Can Solid Search Engine Optimization Save Your Reputation?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Wednesday, 14 of May , 2008 at 5:16 am

Search engine optimization is all about getting yourself as high as possible in the SERP’s. Most people agree on that philosophy. What happens when you get to the top but the next 10 listings are for pages that heavily criticize your business?

A post by Jordan McCollum on Small Business Newz made for interesting reading. She highlighted an article from the Washington Post-owned Internet magazine, Slate, on search engine optimization and reputation management.

It seems one business had the quandary I mentioned in the first paragraph. Number one listing in Google followed by two listing that were highly critical of their site. Could search engine optimization help this web site. Jordan argues that what was needed was reputation management - and it seems - plenty of it.

The reality is that this business has probably let the proverbial horse bolt. I doubt whether reputation management could help out. Search engine optimization of new pages may eventually drive the two negative listings to page two of the SERP’s.

What I found interesting is that the comparison is done on the business name. These days, people who know the business name are more likely to enter that name directly into the URL bar of their browser. If they are going to do a search, then they will search on terms related to the business. If your search engine optimization programs are up to scratch then hopefully you will appear on page one of the SERP’s.

The site where the complaint about this business were made would be highly unlikely to have a search engine optimization program targeting those same keywords. Their business and keyword targets would be directed more towards those wanting to write a complaint about any business.

Reputation management needs careful attention before it gets as bad as this example. Search engine optimization can only do so much. However, sometimes you need to be looking at what is most important. The case highlighted needs some desperate reputation management strategies to improve their name and their image. In the mean time, the search engine optimization strategies need to continue to target the terms that people will actually use to search for businesses of this nature.

Category: Online Reputation Management, SEO

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