Search engines are now the focal point for companies’ efforts in raising their profile to consumers, promoting their services, and selling their products. Many web savvy companies have made high rankings on Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN and the rest of the search engines their highest priority and spend large sums on a monthly basis accordingly. Done properly, the funds spent to stay on or near the first page on the search engines can result in a large return on investment for a company due to the revenues generated from visitors that have found the website and spent money there.
This profitable practice can be undone very quickly if negative content in the form of rumors, bad user reviews, and anything else that can hurt a company’s reputation starts showing up on the pages of these same search engines. When that negative content is part of an organized campaign the damage can be extremely costly both monetarily and in the way consumers perceive the company, its products, and its services. Typically, these campaigns originate from competitors trying to gain advantage but can also come from revenge seeking ex-employees or individuals with other agendas. The most damaging efforts are usually generated by competing companies due to their bigger budgets which allow them to carry out broader and more extended campaigns than those sponsored by individuals. An unchecked negative content campaign can pay for and perpetuate itself indefinitely, partly due to fact that negative content can be re-posted again and again while still carrying some impact on potential consumers, thus keeping costs down for the sponsors.
Search Engine Reputation Management LLC has been providing advice, guidance, and reputation management services to targeted companies for years. The key for a company being targeted by organized negative content is to respond immediately with a well thought out, strategically planned counter offensive. The first order of business is to determine the scale and breadth of the attack and whether it is coming from a corporate sponsor or an individual. That information is necessary to calculate the resources and skill sets that will be required to achieve an optimal result for the counter offensive. For instance, if an offensive is being sponsored by a disgruntled ex- employee, a counter attack may be developed that relies mostly on finding just enough positive content to bury the negative posts. At the other end of the spectrum the determination that an attack is being funded by a deep pocketed competitor would require significantly more resources, sophisticated skill sets, and the commitment to a longer range plan.
Once that information is at hand, a strategy to turn back the attack is developed. The tactics utilized are multi-faceted and designed to meet negative content head on. If there appears to be copyright or trademark violations, legal experts will file cease and desist orders to remove negative content from where ever it might be posted. Existing positive content on web will be located and optimized to start pushing it higher on the search engines. Additionally, positive content can be developed for placement on blogs, forums, or affinity/group sites and optimized to continue the downward push of negative content. Additional tactics come into play depending on the specifics of the attack. Ultimately, this new type of business warfare is won by eliminating negative content where possible, countering negatives with positives, and relegating the rest to low pages on the search engines, out of the sight of visitors and consumers.
If your company is under attack, there is no time to waste. Call Search Engine Reputation Management LLC at 866-530-7703 to counter that attack and protect the reputation of your company. |
