Online Reputation Management
Online reputation management (ORM) is the practice of influencing the online perception of your name, your business, or your brand. It includes methods to assess, track and monitor your online reputation. Online monitoring also includes responding and managing negative content on the web.
Why Online Reputation Management?
A vast majority of people now run a web search on person or company before they do any business with them. What they are looking for is an independent review or feedback on the individual or company. While most of the time information they find is relevant and helpful, that is not always the case. With very little oversight and governance on the web content, It is incredibly easy for an individual or your competitor to destroy your online reputation. A single negative review can easily translate in to lost business, clients and significant amount on money in long-run.
Unfortunately Online Reputation Management (ORM) business has a dark side as well. There are large number of ORM firms out there that are engaged in an extortion business. They either setup large number of review and business report websites or have financial relationships with existing review websites and content can be removed when paid. Paying such a company can result in an endless loop of extortion.
Some of the reputation management companies offer 100% money back guarantee on their services and guarantee that they can remove negative content from the search results. Here is a reality check for you if you believe in their promise.
Most of the negative content is posted anonymously or with fake identity and there are four ways that can remove negative content from the internet:
- The original source who added this content in the first place
- Website owner(s) who facilitated the posting(s) of negative content
- Sending a cease & desist letter via a legal counsel
- Legal action resulting in a court order for removal
As you can see from this list, a reputation management company is only able to provide 100% guarantee to remove negative content if it is falls under #1 and #2. As a customer, both of them are bad news because once you pay them, there will be more negative content posted for future payoffs.
The only way to address negative content on your business or name is to suppress it in search results. The targeted use of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing can move negative content further down the search ranking. For examples, if negative item was showing up on first page of search results, this can be moved down to second and third page. This method is quite effective as over 90% of visitors don’t look past first or second page in search results.
Sending a cease and desist letter may work in some cases but it is not a guarantee. We work with a local law firm to send out cease and desist letters on behalf of our clients and have been successful in the past.
Our online reputation management solutions are designed to suppress or legally remove negative content and replace it with honest and truthful information about you, your business or your brand.