8 Tips for Search Engine Reputation Management

Have you googled yourself lightly and not liked what you saw? With search engine reputation management you can be sure you're putting your best foot forward.

repmanagement.jpg

It doesn't matter how great of a brand you may be (or think you are). If you have a ton of negative reviews, comments, and ratings online, then your real-world business is going to suffer.

This is because 84% of consumers trust their online comrades' recommendations. If you have a ton of naysayers and "haters," then it's going to harm your online reputation.

But what's worse than having a bad reputation is having no reputation at all. If your prospects can't find you online, then you're getting no new business.

The simple solution is to put together a search engine reputation management strategy. It's not as difficult as it sounds and once you put it into action, you'll gain more visibility for your brand.

If you're not familiar with SEO reputation management, then continue reading for some quick tips.

Let's get to it.

1. Create and Maintain Your Social Profiles

Simply creating brand profiles on all the major platforms isn't going to help your ranking in search engines. Some make the mistake of believing that opening up pages on Flikr, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook will push their brand keywords to the top.

However, this isn't going to work unless your profiles are getting some link love and activity. This is why it's recommended that you completely fill out your profiles. Make sure the correct name, address, and phone numbers are the same across all of your pages.

Avoid using pseudonyms, if you're building a personal brand. In this case, it's best to go with your real first and last names. Then use your contacts to connect with your pages so you don't have accounts with no followers or friends.

Then to further help your SEO, you should include relevant keywords inside of your about section. But don't go overboard because Google will penalize your pages for being keyword-stuffed.

Most importantly, Google is watching to see if your profiles are active. Make sure you're continuing to make connections and engage in conversations. Another reason to avoid opening too many profiles.

2. Create a Universal Bio

It's essential to maintain consistency across all of your online profiles. When you write a guest blog post or are featured in an article, the company will ask for a bio or profile they can use as a reference in the content.

It's good to give a universal bio that you use on your website, blog, and social media accounts. Then you should also include your brand keywords are referenced across the web. Make sure to include embedded links inside of the bios that lead to your various social profiles and website.

Note that everywhere this bio shows up on the web counts as a backlink for all of the links within your bio. In other words, it'll quickly build link juice for SEO purposes.

3. Attend Speaking Engagements

One of the easiest (and free) ways to get the web talking about your brand is to speak at an event. If you're lucky, you'll be able to find a local event you can go to. Otherwise, you'll have to dish out money for the travel and hotel.

But it's all worth it if you can get the media to talk about the event and the speakers that are attending. They'll include your bio and links, which will help your SEO, as well as build visibility.

Then if the event is recorded and posted online, then this too will help grow awareness of your business. Make sure to share these on your social profiles to help build authority. And create events so that your followers are aware of your speaking engagements and can make plans to attend.

4. Build the Second Blog

You already have the main brand site and blog, which is great for content building and SEO. But if you really want to streamline your efforts, then you should consider building an alternative one.

For instance, you can have your regular business (or personal) blog. Then you can create a second one that talks about something you're passionate about.

An example could be blogging about cooking, mountain climbing, marketing, or whatever your hobby or side hustle is. The idea is to help build more links with your brand name. So make sure the domain name has your brand name in it.

Take time to fill the second blog with great content to help build your web profile and domain authority. If you can connect with your audience with this blog, then the engagement can really help boost your visibility and SEO.

5. Claiming Your Business Listings

It doesn't matter whether you're a local or online business like The Gallas Company. Search engines and various sites are collecting data about your company. If you want to make use of these listings, which show up at the top of local searches, then you'll need to claim them.

When you do, make sure your name, address, and phone number are the same across all your business listings. Fill out everything you can on each profile to better optimize it. Search engines will rank you higher if you have more details than a similar company with little to no data.

If you have business hours, accept specific payments, or multiple locations then add it.

Remember, you're not just filling it out for search engines - you want to give users the info they need to reach out to your business.

6. Open a YouTube Channel

If you have great content to share on your blog, why not repurpose it into video content? About 55% of people watch online video each day and 92% of mobile users share videos with others.

It's even expected that 80% of web traffic will come from video by 2019. That's right around the corner. This goes to prove the importance of video, whether you post them on YouTube or elsewhere.

For instance, videos on Facebook have 135% greater organic reach. So using video in your social media marketing is a definite win.

As for the type of content you produce for your channel depends on your audience and their needs. Do you have topics you can talk about that touches on their questions and concerns? Or maybe they'd like to see product demonstrations to assist with their buying decision.

Roughly 90% of users say that product videos help with their decision to buy. While you don't need professional camera equipment or crew, you should ensure your videos are high-quality.

The lighting and audio should be crisp. Plus, you should offer HD options for 1080p or even 4K.

7. Write Guest Blog Posts

It's not always enough to consistently write amazing content for your own blog. So why not share the love with other blogs? You can find bloggers in your industry who aren't direct competitors that'll post your guest articles.

What's great about guest blogs is that you can include your bio, profile links, and website URL.

If you're able to find a blog that has a high domain authority and lots of traffic from your target audience, then even better.

This will help drive some of their traffic your way, and you'll get backlink love that'll boost your SEO. Make sure your guest post is high-quality and resonates with the audience of the site. Otherwise, it won't yield the results you want (or worse, the blogger may reject it).

8. Answer the Negative Reviews

It happens to the best of us - negative reviews rear their head quite often on the web, which means you need to be on your toes. You don't want to leave these reviews unattended because they'll greatly impact the image of your brand.

By seeking out these reviews and replying respectfully will show that your brand cares. Just keep emotions out of the mix so you don't end up flaming the fire vs putting it out.

The key here is to find out what the problem is and how or if you can remedy it. If you're able to, follow-up with the customer to see if they're satisfied. And if they are, then you can ask them to update or write a new review.

Keep in mind others will see your comments with negative reviewers so it's a great opportunity to showcase your brand as professional and courteous.

Building a Search Engine Reputation Management Strategy

As you can see, there are many ways you can manage your online reputation using SEO. It's one part creativity and one part consistency. With the right knowledge, you'll find that putting together a search engine reputation management plan is rather simple.

If you feel you need more information and tips on this topic, then you can find resources available at Search Engine Guide. We offer a sleuth of guides you can use for every aspect of your digital marketing.

Stop by today to see how we can help educate you to improve your SEO efforts.

 

 Below are some of the examples on how to create backlinks for Subdomain websites as well.