Should you hire internet reputation defenders?
Do you need a reputation defender to handle your company reputation and defend your brand online?
What is an Online Business Reputation Defense?
As you might infer from its name, an online business reputation defense refers to measures that can be taken to protect, repair or improve your reputation on the internet. An online business reputation defender is a a company or service that specializes in managing the reputations of companies, institutions and organizations on the internet. Typically this includes improving business reputation on search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo and defending it against online attacks.
Online reputation damage can come in many forms including slanderous blog posts and forum comments, bad online reviews and negative star ratings on Yelp and other review sites, and complaints by customers on sites such as Ripoff Report and Complaints Board, etc. In other words if anything unfavorable about your business appears online, a reputation defender will take any and all measures to make sure that nobody sees it and no sales are lost because of it. Now, how do they accomplish this?
Two types of defensive techniques are used by online reputation management companies to defend business and brand reputations online.
Defensive Reputation Management: Internet Reputation Repair
Removing Negative Press Information from the internet
A Business reputation defenders’ first line of defense when dealing with a piece of negative information or an onslaught of negative online PR will be to attack the problem at its source, that is, to try to remove the negative news story or piece of undesirable content from the website on which it first appeared.
To quickly repair business reputation damage, the defender will use all the tools, technologies and techniques he has at his disposal to make every effort possible to get all negative items and private information removed from search results by having it deleted from the site on which it is was first published.
It’s important that the reputation management company hired to provide defense services for your business acts fast, especially at this point in the process — i.e. in attempting to takedown negative or private content from the site that is the original publisher. If too much time passes, theres a chance (and in many cases not a bad chance) that the the negative items about your business will be republished by a different, often unrelated website.
If your business reputation defender succeeds in eliminating the negative or private information by getting it removed from the first and still only site on which it appeared, then all that’s left is to submit a request to search engines to de-index the now non-existent page.
To submit such a request to Google use the URL Removal Tool here.
Responding to Customer Negativity Online
If a business reputation defender is unable to get the negative information in question removed from the site, another technique used by internet reputation defenders is to respond to and/or reach out to the customer that posted the negative comment(s) and/or review(s) about your company and try to resolve their grievances and so that they retract or edit the negative statements or bad reviews they’re responsible for posting.
Search Engine Suppression (Reverse SEO)
If the reputation defender is unable to remove the information from the website, search engine suppression is normally used. Instead of removing the information entirely, Google Suppression services use Search Engine Optimization (S.E.O) tactics to push web pages containing negative information far back in the search results of Google, Yahoo and Bing. This way when customers perform a search for your business name, they will not see the negative information unless they go beyond the first several pages of the search results generated. Given that only about 25% of searchers go beyond the first page of search results, search suppression is usually effective for online reputation repair.
Offensive Reputation Management Tactics in Business Online Reputation Damage Control and Management
In online reputation management the best defense is a good offense!
The best way to defend your reputation on the internet may be to establish a strong, positive online presence. This is an offensive reputation management strategy used by business reputation management defenders to lesson the impact of bad reviews and negative posts that could be made in the future.
Positive Content Creation
A business reputation defender will use journalists to create quality content that highlights the facts you want known about your business.
Publishing the Positive
After creating new positive content about the business, the reputation defender will disseminate this information on social media, news journals, blogs and other authoritative websites.
Promoting the Positive Profiles, Posts and Articles
One this accurate information that highlights your business strong points is public on the internet, your reputation defender will use strategies pulling from SEO, social media and content marketing , among other fields of internet marketing, to boost the web pages featuring this newly created, positive information about your business to the top of search engine results.
Promoting the new web pages that contain nothing but positive, reputation building information about your business with SEO will help to ensure that these “positive pages” will continue to rank high on Google results as well as on the results of other search engines, keeping your reputation protected far into the future, outranking (i.e. ranking above on Google results) new negatives articles or private information, should such material find its way online again.
Business and Brand Reputation Monitoring
Business online reputation defenders will also set up reputation monitoring for your business , brand and phrases relating to your organization. This is the best way to stay on top of your business’ reputation on search engines and social media. Online business reputation monitoring services alert you whenever an occurrence of your company or brand name appears on the internet and gives you a chance to respond before it spreads to other sites or starts to be one of the first results to show up on Google when your business name is searched for.
Will a Reputation Defending Firm Fix The Online Reputation of Your Business?
Whether or not an internet reputation defender will work to keep your online reputation safe will depend on two main factor:
(1) Who you hire to defend your internet reputation. When choosing an online reputation management company to defend your reputation don’t rush or cut corners. Perform due diligence on the company and its offerings. Also it’s not a bad idea to get in touch with a few other reputation management companies that an established business reputation defense system in order to shop around for the best price.
(2) The severity of the business reputation damage thats been done by the internet defamation, negative news articles or whatever other unflattering information might have been posted online about your business.
What are the Best Services to Defend, Repair and Protect Your Internet Reputation
There are dozens of companies that offer credible business reputation defending services.
Defamation Defenders
A noteworthy online reputation management firm specializing in legal content takedowns and search engine suppression campaigns, Boulder, Colorado based Defamation Defenders have developed unique strategies that have helped thousands of people resolve online reputation problems and hundreds of businesses regain control of their online presences..
ReputationDefender
Internet identity protection and reputation management firm ReputationDefender, is a VC funded online reputation company that offers companies of all sizes reliable ORM solutions.
Reputation.com
Reputation.com is the original reputation defender. In fact the company once went by the name ReputationDefender, and hence is at least in part responsible for coining the term Reputation Defender. Reputation.com has pioneered a number of noteworthy innovations in internet reputation defense.
Reputation X
Reputation X is another noteworthy reputation management firm that’s been around for some time, offers trusted online reputation services for people and businesses small and large, and is VC funded.
