Defensive SEO - dealing with Internet acne
You've seen it before when you're Googling something or someone - the dreaded SERP (search engine results page) zit - a negative blog review or news article about some company, product or service. This immediately raises a red flag in your mind and you can't help but proceed with caution or simply abandon ship and look for another provider/product. Now imagine that pulsing, red search engine zit is attached to your company's name. What do you do?
Know your enemy
So the search results have a big ugly blemish on it. Before you start panicking, you'll need to figure out what you're up against.
What type of page(s) are causing you problems?
If you're up against a news site, your only recourse is going to be burying the result under other content. In almost every instance, news sites are not going to be willing to make changes. If you're up against a blog or a privately held website, you can always try to reach out to someone with that site/blog and see if you can help correct whatever situation led to them deciding to lash out against you. If this is any kind of option, it's probably best to take this path first as it will be the easiest way to fix your problem - having it removed.
Why is this page ranking so highly?
Assuming you can't get these zits easily removed (Proactiv makes it look so easy on TV...) your next course of action will depend on understanding why the pages are being ranked so prominently. There are a couple things to consider here: Do you have sufficient web assets in place? Does your company have a well indexed website as well as profiles on common community and social media sites like Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, etc.? If you don't have more than a singular website, it's fairly easy for someone to rank for your name. Is it the page, the domain, or both? A quick way to check the strength of a page is to take a look at Google's PageRank for a page. Sometimes a page will rank highly because that page has gained some powerful links, and Google will usually show you this by rewarding the page with some PageRank (if it's not the home page and the page has a PageRank that's similar to or better than your site's home page, you're possibly going to get outranked). Alternately, the page itself may not be very strong, but Google regularly rewards pages with high rankings that are on strong domains. This is why negative news stories often rank well - as news sites tend to be very strong domains because they receive massive amounts of high quality links. A quick way to check if you're up against a strong domain is by checking the PageRank of the home page (if you want to get really in depth you can use a tool like Yahoo Site Explorer to look at total backlinks for the page or the whole domain). A usual offender for SERP zits is Rip Off Report - where consumers can submit their complaints against a vendor and usually land on Google's first page of results. While the individual pages aren't particularly strong, this is a case where the domain is very powerful, and that's the cause for the page to rank so highly.
What steps to take?
Before you start down the road of defensive SEO (or reputation management if you prefer), you need to have the proper expectations. This is RARELY a quick fix. For all the SEO knowledge someone may have, Google has a mind of its own and can be a real pain. As an example: during a past defensive SEO project with three negative results in the top ten, we finally pushed all of the negative results off the first page only to have Google begin showing integrated video results with a negative TV news story about the company front and center in the listings. Right back to the drawing board and an additional few months of work on the project. For the most part, however, there are some concrete steps you can take to make Google a safe place to search your name again. Make sure you have appropriate assets. Have a well optimized website, with "about us" and "contact us" pages that utilize your company's name in the header and try to get some inbound links to pages other than your home page. This will increase your opportunities for multiple listings and Google site links so you have a larger first listing. From there, be sure to set up and ACTIVELY USE profiles on the more prominent social media sites. Set up an external blog or two on Tumblr or Wordpress and participate in niche communities by commenting and guest posting to get inbound links pointing back to your own blogs. Be active on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube by adding content, communicating with others and linking to your own content and others when applicable. Active profiles and receiving more views/members/likes/shares/comments increases your chances of ranking out well on the Google. You'll notice all of these sites mentioned are on very powerful domains - so this is a great way to attack a negative news listing or a Rip Off Report listing that is surviving on domain strength as these sites are all likely stronger than a mid-level news site, blog or Rip Off Report claim.
Don't be afraid to get gray to black hat
SEOs always preach about keeping things white hat, but defensive SEO is war. Especially if you've been wronged by some nutjob, just do what you need to do. You'll need to get some links to get your profiles noticed when you get started, so if getting some spammy comment links or using a tool like Xrumer to get a bunch of spammy links to your profiles can help you accomplish this than by all means DO IT. This is your business we're talking about here. Just make sure you're pointing these crappy links to your profiles and NOT to your main site, you don't want to endanger your main site. If Google penalizes your Linkedin profile's rankings down the road, that's far less of a problem than falling off the face of the rankings for other terms that drive customers to your main website.
Dealing with the worst case scenario
In defensive SEO the worst case scenario is a bunch of SERP zits that are both strong pages AND strong domains. In this case, you're in for a real battle. This will take even more time and effort. You'll probably want to buy some new closely correlated domains and build out some unique content and work to SEO them (or hire someone to SEO them) like their own separate business. Some effective tactics can be creating a review site for your business, something like www.mycompanyreviews.com and reaching out to past customers to solicit feedback on your various products and services. You can then link out to this site from your main site as well to help bolster its rankings. If your company is involved in the community or charities or has any other worthwhile associations, going to a web design company and having them build www.mycompanycharities.com or www.mycompanybigbrothersbigsisters.com can be a great place to post and update this content (and give you the chance to add pictures and videos which you can also leverage on your Facebook/ Twitter/ Flickr/ YouTube pages). If you thought getting rid of a stubborn zit was bad when you were 15, know that SERP zits usually last longer and require a lot more time and effort to dispose of. But a systematic, sensible approach can help you reclaim the first page of Google and allow you to avoid the doubt caused by negative listings. Or if this sounds like as much work as it is, it's never a bad idea to ask a professional.