International Search Engine Marketing Blog

Utilizing SEM for reputation management is an increasingly common usage. A larger number of companies are focusing upon the results that appear in Google after the company name is typed into the search engines. As an example, take a moment to type in: Agilis Marketing. Now notice the results that appear. As is evidenced from the SERP’s our company has done little to change the results as since there are numerous other firms out and the results do not meaningfully harm the company’s reputation. There is one result from Rip Off Report along with Agilis Marketing’s rebuttal. It seemed appropriate to leave it since it helps illustrate our efforts to work with clients. Nonetheless some companies are bombarded with listings of scam and fraud reports. Sometimes there is no validity to these claims and there is much that SEM can do to eliminate these listings from top of the results’ pages.

The type of company that might want to utilize reputation management is one with a strong brand name, that people type into the search engines frequently, but is in an industry with negative connotations. Take any debt collection company for as an example, then Search for the company’s name and more often than not the results display nothing but a list of complaints from people claiming they were forced to pay their bills. The bottom line is that nobody forced them to do anything and it is the individuals’ faults for accumulating the liability. Nonetheless, this still reflects poorly upon a company’s reputation and can hamper business.

The most effective and least costly way to change this is through the use of SEO and SEM techniques to ensure primarily positive information is displayed on Google’s search pages. Generally this is done by ensuring that sites that list positive information are placed above those with negative details. Sometimes the creation of individual sites is a smart idea, whereas other times is more cost effective to promote sites that already display positive information.

One might use this same technique on an international level as well. Oftentimes with the introduction of a new product it is important to show as much positive information as possible. Utilizing search engine marketing to help positive product reviews is a helpful and cost effective way to increase a company’s and product’s reputation. Look to see reputation management as an ever growing niche in the SEM industry.

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Written by: Brent Yorzinski on July 9, 2009.
Last revised by: on September 3, 2009.