SEO for Online Reputation Management

I wrote previously about how a company cleverly defended its online reputation by focusing on a strong site and addressing all its PR issues there, instead of the traditional ORM idea of displacing negative results with spam using SEO. The recent introduction of search query suggestions by the major search engines reinforces this practical approach further.

Google calls it Query Suggest while Yahoo calls theirs Search Assist. Regardless of what they are called, this feature kills the traditional ORM approach of simply displacing negative search engine results with SEO.

Why?

While previously, one simply had to target the search results for just the company/brand/person’s name, the query suggestion feature now gives you more keywords to be concerned about - it’s not feasible to constantly keep up with all the suggestions that Google returns.

The screenshot below is what Google suggests if you enter ”Questnet” into the search box. As you can see, they are less-than-flattering suggestions like “Questnet scam” and “Questnet fraud”. 

Google Query Suggest

Unlike search results, you can’t “manipulate” these suggestions because they are based on search popularity. The benefit of this feature is that it gives you an idea on keywords to target for ORM, much like Google’s keyword tool for your Adwords campaign.

Looking back on my previous post about Questnet, you’ll realize that they made a clever move by optimizing for “Questnet scam” because it is a popular search, as suggested by Google. Not suprisingly, they are ranked #1 for that search term and use the website to explain and convince readers that they are not a fraud.

So if you are planning an ORM campaign, don’t just focus on the company/brand/person’s name but pay attention to the query suggestions too.