Maintaining Your Company's Image in the SERPs
BIG BIZ By Aaron Shear, Search Engine Watch, Nov 4, 2008
Columns | Contact Aaron | Biography
All large companies suffer from bad press. Many times, these articles are incorrect, one-sided, or an attempt to damage the top player in a market. If a significant publisher posts such an article, it can end up near the top of the search results for that company.
In some cases, an individual may try to abuse the system by creating a ton of articles in an attempt to push the primary corporate site down within the rankings. This tactic is very difficult to fight, when a site has an overall lack of inbound links, since search engines use links to determine quality and/or credibility to stay in a position, in many cases for their brand and or company name.
In many cases, these attacks focus on service-based companies with a very targeted offering, and normally not toward companies with a large array of offerings. Most of these single-service companies don't have enough links to dominate in their market. A company offering several services may receive links to multiple products, which will create a concrete position and make it hard to move within the search engine rankings.
Are you a victim of this type of attack? Even if you're in the number one or two positions within the results, you may have eight additional results bashing your product offering at a completely unfair level!
My suggestion: build alternative media types, e.g., forums, social media sites, LinkedIn profiles, and YouTube videos. Every domain has a different score and has the ability to rank along with your primary domain. If you can find compelling content that can be linked to, you can clear up the majority of the unwanted press by moving it down through the rankings.
Simply creating these pages isn't enough to make them rank, so it's important to consider getting other sites to write articles about these pages. Without a set of high-quality links, these pages won't rank and will be a waste of time. It's important to create compelling content that may provide a level quality that someone may want to write about.
If you create video content, it needs to be interesting enough that viewers will want to share it with their friends based on reaction. No matter what type of compelling content you decide to create, make sure it's easy to share. The majority of sharing is done with social media-based applications, such as Facebook, blogs, and or any application that may provide a level of excitement or attachment.
Forums are difficult to build, but they can be very powerful if put together well. Seeding the forum with compelling questions and/or high quality content can provide data that may attract users to either take over or contribute content that will attract other dedicated contributors.
If you sell products and/or simple services, make sure to follow up with your clients to rate their purchasing experience. This data is valuable to other users and can help you tune your site for other users. Make sure that you do whatever you can to make things better and not ignore them.
Join us for Search Engine Strategies Chicago December 8-12 at the Chicago Hilton. The only major search marketing conference and expo in the Midwest will be packed with 60-plus sessions, multiple keynotes and Orion Strategy sessions, exhibitors, networking events, and more.
» Print this article » E-mail a colleague » Send feedback
Biography
Aaron Shear is a partner in Boost Search Marketing, an enterprise-level global consulting firm. Offering expert advice to many of the most trafficked sites around the world.
Previously Aaron was the Global Director of SEO with Shopping.com an eBay Company. At Shopping.com Aaron spearheaded the global optimization efforts of Shopping.com, Dealtime.com and Epinions.com. Prior to joining Shopping.com, Aaron was the CTO at SEO Inc. where he spearheaded optimization efforts, with clients such as IGN Entertainment, VEGAS.com, Sierra Trading Post, Sony Motion Pictures, Archer Daniels Midland, Alliance Business Centers Network to name a few.
Before becoming an SEO Aaron worked at Inktomi, as a Technical Account Manager, where he learned SEO from the creators of the search engines first hand. Aaron's primary responsibility was managing client relationships such as MSN, IWon, Hotbot and HP to name a few.
Aaron has been optimizing websites since the late 90's, and has provided hundreds of businesses with countless top SEO and SEM returns.
Article Archives by Aaron Shear:
» Maintaining Your Company's Image in the SERPs - November 4, 2008
» Video Search: Can You Live Without It? - October 21, 2008
» Google's Algorithm is Shifting - October 7, 2008
» Worried About the Economy? Why Not Try SEO? - September 23, 2008
» Ready to Finally Try SEO? - September 9, 2008
» Weapons of Mass Optimization - August 26, 2008
» More Articles by Aaron Shear
We want to know what you think about Aaron Shear’s column, "Maintaining Your Company's Image in the SERPs". Rant. Rave.
» Voice your opinion
No comments:
Post a Comment