Best Practices for Search Engine Marketing

 

Reputation Management is Not a New Concept

The key to losing business is to have lots and lots of negative reviews. Would you or anyone you knew buy from a company that had lots of negative reviews on the first page of Google Places?

Reputation management is not a new concept since everyone from Fortune 500 companies - to plumbers - to the gas station on the corner - relies on their reputation to protect and enhance their livelihood. Reputations sway public opinion, positively or negatively affect careers, and have a tangible impact on the success of any business whether it’s been around for three months or three decades. Because Social Network practices on the Internet allow for reputations to be widely known a warp speed, reputations must be managed and managed by professionals like Advantix Marketing.

Warren Buffet once said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it.” It’s a fair assumption that he wasn’t talking specifically about online search engine reputation management, but this maxim certainly applies. The Internet provides countless opportunities for people to share their views with the rest of the world and the fact that they can do so anonymously presents a unique set of problems if what they post online is derogatory.

Unflattering information, factual or otherwise, can show up in natural search engine results whether a Web user is looking for it or not and influence purchasing decisions, personal views, and sully the reputation of people, products, and institutions. There’s not much that can be done to prevent this, but when it occurs, there are options which can substantially reduce how easy it is to find salacious remarks online.

Many companies experience challenges from hostile customers, disgruntled employees and nefarious competitors who try to hurt businesses by blogging or posting derogatory statements online about the company or specific individuals who work there. They aim to adversely impact a target's business, recruiting and retention efforts, and the company's reputation as a whole.

 

The bottom line is very few companies have strategies related to managing their “online reputation” even if they have an active public relations team. Online Reputation Management (ORM) is a process employed by companies like Advantix Marketing to proactively shield their brands from damaging content brought to light through search engine queries.

 

Our Search Engine Reputation Management strategy is very simple: Displace - push down - the negative listings with favorable ones.

 

Given the increasing popularity and importance of search engines, Search Engine Reputation Management tactics have become more important than ever – period!  While Pay per Click (PPC) Campaigns and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Programs are tremendously important in increasing website visibility, and therefore, increasing sales; if a company’s reputation is being tarnished and degraded because of negative reviews, all the hard work will be lost. Therefore businesses across the nation have hired Advantix Marketing to protect their business image from unfavorable publicity and malicious attacks by ex-employees, unhappy customers and dirty competitors.

 

The results of a negative online reputation may be as subtle as a user clicking on a competitor’s search result instead of yours or as damaging as an industry-wide boycott of your products and/or services. Besides the obvious financial implications of having a company’s credibility called into question, there are potential legal ramifications that can dominate time and cripple financial sustainability, as well. The news of court battles will often get published high in the Search Engine Result Pages so that even if a case is dismissed or resolved, the consequences can remain published for years to come.

 

Using proprietary reputation management techniques, Advantix Marketing corrects problem search results by helping good results rise and bad results fade away. Our clients often have years of experience in business, excellent track records, outstanding contributions to society and the world; but one misstep, an unethical competitor, or a journalist with a vendetta who posts wildly inaccurate information and the well seems poisoned. This is where Online Reputation Management can help.

 

Many clients simply want to use Online Reputation Management to sculpt search results in their favor. Moving a client’s website or websites up for a certain search phrase, or by moving good supporting information up as well; we help clients control the first two pages of reviews.

 

Do you have client or customer testimonials / reviews?  We have two programs that work to obtain positive reviews that you will continually need to build a stellar reputation. We will post those reviews on important websites like Google, Yahoo, Yellow Pages, Super Pages and 25 other locations.  In short, programs will be initiated to engage your customers to give your business recognition for the great products and service you provide.

If you find yourself facing a series of horrible reviews and you are in need of a serious Reputation Management Solution, contact us for professional assistance.