Apr 11 2009
Using SEO to manage your online reputation
You’ve spent many years building up a solid online presence and pride yourself on your high customer service levels.
Imagine your horror when one of your staff comes to you and shows you a negative comment that someone has written about your business on a review website.
This comment may be a justified complaint by a disgruntled customer or it could be a ‘plant’ by a competitor who is doing their best to try and sully your reputation for their own gain.
So what can you do about it? Well you can use search engine optimisation (SEO) methods to aid your reputation management strategy.
It is likely that the bad review is found when someone searches for your company or product name. One technique that could be used is to create a link building campaign focusing on brand and product keywords in order to drive positive results up the rankings, pushing the negatives ones down.
Get some back links on strong, third party websites such as blogs, news sites and forums. Publish articles that include optimised keyword text about company or product news.
You could also try asking the site that has published the bad review to include a link to your response which should be contained within your own website. This way you get to respond to the negative press and also receive a link back, which will aid your link campaign.
Caroline Bell
SEO Programmer
