AddThis Feed Button
AddThis Social Bookmark Button

One of the most common questions small businesses have when dealing with online reputation management is "how do I make bad results go away?" The bad news is you usually can't. The good news is you can often push them far enough down the search results they don't get looked at. That's why it's essential to capture as many of the top listings on your own as possible. Andy Beal over at Marketing Pilgrim offers up a great post today with information about protecting your brand and your name in Google.

Andy writes:

Google is no longer just a search engine. With your potential customers, future employers, and members of the media turning to Google for information about your business, Google has become a reputation engine.

In helping clients with their online reputation, I'm consistently asked how they can push out negative content that appears on the first page of Google for a search for their name. Whether they were fined by the SEC, ridiculed by an ex-employee, or investigated by their local newspaper, they share one common goal: get that negative result off of the first page!

Of course, it's near on impossible to make a negative Google result simply disappear—although there are some black-hat SEOs that claim to have that gift. Instead, your best approach is to provide Googlebot with a healthier diet of web content that shows your reputation in a positive light.

Andy goes on to outline ten options that should give you a great chance at capturing more of the top ten listing. He offers up advice on launching your own web site, building a blog, using subdomains and leveraging various types of social media sites. He also offers a warning or two (don't try to submit a personal profile to Wikipedia) and reminds site owners to start using these tactics BEFORE they run into trouble.


Jennifer Laycock is the Editor of Search Engine Guide, an educational web site aimed at translating the search marketing world into something that small business owners can understand. Jennifer specializes in common sense search engine marketing, viral marketing and customer outreach via social media and blogs. A former search marketing consultant and in-house trainer, Jennifer’s clients have included companies like Verizon, American Greetings and Highlights for Children. Her primary clients now are a little girl named Elnora and a little boy named Emmitt.

Comments

Leave a comment

 



If you'd prefer, you can also subscribe without commenting by submitting your email address here:

Get Updates

weekly newsletter




Pole Position Marketing
Drive your search marketing to success.

Best of the Web Directory
Submit your Site Today! Best of the Web Directory

Zero Click Fraud PPC
Target your ads locally, fraud protected

Web Hosting
Windows Hosting and Linux Hosting



Video Cast

Sage Lewis Video

Video blogger Sage Lewis keeps you up to date with what's hot in the world of search engine marketing.



www.flickr.com

Jennifer Laycock is the Editor of Search Engine Guide, an educational web site aimed at translating the search marketing world into something that small business owners can understand. Jennifer specializes in common sense search engine marketing, viral marketing and customer outreach via social media and blogs. A former search marketing consultant and in-house trainer, Jennifer’s clients have included companies like Verizon, American Greetings and Highlights for Children. Her primary clients now are a little girl named Elnora and a little boy named Emmitt.