How to Repair Online Reputation Damaged by Bad Media Coverage?

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Establishing a good reputation in the market has always been a challenging task for entrepreneurs. As per Benjamin Franklin, “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.”

Due to the negative publicity and reputation damage caused by media and news sites, making a good name for your business can be an uphill battle. Coming from an economy where factors like brand equity, online presence, and goodwill contributes to around 70-80% of the market value, it becomes obligatory for businesses to revamp their marketing strategies for an enhanced reputation in the market. A news or a media site (whether local or international) owns huge authority in the eyes of Google due to which the negative results jump straight onto the first page of the search results. Consider this in the light of below three facts and the seriousness of the matter will truly hit you:

  • More than 50% of U.S. adults accepted that they have Googled someone before hiring them or engaging in any kind of business with them.

  • 70% of U.S. recruiters have rejected candidates based on the information available online.

  • More than 50% of people had come across some information on Google that stopped them from engaging in any business deals with someone.

As a leading reputation management agency of the world, we have seen the impact of negative media coverage on the careers and lives of many people. That’s why we help working professionals, entrepreneurs, and people from all walks of life fight online reputation threats.

In this blog, our team of top reputation managers shares how to fight negative threats emerging from local news sites, national news aggregators, and international media sites.

Become a contributor to media sites

The bad thing about getting bad-mouthed on a news site is that the article goes straight onto the first page of Google. The good thing is that if something positive or informative will go under your name on a similar site, it will also be displayed on the first page of Google search results.

Becoming a contributor to a local news website or a national media site can help in associating your name with positive news. This will give you a positive resource on the first page, which will push down the old negative news.

Get PRs published on your name

Press Release websites have been an integral part of online marketing since their inception. If something positive will go out from a PR network about you, it will roll out on hundreds of partner websites and there is a big chance it will end up on the first page of Google for your name.

While there are some big names in the PR industry, there are some smaller ones too that publish news related to entrepreneurs and startups at some publishing & circulation fee. Give them a try to recover from reputation threats!

Get your interviews published

There is no dearth of websites that publish interviews and thought pieces of entrepreneurs and industry experts. Identify interview publishing websites relevant to your location and industry to make a contribution request. Most such websites are content-hungry and quickly agree on publishing!

Pro tip: If paying for the online reputation contribution, check the authority of the shortlisted websites to ensure that you invest in the right one.

Hyper activate your social media

Social media websites have huge authority and their profiles can rank on the first page of Google for specific terms if optimized correctly. The easiest way to push your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter profiles on top Google search results is to publish aggressively on them.

Create longer social updates and use the terms for which negative media links are appearing. Engage with your friends and followers more often. This will greatly disrupt the results on the first page of Google and help in pushing the negative links on the second page.

Create LinkedIn and Facebook pages

Personal social media profiles are powerful but LinkedIn and Facebook pages have much more ranking authority. Setup LinkedIn and Facebook pages on your name and optimize them correctly so that they become relevant for the negative terms.

Publishing content from your newly set up LinkedIn and Facebook page is also greatly important. Keep them hyperactive by posting 3-4 times a day so that they quickly become relevant. Work on growing the number of followers too!

Setup a Medium blog & publish

Right now, Medium is one of the most popular blogging platforms used by professionals, entrepreneurs, and even media sites to share thoughts, opinions, and company updates. Setup a Medium blog for the most troubling term for your online reputation and get ready to write at least 2 blogs focused on the negative term.

Make sure your blogs are optimized correctly, include more than 500 words each, and score high in all the ranking parameters of Google. This is super important to place your Medium profile and blogs on the first page and push down the negative news links!

Create a personal website

Google’s ultimate goal is to provide the best information to people running a particular search. And very few resources have more authority than a dedicated website. This is the reason why buying a domain on your name (www.yourname.com) and building a small website on it can greatly help. Add all the good content you have on this website so that it becomes a credible source for Google.

If negative media links exist on a country-specific domain (for instance, badlink.ca), then, make sure that you buy a country-specific domain!

