By their very nature, Reputation Management assignments are confidential. Often working alongside the client’s PR agency, we have developed and implemented a number of highly successful programmes designed to reduce the visibility of negative content for an organisation or connected senior individual.
It is important that the techniques used are not regarded as ‘black hat’ – i.e. techniques that are in violation of Google’s Terms of Service, and that the search results are truly organic.
Scope of work
Typically we break a project down into the following areas of focus:
| Strategy | - | Development and agreement |
| Discovery | - | Identification of positive, neutral and negative content sources |
| Curation | - | Content creation and updating of existing content (e.g. Wikipedia) |
| Monitoring | - | Review of rank of negative content in multiple countries & languages |
| Links | - | Management of link between controlled and non-controlled assets |
| Reporting | - | Activity and performance |
This is then reflected in a Roadmap detailing areas of focus against a timeline.
Approach
SERPS (Search Engine Result Positions) are decided by a combination of on and off-site factors. The more good quality links a website has, the more Google believes it to be an authority and therefore improves its visibility.
Fundamentally, in terms of managing the SERPS, our approach is to promote positive and neutral content above the negative. We achieve this by developing content on the assets we can manage (‘owned’ sites, Wikipedia etc.) and managing links between these platforms efficiently. We can also signpost this content to other publishing platforms to acquire new links, therefore, increasing their visibility above the negative content.
There are many ways of accessing content via search engines so focussing on those keywords that are most likely to be used is key.
Situation analysis
Audit the full extent of negative coverage across all relevant search providers: Google, Bing, (Yandex, Baidu etc. if relevant) and the sources for corporate / named individual (and variants). Consider case for Right to be Forgotten action where applicable.
Development and implementation of active Reputation Management programme:
-
Prioritise the primary targets (visibility, traffic, severity, etc.)
-
Establish ranking tables and key search engines (in each country if relevant)
Provide guidance on how to optimise copy, press statements and articles disseminated by the appointed PR agency:
- Ensure we are working together in terms of areas of focus – topics, keywords, placement, links and so on
On-going, pro-active monitoring:
-
Daily rank monitoring across all keywords and search engines
- Alert process to deal with visible negative content
Development and implementation of ‘care and maintenance’ programmes once initial objectives met:
- Once assets are managed and SERPS (Search Engine Result Positions) are satisfactory, effort can be reduced with monitoring being key
"The nimble team at TDMP are not afraid of a challenge, they impressively work to get under the skin of their clients in order to come up with the best strategic solutions. Not only do they deliver results-driven digital strategy, they are excellent communicators, able to clearly communicate the world of digital and ROI (from PPC through to SEO and Social) to a range of key stakeholders."
, Founding Director, Olea London
