Search reputation-management

Mikkel deMib Svendsen • www.joyzone.dk • www.redzoneglobal.dk • [email protected] Mikkel deMib Svendsen • www.demib.com • [email protected] 1

The Art Of Search Reputation Management

Mikkel deMib Svendsen Ninja SEO & Serial Entrepreneur

Mail: [email protected]

Phone: (+45) - 22 27 07 10

Blog: blog.demib.com

Twitter: demib

Strike Point

WebMasterRadio.fm (FREE)

www.webmasterradio.fm/International-Marketing/Strike-Point

DaveN & Mikkel deMib Svendsen

Monday at 21:00 CET

+2 MILLION

DOWNLOADS


Everyone have the right to speak (free speech) ... But that doesn't

mean anyone actually have to hear it ...

If you can somehow promote the positive things said about you and suppress the negative then off course you should!

... And that's exactly what you can do

with Search Reputation Management ...!


Two important Facts About Search

1. All people search!

Don’t fool yourself – more and more of your

prospects search too!

2. Search results form opinions!

What people find searching strongly

influence their opinions on the topic


How Can Bad Search Results Hurt You?

Consumers may not buy your products

Most often there are several brands or vendors to chose from

It will reduce the effectiveness of your branding campaigns

People search for brands, slogans & tag-lines used in large branding campaigns

If what they find contradict or make fun of your campaign they may not trust you

In a “worst case scenario” things may get worse much faster

People search when a plane crash – but what will they find? Are you (SEO-) ready for it?

In general: Negative results will undermine your brands!

Investors may not invest in your company

Companies may not want to take your investment ...!

Journalists may pick up on the bad stuff they find researching your market

You may not get the job (or date) you want





3 groups of strategies to fight free speech

Legal strategies

Most often negative sites are not actually doing anything illegal

Offending sites may not be in your jurisdiction

However, if it’s the right way to go – this may be your cheapest option

Paid strategies

Pay your way to limit the problems and emphasize the good stuff

Organic strategies

SEO on steroids ...

You can not expect to get rid of all the negative things about you – but you can supress some of it and promote the possitive things. You can

shift the ballance to the better


Never, ever, ever ever call your lawyer as the first thing in a

reputation management case!

They often makes things worse! and they have no clue about the possible options

(... like a bull in a china shop)

I

LAWYERS


Where do you start ...

It depends on what your goals are ...

Do you just want to better understand your reputation in search - in general ...

- and deal with it if necessary?

Have you already identified one really bad listing

you want to “neutralize”?

Do you want to protect an upcoming

branding campaign in search?

Do you want to prepare yourself

for a worst case scenario?


Steps to

Search

Reputation

Management


Step 1: Select Your Keywords

Focus on your brand-sensitive keywords

Keywords that is used to research you, other top-managers, brands and products

It takes an awful lot of work to do full scale analysis of keywords

If you have many keywords prioritize them in an A and a B list

Do not focus on search volumes – but on impact!

Keywords is the key to all search marketing!


Step 2: Collect Search Result Data

Select the most used engines in your target market

Usually Google, Yahoo and Bing – but not always!

Search locally!

If you are not local use a local proxy

Use default (local) settings

Basically: Mimic your target users as close as possible when

collecting data!

Focus on top listings

Collect data from top 10, 20 or 30


Step 3: Rate Each Unique URL

1. Very negative (Rate: -1) - the most negative pages you can imagine from independant parties

2. Negative (Rate: -2) - negative pages

3. Neutral (Rate: 0) - listings that are not about you

4. Positive (Rate: +1) - posstive pages

5. Very positive (Rate: +2) - the most posstive pages you can imagine from independant parties


Store the raw ratings for all your keywords


Use conversion and weighting scales

Read Bill Hunt & Mike Morans book: Search Engine Marketing, Inc.

- for more suggestions on ranking scales

(Distribution of clicks by search ranking, page 165)


Collect additional data for each unique domain


Step 4: Analyze Each Keyword

Are the keyword competitive or not?

Are the top ranking websites very prominent

and well optimized for the keyword?