Get it taken down

A lot of times, negative news links are related to cases that have been resolved in a court of law and no longer hold much ground. In such a scenario, it is wise to approach the publishers to request a take-down. This will save you a lot of hard work that comes with pushing links down from top Google pages.

Draft a simple mail explaining the whole situation and highlight how it is affecting your life. The success rate of such a request being accepted is around 5% but it is still worth the shot. If you have negative coverage on 4 sites and 2 of them agree to take it down, then, that’s a big success!

Create some videos

By the end of 2019, 80% of global internet consumption will be video content. No wonder Google has made space for videos on the first page of search results. If a search query has video content for it, there is a 95% chance that it will rank on the top results pages. This is the reason why you must think about creating a couple of videos.

Now, you won’t need to create top-quality videos. Create a simple video from your phone and optimize it for the right terms. Too clumsy in front of the camera? Create a PPT, convert it into a video file, and publish it on Youtube!

Create visual content

Visual content has the highest demand. This is the reason why videos appear on top search result pages. However, a video is not the only visual content out there. Infographics, presentations, PDFs, and image curation websites also have strong authority for search engines.

Create a couple of presentations, PDFs, and infographics to kickstart your presence on popular visual content publishing platforms like Slideshare and Issuu. Every visual resource can be optimized for different search phrases. Thus, visual content is greatly helpful in fighting multiple negative threats.

Get on community sites

Q&A sites like Quora have massive authority on the search engine. For most question focused search terms, you will find Quora threads on the first page of Google. In addition to question threads, Quora profiles also rank on the first page, if optimized correctly.

Create a Quora profile and start answering questions relevant to the location from where negative links have cropped up. Optimize your profile smartly and engage with the community to improve profile power! Other community-driven sites like Couchsurfing are also equally powerful.

Create professional profiles

Working professionals struggling with negative threats from media sites can build their presence on industry-relevant professional sites to dominate top Google pages. Whether you are a realtor, artist, entertainer, doctor, accounting professional, or any other professional, there are websites out there that can be channeled deftly to recover from online reputation threats.

Profiles built on authoritative professional discovery websites will quickly climb to the first page of Google for critical search phrases and eventually push down the negative media links.

Setup some more blogs

You already have a Medium blog but why leave out other powerful blogging platforms like WordPress? Setup negative keyword focused blogs on free blogging websites to get them on search results as well. A blogger has massive authority of its own and can help in pushing a couple of links on the top search result pages.

Wondering how you will create so many blogs? Well, simply use content created on other channels like Youtube to churn out more content.

Work on improving the authority

Till now, we have spoken about creating profiles and keeping them hyperactive to get them on top of Google’s result pages. But there are many other ideas you can work with to improve their authority and ranking. Work on internal linking, content embedding, and keyword segregation to build the authority of all the profiles simultaneously.

Getting any digital resource on the first page of Google will require a decent understanding of SEO and best ORM practices. Gather the same if you are on a DIY road!

Build free professional websites

There are website building platforms that allow users to create portfolio websites for free. Since these platforms hosts millions of websites, they have huge relevance for Google bots. Building free websites on platforms like About.me to build multiple knowledge resources for Google. Make your professional pages as relevant as possible by listing your career, personal, and professional details on it.

Keep Monitoring

Regular monitoring is the most essential step that can help you protect your online reputation. With an effective daily monitoring, you can effortlessly identify the gaps between reputation and reality. Also, by getting insights into the expectations and priorities, you can successfully deal with a communication crisis from its start. Leveraging some agile tools like Google Alerts, mention.com, Trackur, etc. can help you perform brand monitoring across the web.

Fight bad reputation the right way

90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business. In such a scenario, do you think big business deals and hiring decisions are made without running a background check? Managing online reputation is not important, it’s obligatory in times when the line between real and virtual existence is blurring.

Above reputation recovery, some tips and ideas will help in fighting threats emerging from local news and global media websites. However, it’s important to work with the above recovery hacks with the right search algorithm know-hows to get quick ORM results.

Got queries regarding online reputation recovery? Get in touch with leading online reputation experts to discuss your case.

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