The Latest in Reputation Management Solicitations

It wasn't too long ago that a window company on the east coast got busted for driving around town breaking windows in hopes of seeing the victims the next morning as eager customers. The same opportunity exists for the lower rung of reputation management companies. Post some negative content on a complaint board, wait for it to surface on the search engines, and then make the call offering a solution to the company’s newfound problem.
  
While the reputation management industry has tons of ethical companies that can legitimately solve negative content issues, the guys that are soliciting business based on “breaking windows” should be avoided.

If you want to do some due diligence, take a look at what they’re doing for themselves in terms of reputation management and search their company name to see how they’re ranking. The third strike here will be if their website looks and reads like it was put together by a third grader.

Here’s another thing to watch out for; reputation management companies that tell you that they can get negative comments about your company removed from the web, much like credit repair companies removing dings from your credit report.

The issue here is that the web makes it very easy for anyone to have a voice on any opinion from anywhere that internet access is available. Unless the comments about your company cross the line of libel or slander, the content is going to stay put for a long time. It will not be removed.

Generally speaking, if there is negative content on the web that is damaging your business, a reputation management firms will create new articles, blogs, forum entries, comments, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and other forms of content to drop the rankings of the negative content on the search engine results pages.

The ease of dropping the rankings of negative content will depend on how much there is and where it originated. If authority sites are involved or if it appears to be a concerted effort, bringing in the pros is your best bet. In these situations, creating and optimizing content that will drop the negative content will likely be a long and arduous process that you’re probably not going to have time to execute properly.

For more information, visit: http://www.reputationmanagementllc.com/ or call (866) 530 7703.

How to Make Your Reputation Management Problem Worse

Reputation management, which is basically search engine optimization on a larger scale, can solve a lot of problems when done correctly and create more trouble when done using the wrong methods. In reputation management, problems tend to surface when businesses try to solve the problem on their own or rush into a management campaign without considering the implications of what they’re doing. While these actions are understandable, especially when negative content is damaging a company, they often create bigger problems than the one they’re trying to fix.

How does this happen?

• Buying links – This practice can help to raise rankings for selected content in the short run but can result in being penalized by the search engines if it is discovered. The most common way to buy links is through link farms which Google typically black lists when they find them. The most recent company to be penalized for paid links is JC Penney, which saw pages ranked on page one virtually disappear when Google took action against them.

• Comment Spamming - This is very common SEO/reputation management tactic, which is used to build back links. When spammy comments are posted on reputable or competing blogs and forums they are usually flamed quickly, making the company look worse than it did before the posting.

• Creating poorly written content – This is another way in which companies fall on their face while trying to battle negative content. This type of content usually goes out when a company is trying to cut corners or to get as much content out as fast as possible. Content of this nature is usually pretty transparent and reflects poorly on the company, especially if it is being generated under company owned properties.

• Fake product reviews – Always glowing; these reviews are treated as spam and disregarded. If they’re posted at a review farm the opinion of readers drops even further. 

Before you start a reputation management campaign, consider the implications and whether you should hire a professional reputation management company. For more information, visit: http://www.reputationmanagementllc.com/ or call (866) 530 7703.8th, 2011line Reputation