Negating Negative Content

The internet doesn’t forget, which is great for all of your SEO and marketing activities but not so great if negative content is being published about your company. Negative content can come in the form of news stories, social media sites, blog posts, forums, comments and many other outlets. Wherever it’s coming from, the chances are that people are going to see it, make decisions, and/or form opinions whether the content is true or not. With the stakes this high, it’s critical to know what’s out there and to take control.

The key to reputation management is publishing content, and lots of it. The first priority in a reputation management strategy would be to post content on search engine friendly sites to get the negative piece knocked out of the top twenty spots (the first two pages) in the search engine rankings. Search habits being what they are, this reduces the chance of the negative content being seen by around 90%. To counter negative items, content can be posted on the following venues:

1) Your blog – If you don’t already have a blog, one can be set up within any number of blogging communities like WordPress, Blogger, and LiveJournal. Blog posts can appear on a blogroll but should also show up as their own pages as well to increase the possibility of being indexed and ranked by the search engines. Content should be added regularly to increase the total of positive content that relates to you and/or your business.

2) Press releases – Press releases are a great way to get out in front of consumers because they can be picked up by news desks which can further their distribution and their ranking on the search engines.

3) Articles – Distributing positive articles to article directories gets your story seen by people searching for your selected keywords. These directories also allow for inbound links to your site which can bring traffic and higher search rankings.

If the negative item is a one-time thing, additional content can push the piece far enough down in the search engine rankings that it will only be seen by the most dogged of searchers. If the negative items are being released periodically, the reputation management strategy and work will have to be intensified to keep new items from popping up on the front pages of search engines.

Once an attack has been recognized, monitoring what is being said becomes a necessity as it will allow you to track whether new negative content is being posted. This will enable the fastest response possible.

Due to the requirements of time and experience to execute effective reputation management strategies, a growing number of companies are employing the services of firms which specialize in online reputation management services. For a free initial consultation on protecting your company’s most valuable asset.