Using SEO To Improve Your Google Results
I was reading a recent issue of Newsweek when I read an article about how there are a number of hybrid SEO/PR companies popping up that aim to improve your image online. I thought this was a great use of the techniques of SEO, especially in an era where employers are looking at Facebook, MySpace etc. for evidence as why you shouldn’t get hired. Now with the help of Internet reputation repair companies like ReputationHawk, International Reputation Management, ReputationDefender and Done! SEO you can clean up your online image like Wall Street hopeful John did.
The article states that: “when he Googled his name, right there at the top of the page, was an old campus news blog detailing a bar brawl in which John was arrested. Though accurate, the story was posted before charges against the otherwise model student were dropped. ‘It’s the first thing that pops up,’ says John, 25. ‘If potential employers type in my name, they’re going to hire the other guy.’
What these companies do is use the techniques that an aspiring blogger or affiliate marketer, might use to improve the search engine positioning of positive content related to their client. They create links between other Web sites and positive content about you in an effort to push down the offending material to perhaps the third or fourth search engine page – beyond where most people look. This type of service is labor-intensive and runs anywhere from $4,000 to $30,000 and it takes as long as six months to see all those negative hits clear off the first page. There are no guarantees, but according to John, who went with Done! SEO in November, “things are already moving in a better direction.”
Another approach to this is not to depress the offending content, but to have it removed from the Web entirely. ReputationDefender offers a less-expensive and less-complicated service where it hunts down the offending material and asks for the information to be removed. It costs about $30 per item, plus a small monthly monitoring fee. The company, which is about 2 years old, earned $2 million in revenue in its first year.
This is a great service that can be very helpful if you have some negative content about you on the Net, but there are other, easier ways to protect your online reputation. You can take steps like registering yourname.com so that you can both have a domain to post positive content about yourself and ensure that no one can use that domain to discredit or tarnish you. Speaking of positive content, publicize any positive content about yourself so that any negative content that comes up has a large wall to scale before it shows up on the most relevant search engine result pages. Awards, honors, and community service – anything of that nature should be promoted on the Internet to make your search results more positive. The Internet is the next wave in hiring and so having a way to promote yourself online – via a blog, personal website, whatever – will be increasingly important. This is just another way to make sure your online persona is a positive as it can be.
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