect you from neg­a­tive pub­lic­ity online

It is said that bad news sells faster than good news. This old adage is very true in the inter­net media world aided by the rel­a­tive ease with which one can pub­lish infor­ma­tion on the net. If you are in busi­ness, then you should be aware that the infor­ma­tion posted on web pages, how­ever small space they may occupy, can dam­age your rep­u­ta­tion irre­versibly. This is the basis for the growth of a search engine rep­u­ta­tion man­age­ment indus­try to help com­pa­nies mon­i­tor, analyse influ­ence the infor­ma­tion on their own or other people’s web­sites.

The most impor­tant to watch are cus­tomers and the not so happy employ­ees. These are peo­ple who would often be com­mu­ni­cat­ing using plat­forms that are shared by peo­ple who have sim­i­lar inter­ests. As a result, their neg­a­tive pub­lic­ity can derail your busi­ness. There are many exam­ples of com­pa­nies that have fallen on this sword such as ‘Dell hell’ and ‘Wal­mart­ing’ scandals.

A search engine rep­u­ta­tion man­age­ment is an active and proac­tive sys­tem that not only deals with the prob­lem through search engine opti­miza­tion and hid­ing away the neg­a­tive arti­cles or blogs. Instead, it should be a proac­tive pub­lic rela­tion scheme to pre­vent, iden­tify and react appro­pri­ately to dam­ag­ing infor­ma­tion on your website.

The prob­lem of dam­aged rep­u­ta­tion is not an exclu­sive prob­lem of the search engine alone. Even the big names have not been left behind. A good case is that of Robert Scoble who inflicted great dam­age to Microsoft’s rep­u­ta­tion. This is why a proac­tive search engine rep­u­ta­tion man­age­ment must have a sys­tem of pre­vent­ing or respond­ing to dis­grun­tled staff or customers.

Now, this does not mean that you must make every attempt to deny the truth about your com­pany of orga­ni­za­tion. On the con­trary, being hon­est and accept­ing hon­est crit­i­cism helps in lim­it­ing dam­age from neg­a­tive online infor­ma­tion. All you need to do is to assure your clients that the tra­di­tion of the excel­lence will not be dam­aged by the one off incidence.

The three stages that every com­pany that is wary of online rep­u­ta­tion man­age­ment must con­sider includes the mon­i­tor­ing aspect, insti­tut­ing proac­tive rather than reac­tive mea­sures and being able to have an appro­pri­ate response of influence.

Mon­i­tor­ing will require that you have a man­ual or auto­mated reg­u­lar search for the web­site post­ings on the prod­ucts, com­pany brands and the key staff from your orga­ni­za­tion. You can use the ser­vice so spe­cial­ized web­sites or RSS feeds such as the Feed­sters or blog­pulse. Be care­ful about what is dis­cussed in blogs and dis­cus­sion forums because these tend to influ­ence opin­ion a greater extent than offi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion. You can join some of these infor­mal dis­cus­sions and influ­ence it from within. You can also mon­i­tor by sub­scrib­ing to yahoo alerts, or Google alerts or the social media such as keotag.

You need to get a proac­tive sys­tem rather than a reac­tive one through web opti­miza­tion. This can be done through a key word or SEO that auto­mat­i­cally detects and rel­e­gates to the hid­den pages any neg­a­tive pub­li­ca­tions or postings.

Lastly, you need to influ­ence the minds of your clients or cus­tomers through hav­ing a counter mech­a­nism. This will include authen­ti­cat­ing the infor­ma­tion posted, respond­ing hon­estly. Even your own post­ings can cre­ate neg­a­tive online rep­u­ta­tion. This is why you may con­sider engag­ing a pro­fes­sional team for the search engine rep­u­ta­tion management.