So you just found out that there are many criticisms about your small business that are found online. These range from petty comments from unsatisfied clients to downright black propaganda by enemies and various competitors. To combat this, you decide to engage an internet marketing service and contract them to manage your search engine reputation.
So after going over the terms, you sit in your office and wait. A few days after you check back with your favorite search engine and surprise, surprise… all the bad publicity for your website is still there.
One of the things with Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) is to manage expectations. In the example given above, one did not remember that SERM is not an overnight thing. Simply utilizing a SERM service does not automatically guarantee that all unfavorable content would vanish into thin air. It is a process, and it takes time. Ranking the good pages may take weeks or even months before succeeding.
Here are other things to Remember with Search Engine Reputation management:
It is not a one-time occurrence – In an online setting, removing unfavorable content is not as easy as throwing away flyers in real life or deleting files in the offline world. This means that more often than not, managing your reputation is dependent not on deleting these bad content but rather burying them with good ones. However, a simple change in a search engine’s algorithm may again make this bad content appear; as such, having an outsourced service to maintain this reputation may be a good option.
One must be open-minded about changes suggested by SERM specialists – To be able to battle bad publicity, the company must be open to changes. A specialist may ask for design changes, or even keyword changes in the company website, to further help eliminate bad content. The firm must be willing to accept these kinds of alterations to make SERM more effective.
