Online Reputation Management Argument

[marketstud]

Please help us solve a internal argument within our company about a new online reputation management project for one of our clients....

We have a client who has an awesome online reputation minus ONE single SERP result that is showing up on the 1st page of Google when you Google his name. This one result is a PDF of a court order from 2008 that is listed on a .GOV website. We have been tasked with knocking this result down of the 1st page and preferably off the second page too. This guys writes all of his own content including a full blog, e-books, videos and more.

What would be your focus to get this one result bumped off the 1st few pages of Google? Would you focus on building a lot of content (articles, press releases, podcasts, videos, etc) and ranking that content over the next 3 months or would you focus on bumping up existing any existing content he has online? Or both?

Th argument comes in because half our staff wants to do a full-on rep MGM campaign with all the moving parts including building content, etc and the other half just want to do the minimum to get the job done since there is only one BAD result showing in the SERP rankings and the result only shows for the guys name. What would you do? How much work do you think is necessary to get it done?

 

[oplaopla]

Please help us solve a internal argument within our company about a new online reputation management project for one of our clients....

We have a client who has an awesome online reputation minus ONE single SERP result that is showing up on the 1st page of Google when you Google his name. This one result is a PDF of a court order from 2008 that is listed on a .GOV website. We have been tasked with knocking this result down of the 1st page and preferably off the second page too. This guys writes all of his own content including a full blog, e-books, videos and more.

What would be your focus to get this one result bumped off the 1st few pages of Google? Would you focus on building a lot of content (articles, press releases, podcasts, videos, etc) and ranking that content over the next 3 months or would you focus on bumping up existing any existing content he has online? Or both?

Th argument comes in because half our staff wants to do a full-on rep MGM campaign with all the moving parts including building content, etc and the other half just want to do the minimum to get the job done since there is only one BAD result showing in the SERP rankings and the result only shows for the guys name. What would you do? How much work do you think is necessary to get it done?

I would take the results on the second page and try to rank them on the first page. No need to create any content yourself.

 

[originalposter]

Th argument comes in because half our staff wants to do a full-on rep MGM campaign with all the moving parts including building content, etc and the other half just want to do the minimum to get the job done since there is only one BAD result showing in the SERP rankings and the result only shows for the guys name. What would you do? How much work do you think is necessary to get it done?

I believe it all comes down to how much time it requires (estimate), and how much the client is paying. (it's business afterall right?)
If it's good money (or you foresee him being a long-term client), go for the full-on rep MGM campaign, make him happy and do it right.

 

[slim_dusty]

If there is a bunch of positive stuff already indexed and 'ranking' I would just concentrate on bumping up the existing content. Of course make sure there is already a Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube profile, press release etc.

To better rank the existing content you'll need to backlink with articles, press release, videos etc- but I would make the focus to rank the existing content rather than to rank new content- if some much good stuff is already there and ranking, just make the most of that.

Bumping off .gov site off the first page I think would be hard. Any new content you make will easily rank, but not outrank the .gov site. Maybe point some high PR blog network, press releases at the existing content. It's hard to totally dominate a whole page or two is the SERPs when up against a .gov

 

[marketstud]

What is the best way to fight listings ranking on .GOV websites?

 

[marketstud]

I forgot add that our internal dispute is whether to do the full monty rep management campaign or rank the existing content and possibly throwing some spam links at the one bad serp result.

There isn't any links built to it at all so we're curious whether buy viagra or porn links will knock it down and google will deem the content not relevant. Have any of you dealt with something similar and handled it this way? We're curious to know the results.

 

[ryce889]

No point in throwing spam links at the bad result. If it's from a reputable site which it would seem since it's a .gov, you most likely won't do anything for the long term, at least from my experience. If the existing sites that are on page 2 and 3 are pieces of content that he wouldn't mind having on the first page and there's enough content for you to promote to push the negative .gov down to at least the third page, I don't see why you wouldn't promote those unless he wants full control over the sites that are on the first page or those sites aren't very authoritative and can't handle a good dosage of link blasts.

 

[jebuskrust]

I doubt that the negative SERP is ranking due to the links pointing to it. I will not go into teaching you how to check the backlinks of a particular SERP.
Being a .gov, most probably it is rankign due to the high authority of the root domain. If it's a PDF, im pretty sure is somewhere deep in the root domains, like 10 folders deep.

Save that PDF, print it out and see how many times the business name appears inside. Try making lots of social media accounts, as those are very easy to rank.
The best way by far which worked for me in the past and still does, is to create like a small forum around that particular business name, tackling all kind of subjects from different angles. This way you will dominate and flood the SERP's very quickly.

If I were you, I would go back to my client and ask him that for so much $ the agency can put down so many hours, and for so much $$$ we can do much, much more.
If he screwed up once, it's enough one single case to haunt him forever. He has a good reason for wanting that SERP pushed back, and that is that he can generate much more business. Ask him to show you the money