Or is it just the “best” there is?

What characterize the total result?

Mostly positive results with just a few negatives (2) and fewer very negatives (1)

Mostly negative and very negative results

Mostly neutral results – unrelated and unprotected results

Only positive and neutral results ...



Step 5: Analyze The Negative Websites

How well is it optimized?

Check for the usual SEO factors: Indexing, Backlinks, Domain Age, Rankings etc.

Who owns it?

Is it a private person, a company or a large corporation?

Is it possible that the owner could be influenced with money?

Is the content legal?

If you think it is and you can find out who is doing it and that person is within your

jurisdiction – then let your lawyer have a look at it

But don’t act yet! Wait until you have the full overview of options!


Step 6: Decide on The Right Strategies

Two categories of strategies Brand, campaign or worst case scenario protection

General overview or damage control

Legal, Paid or Organic? Which mix of solutions are most likely to work for you?

Get a good overview before you decide!

Most often a combination of Paid and Organic is the best solution


A good protection strategy: Tail Gating

Tail Gating will protect you against future attacks

Angry customers

Negative news

Worst case scenarios

Any positive or neutral site can be used ...

All your own sites and your close partners sites

Profile pages, blogs, sub-domains, keyword-domains etc.

Any site where there is no risk of things turning negative

The goal with a Tail Gating Strategy is to “block the top” - dominate top 10-30 for your top brand-reputation keywords


Step 7: Execute Your Strategies

Be very careful!

– Search Reputation Management can seriously backfire if not done perfectly!


First, lets look at a few organic strategies ...


Can you remove negative sites?

Yes, but there are no perfectly reliable methods

Things that should harm your competitors may instead benefit them or harm you!

Big brands and sites driven by advanced webmasters will get back in very fast

Will hacking the websites work ...?

Yes it may, but It’s illegal …!

It’s illegal – even if you just break in to “update” the robots.txt file, mess up their

titles or make other “updates” that they probably won’t recognize before its to late

When did you last check you robots.txt file? If you are like most – its probably a long time ago ...


Push down the negative sites!

Make other, more positive, pages rank above the bad ones

It’s like “normal” SEO – but instead of ranking just 1 site you have to rank 10, 20

or more!

All positive or neutral pages can be used!

Pages on your own sites

Pages on partners sites

Pages on 3rd party sites

Social sites, online profiles, business listings etc

You can not always expect to outrank all the negative sites

Use other methods to “remove” more of the rest ...


Make a different page on a site rank better

Negative pages from prominent sites are hard to suppress

Instead, find a less negative page on the same site and optimize (link build) it!

This listing is currently on page 1 in Google

Score -1

This listing would probably be much better to have!

Score +1

This can be done with the right amount of link building to the second page!


Manipulate the source …

Inject new pages on sites

If there is no other (and more positive) pages on a community site you can boost

- then make your own!

If it is a major newspaper – create a bait they can’t reject (consult a PR expert)

Add you point of view

If comments are allowed explain your case well and you may win the users …

Supply new “evidence” to the author

Try to make them use it

Tip: Read up on your “Social Engineering” skills …


Money talks - paid strategies works!


Use Search Advertising

It doesn't remove the negative results – but it do at least provide a platform for you to tell your side of the story


Buy the negative sites

Use ”stealth acquisitions”

Most people are for sale

– even the most dedicated people – if the price is right


Bribe has such a bad name ...

Financial enticements are acceptable to some degree in many cultures ...

Just make sure what you do is legal ...!


Step 8: Monitor & Benchmark Results


Get alerted by Google – its free!

www.google.com/alerts/


May the force be with you ...

Strike Point

WebMasterRadio.fm (FREE)

DaveN & Mikkel deMib Svendsen

Monday at 21:00 CET

+2 MILLION

DOWNLOADS

Mikkel deMib Svendsen Ninja SEO & Serial Entrepreneur

Mail: [email protected]

Phone: (+45) - 22 27 07 10

Blog: blog.demib.com

Twitter: demib

Business

Search reputation-management