It’s a well-known fact that the online reputation of a business is paramount to the success of that business. Hence, negative reviews for a business is something that must be avoided for the growth of a business.
Okay, imagine wanting to get something, and by chance you decide to check the reviews the product has gotten over time.
You check the first, the second, and you probably go on to the third, and all you see are negative reviews and comments.
Of course, you’d flee. You wouldn’t get a product like that, simply because everything you saw about the product said it was bad.
That’s just how damaging negative search results and reviews are to your business. And that is why, as a business owner, you must always avoid getting negative reviews, and if you do get them, make sure you push them down.
The business of pushing negative search results down, though, is another aspect that must be done by professionals.
You can delete, de-index, or bury undesirable search results.
Bots, or search engine programs, comb the internet and “scrape” data from websites so that it can be transferred to other websites.
Because of the frequent repetition of the same content and the difficulty or near-impossibility of removing it, hundreds or even thousands of these websites, as well as the majority of Google search results, contain the information.
If this content is unfavorable or false, the issue could potentially harm one’s reputation. These undesirable outcomes may result in fewer opportunities for both enterprises and their customers..
Even if the information may have originally been accurate and lawfully published, it is frequently out of date, outdated, or outright false. Often, the only way to lower the content’s visibility in Google searches is to bury it.
Read Also: Why Building a Good Reputation Is Important for Business Growth
7 Effective Ways to Push Negative Search Results Down:
1. Eliminate the source
If the publishing source itself decides to comply, content may be deleted or hidden. There is no certainty as to how long it will take the publishing house to delete the information from a webpage.
Typically, a formal letter or email request is sufficient, especially with news organizations whose sites rely on fact-based reporting.
Although it is a serious measure, you can also support the request with cease and desist letters. But you shouldn’t do this without thinking it through and consulting with legal or other competent assistance.
2. Make plans to change the narrative.
Creating a reputation management strategy is the first step in burying bad search results. The best strategies call for a committed group of specialists from various fields to monitor and examine your search engine results for weaknesses and opportunities.
A thorough ORM approach is needed to identify potential development areas and to target negative search results and push them to the bottom of the search engine results pages.
This plan must be supported by the work of a closely knit group of project managers, outreach specialists, content editors, digital marketing strategists, and SEO analysts.
Read Also: 7 Best Practices to Manage Brand Image.
3. Create a lively online presence on social media platforms
Because of their severe workloads, many CEOs lack the time and resources needed to maintain a large number of social media accounts. It can take hours to check each profile for appropriate user involvement across Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, and LinkedIn alone.
Social media platforms, however, play a crucial role in your reputation management strategy.
Optimize your profiles and claim them. As well as regularly posting and interacting with clients and thought leaders in your sector. This entails consistent updates and tweets!
4. Link to each of your websites:
Link amongst your websites to raise their collective ranking. By examining how frequently other websites connect to a certain site, Google can calculate where that site should appear in search results.
Linking to your own work will help it gain popularity. For instance, create a Twitter account, link it to your Facebook profile, and then link to each of them from your Blogger page, for instance.
Naturally, the more you engage with others and use your accounts, the more probable it is that they will link to your content, which will boost your results even further.
5. Press Release Optimization
Optimization of press releases is another crucial reputation management strategy. It takes highly specialized knowledge to know what content is noteworthy and marketable.
This is particularly true when writing press releases following a catastrophe or negative, viral news cycle.
Making sure press releases are designed to rank for your brand on Google, though, is just as crucial.
6. Publish excellent, incredibly targeted, and optimized content.
To meet the demands of searchers, Google’s algorithm continuously scans the internet in search of new material. The content is then indexed and grouped around entities and topics by the search engine.
Google is more likely to consider a subject to be relevant the more stuff it finds on it. Google will therefore keep providing such stuff, whether you like it or not.
Producing highly-targeted, tailored content to change the narrative in your favor is your best line of defense. But it’s not as simple as it would seem.
Making the wrong choices could accidentally tip the scale in the wrong direction, making it more difficult to conceal bad search results.
7. Publicly share your thoughts on news items, forums, and social media
Although these kinds of remarks don’t typically score too well, you can use your real identity to register on news websites and comment on items there as well.
Posting under your real name can be a wise move if you’re willing to engage in some self-censorship.
Knowing that whatever you put online could be seen when someone Googles you, make the most of it by sharing well-informed, grammatically accurate, spell-checked information.
In the industry where you wish to excel, express yourself.
Conclusion
Unwanted online content doesn’t simply disappear over time. If you want to hide bad search results, you must take action.
It’s crucial to adopt the proper strategy, though. Smokescreen techniques that are cheap and dishonest may seem cost-effective, but they rarely work. In actuality, they frequently lead to more serious issues in the future.
Discover more about our professional online reputation management solutions here.
Contact us for an effective reputation management strategy for your brand.
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