Protecting Your Brand Online
Solo presentation by: Andy Beal, CEO, Trackur
The second day of the SES SF 2011, saw a solo presentation by Andy Beal @andybeal CEO of Trackur.com and Editor-in-chief of Marketing Pilgrim. The focus was on how to protect your brand online before it get hit.
He started with 5 Keys to Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM):
Your Google Reputation Stinks! Don’t Worry
When you are doing reputation management for Google. Spell out your name properly on your site. For example mention your company name in the about us page as you will do for any keyword while doing a on page content page optimization.
Anchor text: need anchor text for company name and the CEO
5. Superbrand to the rescue. For your company name in google you are no. 1. We can pass that on to any site with proper anchor text. If you link to your blog, don’t say blog as anchor text. Say company name blog
Google sentiment audit:
Audit the first 30 results for your keywords
Focus on 80/10/10
Owned: Your site
Control: twitter, wordpress logins.
Influence: You do not host these but can influence it. For example a business partner, vendor where you can ask them to update/change/host your profile.
Third party: you have no control
Spend 80% time on content you own
10% time on you control
And rest 10% the one you influence.
How can you determine if the Sentiment is positive: Ask yourself, will I will like my customer /prospect to see it?
Neutral: which is not about my company.
Negative is negative
Do this for first 30 results. Push up results which you own.
Do this once a month. But if there are many reputation attacks review it every second day
Tactics
If You’ve Got It, Flaunt It:
Take stock of existing web content.
Go into advance search in Google and click on show 100 results. This will show better second relevant result. Then do the same searches for top 90, 80, 70. Unless that second result drop off. So optimize that page by making sure you linking it from home page and using company name in the title etc.
An Ounce of Prevention:
Don’t wait for a crisis.
* .org use it to show something community thing you doing or maybe pictures of your employees.
* .net can be corporate site, talking about investor relation etc.
* Register other company’s branded domains which include your company name/your name.
* Create sub domains like jobs.companyname.com or charity.companyname.com but limit it to 2 sub domains as Google said they will usually don’t show more than 2 sub domains in results though at times they do show more. But dont risk it.
Key to tactic is to ensure you pass google manual review. Ensure the content you put on these sites, needs to be at least 6-7 pages. Don’t duplicate content from your main site.
What Else Ranks?
Use WordPress.com: You can create companyname.wordpress.com and have 4-5 pages talk in third person. Link it from your home page. You don’t need to keep it updated though
Blogger.com: Why is it good? Google owns it. Have 4-5 posts. No need to keep it updated.
Facebook.com: Profile Pages. Ensure you get 25 fans to that page so you get static URL. Write post there. Slip your company name in the posts. Link it from your main site for example with the anchor text “Companyname Facebook”
Linkedin.com: Create linkedin profile. Ensure you write the profile in third version. Keep an eye on the keyword density. Have your employee create linkedin profile and link to your company page.
Twitter.com: Be proactive there. Make sure you name it with your company name. Fill the profile. Retweet if someone tweets about you as that will also have your name in it. Anytime anyone says good thing about you mark it as favorite. Use social widget to pull those favorite tweets on your home page. So people see all the positive results.
Flickr.com: This falls in control category. Create a flickr profile. Ensure company URL to make it static. Post company photo. Tag them. Put a bio, etc. Then create a similar profile on your corporate site. Include a corporate headshot, embed the image to the one you posted in flicker. This tell google that a third party image is relevant.Youtube.com: Same as flickr
WetPaintCentral.com: Avoid wikipedia page as someone can edit it and it can go from positive to negative. WetPaintCentral.com is a personal Wiki service that only you control it. You can make a sub domain called wiki.companyname.com or company.wetpaintcentral.com
AssociatedContent.com: Might not work now. Though you can try creating positive page/bio page. This is more of an experimental option.
GetSatisfaction.com: You can create a free profile or can try 30 days trial to see if it works for you.
Ning.com: It’s no longer free but worth it at $5 per month It’s like building your own social network. Upload photos etc. You can create your own URL.
Gray Area of Ranking:
Reach out to your Business Partners: You can try asking your business partners to put you on there site but on a separate page. See if you can have your written profile page and maybe link it to your blog rather then the corporate site.
Sponsorships: Sponsor some events, try getting a link back in return. Does not have to be something big.
Speaker Profiles: Doesn’t have to be huge, just ask to have a speaker profile, write it yourself in third person. This is mainly for individuals.
Affiliates: Try getting some reviews by offering influencers extra commission
Danger Zone:
Under attack:
Sanitizing Google
Get Court order if something is deformation and file it to Google to remove it.
