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Ten Ways To Clear Bad Press From Search Engine Results
By Linda Bustos (c) 2006

What do you see when you search for your company or brand name?
Is there anything on the first page of the search engine results
that you wouldn't be proud to display on your home page?
Consumer review sites, blogs and forums have made it easy for
anyone to say whatever they want about your company, whether
they be disgruntled customers or competitors who like to play
dirty.

If you're in a situation where negative publicity is front and
center in search results, there are ways you can reclaim search
engine real estate for your corporate identity. Though you
can't make negative results disappear from the search engine
indexes entirely, the following strategies can help them slip
off the first few pages of search engine results.

1. Good Old Fashioned Networking

The first thing you should do is contact the webmasters of the
sites in question with a polite request for removal of negative
comments. There's a good chance they'll be willing to
co-operate. Note that, even if they do remove the listing, the
cached pages may remain in the search engine indexes for some
time. But users who click through the search engine results
will land on a page with the comments removed.

Check out some of the sites that already have something good to
say about you. Send them an appreciation note, and offer them a
link back from your site. You could even create a special page
called "Gary's Garage On The Web" (if that's the name of your
business) or "Press Room."

2. Tap Into the Power of Wiki

Wiki websites allow users not only to add their own content, but
also edit pages. They get their name from the Hawaiian word
"wiki wiki" meaning "rapidly." There are many wiki pages like
AboutUs.org (http://www.aboutus.org) and LoveToKnow.com
(http://www.lovetoknow.com) that you can use to create content
about your company. If your company name is "notable" enough,
you might also be able to create a page in Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page).

3. Raise Your Profile

Some websites like PR.com (http://www.pr.com) allow
you to post your company's profile. An annual fee might be
required. It's not easy to find these sites, but you may find
some opportunities by searching your competitors' names and
discovering where they are listed.

4. Become A Socialite

Using social bookmark sites like Netvous (http://www.netvouz.com)
and Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us) is an easy way to add
content through the web. You can create an account for yourself
that bookmarks all of your positive press, and anything
interesting on your website, such as articles or videos. Or
create a photo gallery in Flickr (http://www.flickr.com). The
links themselves are not given much weight by search engines,
but you have an opportunity to use your company name in the
titles and descriptions of your bookmarks and photos. Make sure
you make good use of the tagging feature, using general keywords
as these will also begin to rank for your name. For example,
Gary's Garage should tag: "Garys Garage," "garage," "autobody,"
"mechanic," "mechanics," "body shop," "car," "auto body" and so
on.

5. Become A Lensmaster

A company blog is certain to rank well, and it's easier than
ever to create one with Squidoo.com (http://www.squidoo.com).
When you create a "lens" for your site, you can easily upload
pictures and also make use of tags. Unlike other blogs, Squidoo
won't show the posting date, so your lens won't look neglected
if you ever stop posting. You can build your blog's link
popularity by submitting it to blog directories like LSBlogs
(http://www.lsblogs.com) and BlogHub (http://www.bloghub.com),
and linking to it from your site.

6. Write!

Articles can help you kill three birds with one stone. Not only
can articles rank for your company name, they also build
valuable backlinks to your site and position you as an expert in
your field. You can use your company name in the resource box
at the end of an article along with a link back to your site.
Using your company name in the article body gives it a better
chance of ranking well. You can research potential sites to
submit your article to by searching for one of your industry
keywords in a search engine like this: "car mechanics" + "submit
article." Or submit it to various article directories like
Article Alley (http://www.articlealley.com).

7. Encourage Testimonials

If you have customers who have given you positive feedback or
provided testimonials for your site, you could ask them to write
a review for you on a website like Epinions.com
(http://www.epinions.com), CoffeeGeek.com
(http://www.coffeegeek.com) or ConsumerReview.com
(http://www.consumerreview.com).

8. Explore Shopping Engines

If you sell products online, consider listing them in comparison
shopping sites, or "shopping engines" like Shopping.com
(http://www.shopping.com), Bizrate (http://www.bizrate.com) or
Nextag (http://www.nextag.com). If you are not ready to
manage a new e-commerce channel for many products, you might
consider listing one product in one engine to start.

9. Use Directories For Deep Links

Search engines still consider a page's number of relevant
backlinks to be a strong indicator of quality and relevance to a
search term. Octopedia (http://www.octopedia.com), WorldSiteIndex
(http://www.worldsiteindex.com) and Microsoft's Small Business
Directory (http://sbd.bcentral.com/) are a few examples of solid
directories that allow you to link to deeper pages of your own
site, like your About Us page, to help raise their rankings for
your company name.

10. Post An E-Help Wanted Sign

Leverage the strength of sites like Craigslist.org
(http://craigslist.org) to post your company's current job
offerings. Make sure you use your company name first in the
posting headline: "Gary's Garage Now Hiring Junior Grease
Monkeys," for example. This will ensure the title tag for that
page is optimized, which is very helpful for SEO. And make sure
to describe your company in the ad, repeating your name three
or four times.

Tracking Results

I strongly recommend setting up an account with Google Alerts
(http://www.google.com/alerts) (free) which monitors the top 50
results, or with Google Alert (http://www.googlealert.com), a
professional tracking system that will monitor the top 200
results for you for as little as $4.95/month. You will be
notified daily when new references to your name have been found
in Google – not only to see when your articles, profile pages,
blog posts and so on get indexed, but also to keep on top of any
new negative or positive references to your name outside of your
own reputation management efforts.

How Long Will This Take?

Results may vary but they won't come overnight. You will get
out of your reputation management efforts what you put in. It
could take anywhere from a few months to a year.

Conclusion

These ideas are not exhaustive. You may come across your own
tactics on your own through competitor research or your own
ingeniousness. If you are not familiar with SEO, consider hiring
a consulting firm skilled in copywriting and public relations.
The key is to look at reputation management as a long term
activity and to take advantage of all the options you have to
keep the search engine results positive.
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Linda Bustos is the Marketing Director for Image X Media, a
Vancouver web design (http://www.imagexmedia.com/web_design) and
Internet marketing (http://www.imagexmedia.com) firm.
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