Guest Article: Ten Ways To Clear Bad Press From Search Engine Results
Posted on November 8, 2006
Filed Under Advertising & Marketing, Articles, Search Engine Traffic, Web Site Promotion, Web Site ToolBox
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Ten Ways To Clear Bad Press From Search Engine Results
By Linda Bustos (c) 2006
What do you see when you search for your company or brand name?
Is there anything on the first page of the search engine results
that you wouldn’t be proud to display on your home page?
Consumer review sites, blogs and forums have made it easy
for anyone to say whatever they want about your company,
whether they be disgruntled customers or competitors who
like to play dirty.
If you’re in a situation where negative publicity is front
and center in search results, there are ways you can reclaim
search engine real estate for your corporate identity.
Though you can’t make negative results disappear from the
search engine indexes entirely, the following strategies
can help them slip off the first few pages of search engine
results.
1. Good Old Fashioned Networking
The first thing you should do is contact the webmasters of
the sites in question with a polite request for removal of
negative comments. There’s a good chance they’ll be willing
to co-operate. Note that, even if they do remove the listing,
the cached pages may remain in the search engine indexes for
some time. But users who click through the search engine
results will land on a page with the comments removed.
Check out some of the sites that already have something good
to say about you. Send them an appreciation note, and offer
them a link back from your site. You could even create a
special page called "Gary’s Garage On The Web"
(if that’s the name of your business) or "Press Room."
2. Tap Into the Power of Wiki
Wiki websites allow users not only to add their own content,
but also edit pages. They get their name from the Hawaiian
word "wiki wiki" meaning "rapidly." There are many wiki pages
like AboutUs.org and LoveToKnow.com that you can use to create
content about your company. If your company name is "notable"
enough, you might also be able to create a page in Wikipedia.
3. Raise Your Profile
Some websites like PR.com allow you to post your company’s
profile. An annual fee might be required. It’s not easy to
find these sites, but you may find some opportunities by
searching your competitors’ names and discovering where
they are listed.
4. Become A Socialite
Using social bookmark sites like Netvous and Del.icio.us is
an easy way to add content through the web. You can create an
account for yourself that bookmarks all of your positive press,
and anything interesting on your website, such as articles or
videos. Or create a photo gallery in Flickr.
The links themselves are not given much weight by search
engines, but you have an not opportunity to use your company
name in the titles and descriptions of your bookmarks and
photos. Make sure you make good use of the tagging feature,
using general keywords as these will also begin to rank for
your name. For example, Gary’s Garage should tag:
"Garys Garage," "garage," "autobody," "mechanic," "mechanics,"
"body shop," "car," "auto body" and so on.
5. Become A Lensmaster
A company blog is certain to rank well, and it’s easier than
ever to create one with Squidoo.com. When you create a "lens"
for your site, you can easily upload pictures and also make
use of tags. Unlike other blogs, Squidoo won’t show the
posting date, so your lens won’t look neglected if you ever
stop posting. You can build your blog’s link popularity by
submitting it to blog directories like LSBlogs and BlogHub,
and linking to it from your site.
6. Write!
Articles can help you kill three birds with one stone. Not
only can articles rank for your company name, they also build
valuable backlinks to your site and position you as an expert
in your field. You can use your company name in the resource
box at the end of an article along with a link back to your
site. Using your company name in the article body gives it a
better chance of ranking well. You can research potential
sites to submit your article to by searching for one of your
industry keywords in a search engine like this:
"car mechanics" + "submit article." Or submit it to various
article directories like Article Alley.
7. Encourage Testimonials
If you have customers who have given you positive feedback
or provided testimonials for your site, you could ask them
to write a review for you on a website like Epinions.com,
CoffeeGeek.com or ConsumerReview.com.
8. Explore Shopping Engines
If you sell products online, consider listing them in comparison
shopping sites, or "shopping engines" like Shopping.com, Bizrate
or Nextag. If you are not ready to manage a new e-commerce
channel for many products, you might consider listing one product
in one engine to start.
9. Use Directories For Deep Links
Search engines still consider a page’s number of relevant
backlinksto be a strong indicator of quality and relevance to
a search term. Octopedia, WorldSiteIndex and Microsoft’s Small
Business Directory are a few examples of solid directories that
allow you to link to deeper pages of your own site, like your
About Us page, to help raise their rankings for your company name.
10. Post An E-Help Wanted Sign
Leverage the strength of sites like Craigslist.org to post your
company’s current job offerings. Make sure you use your company
name first in the posting headline: "Gary’s Garage Now Hiring
Junior Grease Monkeys," for example. This will ensure the title
tag for that page is optimized, which is very helpful for SEO.
And make sure to describe your company in the ad, repeating your
name three or four times.
Tracking Results
I strongly recommend setting up an account with Google Alerts
(free) which monitors the top 50 results, or with Google Alert,
a professional tracking system that will monitor the top 200
results for you for as little as $4.95/month. You will be
notified daily when new references to your name have been
found in Google – not only to see when your articles, profile
pages, blog posts and so on get indexed, but also to keep on
top of any new negative or positive references to your name
outside of your own reputation management efforts.
How Long Will This Take?
Results may vary but they won’t come overnight. You will get
out of your reputation management efforts what you put in.
It could take anywhere from a few months to a year.
Conclusion
These ideas are not exhaustive. You may come across your own
tactics on your own through competitor research or your own
ingeniousness. If you are not familiar with SEO, consider
hiring a consulting firm skilled in copywriting and public
relations. The key is to look at reputation management as a
long term activity and to take advantage of all the options
you have tokeep the search engine results positive.
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About The Author
Linda Bustos is the Marketing Director for Image X Media,
a Vancouver web design and Internet marketing firm.
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Quick links to web site links featured in the above article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Comments
4 Responses to “Guest Article: Ten Ways To Clear Bad Press From Search Engine Results”
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Comments 
These ideas are not exhaustive but they can be the most demanding valuable ideas,just one things required”implementation”.
I agree!
But I was intrigued with some of the handy links which I felt would be of interest to my readers.
Thanks,
Nancy
Better not to do anything immoral to damage your credibilty.
Stay clear of making attacks on other site owners to avoid reprisals etc
Good one Nancy
Hi!
I got some great ideas from this article.
There is some thoughts for keeping a good rep so that We don’t have to go down this rosd, guaranteed!
Bye!