Online reputation management is all about protecting your brand and image online. Most companies go to great lengths to protect their reputation offline, unfortunately they are often slow to react to different pressures online. In this world of blogospheres and user generated feedback, one of the greatest challenges for services or product led companies is to manage unflattering or malicious listings in search results.

Imagine the scenario of Company A who have launched a new product. They spend a lot of money on above the line advertising, used their Internet Marketing Agency to create a successful viral campaign and even have a well thought out pay per click strategy. Everyone is happy with the progress and all is going well. That was until somebody spots a “review” of their new product on a search listing result. Unfortunately, the “review” is not a flattering one, in fact it is not very encouraging at all. More frustrating is that it ranks higher than you do for your product. What can you do about this?

This is a very real issue. Whilst, we would always recommend a proactive strategy for online reputation management, we also know that asking clients to spend money to prevent something from happening is very difficult. Remember the early days with virus protection, you only ever invested if you have had your fingers burned. So for this example, we’re assuming that most people do not proactive and do not as a part of their roles seek to protect their online footprint against unflattering results.

The challenge is a pretty simple one, how do you remove the unflattering listing from search results Or what strategy do you use to reduce its ranking and increase yours?

The first job to do is really understand what the unflattering page is all about. Is it from a competitor? a consumer? is it overtly malicious? Is there a case to report it to the search engines for breach of rules and therefore have it removed from the listings? (Keep in mind that this does not always work). Is it possible that you can encourage the page owner to remove the content? It’s important to know whether the page is being honest or whether the report is false, if so you might use your “right of reply” to set the record straight. Try to learn as much as possible about the keywords of the page and how it is ranking.

At Generate UK, we do not encourage or use any Black Hat methods. We appreciate that many of you might suggest one or two interesting alternatives to having the unflattering page removed. So for the purposes of this article, consider everything white hat.

If it is not possible to have the page removed, then unfortunately you are going to have to work with it. This is where your understanding of the page comes in. What you need to do is to rank higher and in larger numbers in order to move their page down the results. Again, there are a number of black hat methods to assist with this, however we will be using what is available to us, using white hat methods.

The key to this is to increase your footprint in the search results. If you understood what keywords the unflattering page is using and how it is coming up in the search results, then you must start to target those keywords.

We would look at the different social media options available and recommend a bespoke effort based upon the client in question. Using our new product example above, we would engage with sites such as YouTube, Digg and other elements of the Blogosphere. This might take the form of video content, new friendly reviews, how to guides and other complimentary information and content that will support the effort. We would also use search engine marketing PR and leverage the more well known news and media outlets.

By using the sites that already rank well in search results and doing your research, you’ll soon be able to list for the keywords and phrases that the original unflattering page targeted. A carefully tailored approach with the client will soon have that page away from the eyes of the masses who only click on one of the first three results.

Online reputation management is very important, ideally you will already have a proactive approach and be busy in this area already. If not, consider how you might react to negativity and how quickly you are able to address it. Then consider the brand and reputation damage you might receive for doing nothing.

We’re always interest in your views and feedback. If you have anything to contribute to this article, please contact us below.