Nobody wants to have to clean up an online reputation. The main goal of creating an online brand is to increase visibility. However, if what is visible is negative you will need to take steps to clean up your online reputation. As a marketer, you want to make it easy for people to find your name or brand online and you want what they find to be positive. This post below is there to teach you how to clean up your online reputation.
But, have you ever wondered what would happen if something bad comes up every time people search your name? That is why this article will discuss how you can win back your good reputation when such an incident occurs.
Spending a lot of time working on your online branding will cause you to spend more time focusing on your image. However, when you make your brand visible online, it is important that you consider these two factors which are being visible and monitoring search results to make sure that they positively influence your brand.
How to Clean Up your Online Presence
If you need to clean up your online reputation, here is where you can start to do so.
Google Your Brand
Getting a good reputation online starts with a search. That means you must Google your name first and not only on Google but also on other online search directories including forum searches, social media platforms, and people searches. By searching your name on different platforms, it will be easy for you to find out what people are saying about your brand or your name.
When it comes to searching, do not just search for your brand but also your name. You can also search your nicknames, maiden name as well as your name with keyw
ords included. You can include keywords such as the current city where you live, home town and even occupation. In case you are concerned with what people might find out, make sure that you use identifiable information that they might have about you, to do your search. Such information includes your phone number, Email address as well as your username.
- Are the results attractive to customers and employers or will they cause more problems?
- Pay attention to both negative and positive results that are about you.
- Also, check out the results of the first pages (30-40) in search engines.
It is also important that you go through your social media accounts, forums and blogs to make sure that there are no worrying photos or posts that you might have left behind. Moreover, you might also want to check out the Wayback machine so that you can make sure there are no deleted accounts living in the cached column on the web.
Create a list of all the profiles that belong to you, make sure that you include the inactive ones as well. This will help you get rid of all unwanted profiles that you no longer use. If you come across any of the profiles that pose something embarrassing about you, you should access that profile and update it or delete the account.
It is also vital that you take note of all the people who frequently share your name on online platforms such as Instagram. That is because such people can easily confuse your potential customers and influence the search results that you get. Moreover, sharing your name with the wrong people such as porn stars and criminals can make it difficult for you to get a job. Therefore, make sure that all your professional profiles are updated so that it can be easy for employers to identify them.
An item or information does not necessarily have to be shocking to ruin a candidates reputation. If the item or information is not clear, then there is a high chance the employer will not hire such a candidate.
Clean Up Your Online Reputation by Deleting What You Can.
Go through all your social networking pages and get rid of any information that might hurt your reputation. Once you access all your social profiles, you will have the privilege of deleting videos, photos, and posts.
If other people have posted anything about you on their social pages, ask them to remove such posts as well as photos and their comments. If they do not respond to your request and remove their posts, then you can always untag yourself and as a result, the photos will not show up when they search for your name.
In case there are blog posts or news articles that do not say good things about you, you can request the publishers to get rid of such content. Remember, that not everyone will be willing to cooperate with you, but what matters most is that you try. If things do not work out, you can always push negative content down in result pages by publishing more positive content.
It is also advisable that you unfriend those who might try and post harsh things about you. Remove such people as friends and it is also important that you do not link to such people. They could make public a private issue with substances or gambling or otherwise.
Also, watch out for Email jokes and other negative things that people might try to share on your social network. When you receive such content, do not rush to share it with others. That is because sharing such content can ruin your online reputation. Therefore, make sure that you delete any Email jokes that you receive.
Create a List to Clean-up your Online Presence.
Once you are done with the audit of your online reputation and putting in place a strategy, the next step is to proceed on the clean-up process.
When creating a list, remember to read the comments, as well as the reviews that are found on discussion forums and blogs. Do not leave out any comments or reviews especially the ones that people are talking negatively about you. Twitter can be a good place to search through to see what is said to manage reputations.
Gather all relevant information and store it in one place. With this information, you will be able to decide whether your products should be improved or your services should be enhanced. You will also be able to determine whether your operations are effective depending on the kind of feedback you get from customers.
In most cases, people want nothing more but for you to reply or respond to their content. They do this to seek attention and to be heard. When they do not get a response, they develop hard feelings over the matter.
It is also advisable that you create another list of websites that your team can use to respond to any complaints raised by customers.
Take time and create pre-approval messages that your team can use to respond such as “sorry for what you are experiencing in your company. kindly if you could please forward me your email address or phone number, I would be glad to assist you offline.”
The main aim of doing this is to show everyone else who is active on your domain that you are reliable and willing to be helpful offline.
When you do this, any customers that you assist offline will go back to your domain and leave a positive review about your services.
Request Removal of the Negative Listing for a Clean Online Reputation
Even though you can request the removal of any content, that does not mean that it cannot be achieved again on the internet archive. This is a nonprofit initiative, which is used by researchers and historians.
If you have strong reasons or case as to why certain material should be removed, then do not hesitate to take action about it or sound unsure. Not being sure will only result in bad public relations between you and your customers. Moreover, you can try a safer approach and the best way to do this is to give clear reasons as to why the material should be removed and hope that the site’s representative or owner will comply to your request. Point out everything you find it wrong with the material.
However, before taking any action it is advisable that you learn more about the website or video site like YouTube. When dealing with a blog post, you can request the blogger to remove the material by explaining your concerns on email. But do not get your hopes up since the blogger can decide not to remove the material. Furthermore, you need to be careful when doing this since a blogger can decide to cause more problems for you by posting your emails.
Push Down these Damaging Search Results
Sometimes you might not be able to remove unwanted or negative information from the web. Therefore, you can try and suppress negative information with a positive one. All you have to do is post more accurate and strong content. When you do this all negative information will be pushed down from all result pages. This might sound easy, but it is a challenging task that requires resources and time. Moreover, you also pose a risk of reinforcing the unwanted content if Google detects your work as spam. That is why it is important that you polish all your profiles and make them look professional.
Learn How To Deal With Online Reviews for a Clean Online Reputation.
It is important that you learn how to deal with online reviews. That is why we have listed a few ideas on how you can attract positive reviews on search engines. Here is a good guide to getting more and dealing with online reviews.
Create Informative Content And Connect to Improve your Online Reputation.
Reach out to your customers and targeted people via social platforms. Having a Twitter or Facebook account is not enough. You need to engage your customers and the best way to do this is to offer them assistance find services or products they need in your domain. Furthermore, help them learn more about your brand and your business as well.
You can create content that is original for Google and other search engines, to highlight negative content that is easily found. This can be in the form of informative articles, blog post to contests.
Be Sure Before Your Post.
I always advise my clients to be sure of what they post online, because whatever they post online stays there and can never be removed. Before you hit the comment or share button, make sure that your actions will not hurt your reputation. Remember, to never post anything on any social platform when you are angry and never publish negative things about anyone.
If you are still wondering about how to clean up your online reputation and wish to get outside help, we’ve helped dozens of clients in doing so – so get in touch.