Online Reputation Management

Below are some tips on how to protect a brand online using search engine reputation management tactics.

Push Down Negative Comments

Look at the ranking factors of all sites on page one of SERP’s using a tool like Traffic Travis software and established link authority of the offending site/blog. This will show how difficult it will be to push down with links to friendly sites.

After establishing level of difficulty start a link building project to bump up other sites appearing below offending site in SERP’s in order to push it further down the SERP’s. This can include building links to friendly web pages mentioning your brand in good light.

Build a brand hub

This can be done by building domains with your main keywords and populating them with news and articles about your brand.

Buy other domains that can be used to mention brand in good light but without spamming the brand such as keyword rich domain names to do with your main keywords. This serves double purpose of creating a hub to promote your main keywords and to fill up SERP’s pages for your brand. The sites can also be used to link to other sites mentioning your brand in good light such as your social media profiles and news pages.

Exploit Social media

Social media profiles in places like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin are increasingly ranking high in SERPS and appearing on page one for your brand definitely improves your brand SERP domination.
It is also a good idea to start a YouTube channel if you have some videos of your company or product.

Dominate Brand Image/Video searches

Make sure images, logos and videos have company name tags so as to populate any image or video search.

Link to News mentions

Linking to any review, interviews or news mentions of your brand will help push up those pages to dominate your brand SERP.

Get Customer Testimonials

Encourage customers to leave online reviews about your product or service experience.

Monitor Your Brand Online

You should create Google alerts and other monitoring tools to follow mentions of your brand on sites, blogs and social media sites and follow any negative publicity.

Also look at Google Analytics results and Webmaster Tools to see if your site is getting found via any derogatory terms.