What exactly is online brand reputation management (BRM)? Basically, negative or malicious press in SERPS (search engine results pages) can be combated by creating positive content or and knowing where to post or submit it. If the positive content is deemed by the search engines to appear on more integral websites, the negative rankings will be pushed farther and farther down the SERPs until that post by a disgruntled blogger is on page three and your good name has been restored.

Brand reputation management and search marketing were once very separate entities – but with the emergence of blogs, forums, directories, social media and other user-driven content sites, they now must be performed in tandem. You don’t have to be a skilled programmer, or even know how to build a website, to get your opinions online anymore - This can be a very scary prospect for any company. If you’re not scared, you should be. Boo.

How do you combat a high-ranking negative reference to your name or company? Luckily, it is far easier to attain good rankings for a business or domain name because there is far less competition for these words than for the goods or services they provide. It is also reasonable to push down negative rankings for individual people’s names. But not always, obviously. If your client’s name is Gavin Wunderschnitzen, you’re laughing. If your BRM services have just been retained by John Smith, just give him his money back now.

The same blogs, forums and social media sites which can be used to negate or slur a brand, can be used to defend it. Build a Squidoo lens with an individual or company’s name in the URL, and populate it with good, relevant content. Link to the new lens from some of your existing sites or lenses using the aforementioned name in a text link. Google will find it quickly and just as speedily begin to associate your new lens with related searches. It’s effective, it’s free and it is a testament to how fond of Squidoo Google and other search engines have become.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 7th, 2007 at 9:01 pm and is filed under SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.