Big reputation

Any business, whether they have an active presence or not, needs to pay close attention to their online reputation management (ORM).

It's very likely people may seek out your reputation before making, buying or entering into contracts with you. If there’s no information online about your business, then whilst this may not be damaging in itself, your brand may not be getting the same coverage as competitors.

But it's not just a case of setting up some social media monitoring, or increasing your focus on public relations. Your brand is constantly being talked about either on review sites, on social media or by getting media coverage.

So what do you do if your online brand reputation suddenly decreases with negative news articles appearing as the top Google results?

Google’s ‘Top Stories’ feature means that if your company are in the news (by high traffic sites news specific sites such as BBC) this is prioritised at the top of any search for your brand for a maximum of 5 days.

There are things that can be done to decrease the prominence of these results and affect the top five listings in Google. Especially as they receive about two-thirds of all clicks from users.
Here are some very quick wins to ensure your own content is ranking well which don't require any additional external spend:
  • All website blog posts and news releases should contain images, which Google likes, to ensure content is ranked well
  • Adding referral links to other pages on your website from your news releases increases your Google ranking - it does not like dead-end pages
  • Where possible, ensure that you are the first to publish any news stories to achieve a better  ranking
  • Track all live mentions on social media, via Google Alerts and a media monitoring tool (i.e. Brand Watch) to tackle any media issues
  • Post content on more contentious subjects and speed up the publication of certain high-ranking news article topics
  • Upskill those publishing content using online tools to do extensive keyword research and web specific writing using tools like Keywords everywhere, Headlines analyzer and Hemingway app to ensure content is ranked better by Google
  • Deliver training on updating LinkedIn profiles to educate the business on optimising their personal profiles
  • For crisis control you can create bespoke webpages which clearly state the issue, are transparent and can provide up-to-date information about the actions being taken
Of course, your social media presence is very important and you should optimise your profiles and ensure you are posting regularly at the very least.

If budget isn't an issue you can undertake Pay Per Click (PPC) activity via Google AdWords to further control what appears at the top of Google searches and relegate the problematic ‘Top stories’ section.

Many B2C brands do this and essentially bid for their own brand name as it also allows them to have sub-links to key parts of their website. Keyword research will show your most searched for terms and the cost per click (CPC) in order to rank first. This CPC is determined by other companies bidding for the same/similar terms and search volumes.

Of course, an essential element of a successful ORM strategy is measuring success. Therefore you'll need to track and report on:
  • Key web influencers which could potentially be targeted to run content with as identified by Brand Grader
  • How paid and organic activity has affected brand sentiment (positively or negatively)
  • If your website traffic has increased meaning more users are visiting for news updates rather than third parties
  • How many clicks you have received on your ads as a percentage of searches (which previously would have gone to third parties)
  • Social media complaint increase or decrease
The key thing to remember is that your brand is being talked about and it's up to you to ensure that these mentions are truthful and positive!
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