When is the last time you did a search for a company, product or brand through Google? It probably was recently and something you also may have noticed was that some negative results appear at the top of the search engines. This of course makes sense, as Google wants the best content to appear for all search users. However, if you are a company that is appearing in the search results and people are seeing negative feedback, this is something that you definitely don’t want.

So what are the options that you have?

In many cases some companies will just leave their results as is and try to fix the problem on their own. Other companies that are smart will look into the service of reputation management to give their brand a better name.

In all honesty, if you are a successful company than there is a good chance that some small percentage of all your customers are going to complain about something at some point. This doesn’t mean a few bad critics should take over the thousands or even millions of success stories that you already have.

Here we can see an example of how Google provides us with “smart search” alternatives for the word “reputation management”.

At the same time, while many people are looking at Google, there is a whole other world of social networking and information being spread around the web. This means it’s important for you to not just focus on one solution, but a way to combat everything out there.

It’s not just about search, it’s about social media too — which is a topic that Fox News covered in one of their articles as well. If someone was to search for your name or brand online, what would they find? This would also be a main concern for anyone who might be applying for a new job position, as more companies are now taking their search online before accepting resumes for a position.

“Put yourself in the shoes of a potential recruiter, and Google yourself,” says Todd William, CEO of Reputation Rhino

Whether it’s search, social or media coverage… perform your own due diligence to see what appears in the search engines when you search for something, then seek out the appropriate methods on how to fix the situation, or in many cases… an online reputation management team.

How to Clean Up Your Google Search Results

While no one can have total control over what appears where in the search results, you can build a protective wall around your brand by actually owning the content that is out there. A good example of this would be to implement each of the following methods in your personal and business brand name.

– A main web site
– A blog (personal resume and business)
– Social profiles across Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn
– Pinterest and Instagram, with only clean content
– Interviews on other sites and blogs (when applicable)

The more of these methods you implement, the more likely you are to rank higher in the search results around your brand.

So How Does Reputation Management Work?

In the end, reputation management is a lot like SEO but on steroids. When you want reputation management done for your brand, name or company it’s a lot more than just ranking positive content higher in the search results… it’s about keeping it there and also monitoring the reputation of your brand and search results over time. Now that anyone has the ability to log into Facebook or Twitter and start writing about anything they want (whether that be positive or negative), a simple tweet or status update can cost huge companies millions of dollars in lost sales and advertising.