5 tips for effective SEO reputation management

SEO and reputation management…are not related. Right?

Wrong! SEO and reputation management actually play into each other quite a bit. In fact, there are certain SEO tactics and strategies that you can use to help promote a more positive reputation on the web. Use these on top of what you’re already doing to manage your reputation and reap the benefits of looking awesome all over the internet.

To get the most out of the upcoming tips, open a new tab in incognito or private mode and search your business or brand name in Google. Keep it open for reference!

Top 5 SEO reputation management strategies & tactics

Chances are, when you search your business or brand name in Google, there are a couple things on that results page that you wish you could change. With the following tips, you might just be able to!

1. Get social and link ’em up

You might notice on that search results page that one or more of your social media profiles shows up in the results. That’s great! Having your social profiles there is a great way to “own” that search results page. To improve this, though, follow this plan:

1. Set up profiles on all major (and even a couple minor)  social media networks for your industry
2. Build out those profiles enough to look active
3. Link to your social media profiles from everywhere – your website, other social networks, email signatures, email marketing campaigns, etc.

The more activity you show on your social media profiles, the more likely they are to show up on that first page of Google results.

Bonus Tip: To really amp up your linking, add your social media profile links to your schema. This is a more advanced tactic – you’ll need to be able to work with the code of your website. Here’s a tutorial. If all goes according to plan, this will make your social profiles appear in your knowledge panel.

2. Own your reviews

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about optimizing how and when you appear on the web so that you get the most possible exposure and clicks. You might think of it mostly for keyword searches, but it also really matters for branded ones!

Reviews and review sites often take up a good portion of that first page of results for a branded search, so it makes sense that having both a healthy number of reviews and making sure they’re as good as possible is a part of reputation management SEO.

For instance, just look at this first page of results for a home services company. See how many of the results are reviews?

The best way to manage your reviews, in our opinion, is with a reputation management tool.

3. Create more positive results (“Reverse SEO”)

Another way to use SEO in reputation management is to use “reverse SEO”. In a nutshell, this just means that you create more high-ranking search results for your branded search terms, pushing any unsatisfactory ones further down the page (or even onto page 2).

For instance, let’s say you have a bad review or two on a third party website. You’ve done your best to deal with them, but they’re still there on the first page of results when someone Google searches your name. With reverse SEO, you work on creating new results (or beefing up existing ones to rank higher) for that search.

A couple examples of things that will rank high in branded search results that you can work on:

• Social media profiles
• SlideShare
• Your videos
• Your own blog
• Your content on top-ranking sites (Forbes, Medium, LinkedIn, etc.)
• Popular review sites (vary by industry – Yelp, HomeAdvisor, Healthgrades, etc.)
• News coverage
• Popular secondary pages on your own website

4. Run Branded PPC Ads

PPC and SEO work together to help you get more attention on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). They can also work together in reputation management!

Creating a branded ad campaign can help you control how you look in a branded search. Not only is it usually a pretty cheap campaign because your business name isn’t a competitive keyword, but it also allows you to say whatever you want about yourself at the very top of your branded results.

Check out how it looks when we search “HBO” – they own that very top space, and are able to include “start your free trial” to entice people potentially interested in HBO to click there.

5. Sponsor Content/Reviews

Another great way to get some positive coverage that may appear in search is to sponsor some content somewhere. This could be on a local blog or other website, or through an influencer on social media.

If you’re a local company, you’ll want to look for local opportunities. There might be a popular blog in your area (a moms blog, for instance) or social media profile featuring local deals/businesses. If you’re not local, the sky’s the limit! Try doing some sleuthing to find out what kind of sponsored content your competition is doing.

Wrapping Up

Reputation management SEO isn’t something you should ignore. If, when you search your brand or business name in Google, you see something you want to change, these five tactics will help you:

1. Claim and build out all your social media profiles, then link to those profiles from wherever you can.
2. Become a pro at managing your existing reviews and building new ones! Try a reputation management tool.
3. Create more positive content that will show up in your branded search results.
4. Run branded PPC ads.
5. Run sponsored content on blogs and/or social networks.