Some call it digital footprint, digital branding, online reputation management or digital reputation management. I bet you know by now that Google is the online reputation management system. And understanding Applied SEO(search engine optimization) will help you learn how to manage online reputation of your company.
If you are not convinced that SEO can influence Google’s ranking and your online reputation, go read this article to find out how “SEO experts can bend the truth”
You may need the help of these SEO experts to help you manage your online reputation and to control the damage caused by some uninitiated advertising agent.
SEO for CEO
If you are the boss of the company (and I mean a really big company) or a government agency, are you not concerned about what is listed on the first page of Google search result for search terms related to your company name or product?
Here’s three of the examples which I’ve witnessed firsthand over the past year in Singapore… Samsung‘s Omnia Contest, A*Star‘s Star Challenge 2008 and NTU AdWords Fiasco.
Case 1: Samsung Omnia Contest
Can you imagine how you feel when you searched “samsung omnia contest” and see “Samsung Omnia Contest – Scam?” in the #1 position!
How will that #1 position affect potential customers of Samsung mobile phones?
It would be good if potential customers can hear from the contest organizer or Samsung regarding that “scam” blog post.
Whose responsibility? Samsung Singapore’s or the advertising agency’s?
Case 2: Star Challenge 2008
When you searched for “star challenge 2008″ on Google, you would see my earlier blog post – Star Challenge 2008 Website Broken? in the #4 position. I didn’t know it would end up there, oops… I just wanted to help.
This accidental first page ranking of my blog post makes me realize the importance to manage what people see in the first page of Google result for those keywords related to one’s reputation or brand.
Case 3: NTU AdWords Campaign Fiasco
Here’s another example of online advertising campaign went wrong:
And one of the comments was “Whoever did this for NTU should be sacked.”
Online Reputation Management for Brick and Mortar Business
Even if your business do not have any online marketing campaign or advertise aggressively online, you still have to manage your online reputation.
Because you cannot control what people write in their blogs.
You may not even know you lost at least $3000 worth of business because someone talked about her excruciating encounter at her blog.
Don’t wait for negative publicity to surface on the Internet before you take action.
Because that can be too late and costly.
You have to set aside your company’s resource now for digital reputation management to prevent publicity catastrophe.
SEO for the Rest of Us
[Updated 16 December 2008] Just came across this newly published blog article by Tony Hirst and realized that, in fact, even librarians need to understanding how search ranking works or risk innocent content being “associated with inappropriate material in a search engine results listing” unintentionally.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Yeah you are right. Every company should do online reputation management for their company. They should try to solve out the problem people are facing through various means.
About search engine suppressing the negative ones is also rightly said. We can blog creates, participate in social media to suppress th negative ones.
This article was interesting, especially since I was searching for thoughts on this subject last Moday.
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
@Mike Just let me know which articles you want to re-publish at your site and provide a link to where the original article.
Enoyed your post and bookmarked you for future reading.. Thinking of adding some of your content to my website ZestforMarketing
I agree, is difficult to control what people say about you and spread it online. But I believe every matter has its cause, just do your best to manage your reputation is the key.
Your article is very informative and useful. Glad I found it. Cheers.
Sadly, you most likely won
There is a huge difference between checking out your online reputation and actually being able to monitor it. We have a great program that allows you to monitor every aspect of your online reputation and even make notes. Check it out and let us know what you think.
Hi Ken,
One of the methods is to get several authoritative sites to talk about the Omnia contest and provide neutral or positive remarks. These pages would probably push the current #1 out of the 1st page of Google.
However, I believe the best solution is not to hide the negative remarks but to address the concern in this case. Samsung representative should leave a comment on the blog post and explained the matter.
Hi Shi,
I am new to SEO.
In the case of Samsung Omnia Content, since #1 ranking is negative to the company, is there a way SEO expert like you can do some magic so that this #1 site totally disappears into oblivion or swap places with the the #2 site?
If SEO can do that, it will be powerful.
Thanks!
Ken
Excellent content here and a nice writing style too – keep up the great work!
In many instances of Internet Marketing, Google seems to place a lot of weightage on the word ‘scam’ in the title, as in “AdSense Empire – is it a scam?”, although the ad in that page is genuine selling. I wonder why.
This article points out the fact the online and offline is no longer separated but are in fact, tied closely together. You WILL have an online presence, whether you want it or not.
While the article points out that managing online reputation is important, sometimes one needs to think back about how did negative feed backs even arise in the first place? As the Chinese saying goes, “there is no smoke without fire”. Without the business giving a bad service or poor communication, there will not be a negative feed back in the Internet.
When a businessman sees a negative feedback on the Internet about his business, is his first thought to “cover it up” or to rectify it? I believe the latter is the more important aspect of reputation management.
Besides just monitoring online conversations, business need to expand there online presence so they simply drown out most negative conversations and dominate the top 10.
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