How to Protect Your Company from Online Damage

The explosion of the internet in the last 15 years has undoubtedly brought many opportunities for businesses, and presented new ways to interact with clients. With this opportunity comes responsibility, and all businesses and individuals must protect their online reputation. Negative comments or poor reviews can inflict substantial damage.

It is possible to appeal to site providers, and ask to have inappropriate or malicious comments removed, but it is a lengthy process and you aren’t guaranteed success at the end of it.

This is when you might consider the services of online reputation management services. They offer a range of services, depending on your individual needs.

Reputation analysis

Reputation management begins with establishing the current situation. Are there complaints and negative reviews? Which are most damaging, and which websites are they on? A full evaluation of your online reputation is the starting point, and takes in the specifics of your situation.

Delete comments

Comments can be removed or deleted from a number of websites, meaning that the complaint will be completely removed and will no longer be visible on the website or in search engines.

Deindex

Occasionally, when content cannot be deleted, the next step is to delete the comment from search engines. The comment will still exist, but de-indexing will make it unlikely that a potential customer will find the damaging comments about you via a Google search.

Push Down services

When searching on Google, most internet users will find what they want on the first results page and never dig any deeper. This can be used to your advantage, by supressing complaints and pushing them further down the results list and onto the second page.

Improving Public Relations

Once negative feedback is deleted, deindexed or pushed down, it’s time to think about building a fresh positive reputation. Online reputation management services can make sure that your company is mentioned in all the right places, offering publication in Forbes, Inc. or Entrepeneur.com. Positive reviews can be showcased on your website, and allow you to use an “As Seen In…” logo on your promotional materials, building trust and confidence in your business.

All the services mentioned above are offered as a one-off or as a rolling programme of support via a Future Protection Plan. The Future Protection Plan can save businesses a lot of time and money by constantly monitoring your online presence and removing negative or malicious comment immediately.

Can you afford not to use the services of online reputation management professionals?

About the author

This article is written by Mily, who has worked previously in search engine evaluation and is a keen internet user and writer. She also talks too much.