subject: How Does Reputation Management Help To Improve A Company's Name? [print this page] Reputation management was created in order to help companies clean up the results on search engines so that those interested will not get a bad impression of their company. Its goal is to create positive material on the web that pushes negative material away from the first three pages of search results.
There are many reasons why someone would generate negative information on the internet about a certain company, and once that information is online, it can appear in search engines like Google and Yahoo and tarnish a company's good name. This results in lost money and lost esteem. One way to combat this is to hire a reputation management company to clean up the first few pages on these search engines. Because most people who use a search engine do not go past the first three pages in a search, these businesses strive to create positive or neutral material that will force the negative material into the fourth page and beyond. They can do this in many different ways.
Microsites, also known as minisites or weblets, function as smaller parts of a larger website. A reputation management group might create microsites to increase hits on the parent web site. Each microsite focuses on a specific subject or keyword in order to enhance the likelihood of a site's appearance in a search engine's results.
RSS feeds are used to standardize frequently updated works (such as press releases) so that users can stay up to date when new things happen.
Blogging is a powerful tool in creating positive material about a certain website or company. Reputation management firms will use properly managed blogs in order to create interest and provide links that will increase traffic on a company's website.
Social media includes such sites as Facebook and Myspace; it is used by a company in order to reach a certain demographic and create a good reputation in these communities. A reputation management firm might assist its client in putting together a solid page and providing sufficient links and advertising to rank well for the company's name.
Other tactics include SEO articles, business profile linking, videos, and Wiki-sites. In addition to creating positive material about a client, these companies may also search out the negative comments and posts and try to eliminate them. Sometimes, if the site holding that information is contacted, the negative content can be removed and the company's reputation improved.
Reputation management is a relatively new development, but its aim is nothing original; companies have been trying to keep their names in good standings since before the internet was ever invented. However, it has become increasingly easy for negative material to be circulated, and that is why these firms use tactics such as social media, microsites, and more to keep their clients' names untarnished.
