Reverse SEO Is A Core Element Of Online Reputation Management14 Sep
Reverse SEO has become critical for all types of organizations. It has never been
easier for your customers, competitors, and employees to publish items online that
can have a damaging impact upon your business. If those items gain exposure in
Google, Yahoo!, and other major search engines, their effects can last for years.
Regardless of whether you operate a small firm with less than ten employees or a
multi-billion dollar company, bad publicity can decimate your business.
This post will introduce you to the fundamentals of reverse SEO. We’ll explain
how it works and the advantages of using it. We’ll also describe a seldom talked
about strategy of leveraging reverse SEO as a preventative approach to online
reputation management (ORM). You’ll discover why many companies are rushing to
search engine optimization specialists to enlist their help for damage control. If
you are not currently using reverse SEO to limit the effects of bad publicity, your
company may be vulnerable.
How Reverse Search Engine Optimization Works
Google ranks pages based on several criteria. One of its organic algorithm’s ranking
parameters is a website’s authority within its space. The more authority a site has,
the easier it is for a page on that site to rank well and control its position. When
an authoritative page carries bad publicity about your company, it can gain exposure
to a wide audience. This is the problem that reverse search engine optimization
resolves.
Reverse SEO specialists have a number of tools at their disposal they can use to
suppress bad publicity in the search engines. First, they’ll analyze the authority
of high-ranking pages that speak negatively of your business. Then, they’ll
formulate a strategy to push those pages into the depths of the search engines’
organic listings, limiting their visibility.
Long-Term Advantages Of Reverse SEO
A single unsatisfied customer can create havoc for your company by spreading
deceptive stories of poor service or shoddy workmanship. Similarly, one resentful
employee can anonymously unfurl a string of damaging diatribes. If such stories and
diatribes are merely told to another person, their effects are limited and
temporary. By contrast, if they are published online and gain exposure in Google,
they can have disastrous results for your business.
This type of negative press tends to gain a groundswell of momentum, regardless of
its accuracy. By suppressing these pages in the search engines, reverse SEO allows
you to control the effects of bad publicity. It helps you to smother the flames
before they grow out of control.
Reverse SEO: The Preemptive Strike
Most companies launch a reverse SEO campaign after bad publicity has already crept
toward the top of Google’s organic listings. That is a reactive approach. The
problem is that high-ranking pages with negative press tend to generate inbound
links. Those links further strengthen the pages’ positions. As a result, they become
more difficult to suppress.
You can use reverse SEO as a preventative measure. By launching a campaign that
controls the top organic positions, you can prevent negative publicity from gaining
exposure in the first place. In effect, you can insulate your company from the whims
and machinations of frustrated customers, unhappy employees, and deceitful
competitors.
Is Reverse SEO An Essential Cog Of Search Engine Marketing?
Search engine marketing (SEM) increases your company’s exposure within your space.
On its own, an SEM campaign can deliver staggering results that translate directly
to your business’s bottom line. However, bad publicity can disrupt even the most
formidable of search engine marketing campaigns.
Reverse SEO is a vital component of any SEM effort. It protects the integrity of
your search engine marketing campaign and supports its growth. The same tools that
can be used to control the top positions in Google and prevent negative press from
gaining traction can seed inbound links to your website. This creates a well-rounded
SEM campaign that is potent on multiple fronts.
Damage Control And Online Reputation Management
If your company enjoys exposure on the internet, whether from social networking
sites, professional online trade journals, or broad media, online reputation
management is important. The number of authoritative websites that your customers,
employees, and competitors can use to spread negative press about your business is
increasing. Making matters worse, many journalists have become lax in sourcing their
stories. ORM and reverse SEO can work seamlessly together to control the spread of
bad publicity.
Negative press does not need to be accurate in order to rank well in Google. That makes reverse SEO more critical for your company than ever.
Reverse SEO is indeed one of the most useful weapons in the arsenal of the ORM consultant and every business should have in a place a pro-active as opposed to re-active) reverse SEO strategy.
It bears stressing that reactive, after-the-event ORM strategies are expensive and time-consuming. Following the advice of this post is, in that sense, highly recommendable.
I couldn’t agree more! For one, I have set up Google Alerts for my company’s name “Ace SEO & Web Design” (plus other combos), my name and my employees names. We’re alerted just about every time someone says anything positive or negative about us. When someone says something positive, we sent them a little thank you.
So far, we’ve only had two negative comments posted about us. The first we by a client that said he could never get a hold of us on the phone. We never picked up. Turns out that he was calling the wrong number! Had we not had the alert set up, we would have gotten dinged for something we didn’t do.
The second incident turned out to be one of our competitors. We contacted the forum operator who did nothing about it so we then posted proof that our competitor was fabricating lies. That forum thread has since chastised our competition.
The point is that this reverse SEO is really important because not being aware of what is going on can destroy your business!