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Online Reputation Management: Finding Positive Mentions

Rachel Kuptz — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:10:58 +0000

Online Reputation Management: Finding Positive Mentions is a post from: Karrak Interactive, the online reputation management agency.

Before you begin creating sites and profiles as part of your online reputation management initiatives, take a step back and find sites/posts/news mentions that already mention the keywords you’re trying to rank for.

Keeping with the American Laser Centers example, I’ve decided to use them again for this post.

While negative posts may be ranking high for your name/company name/product, there may be quite a few positive mentions of your brand out there that haven’t been optimized for the keyword in question; to find them, you have to do a bit of digging.

The first step in finding positive mentions is to search the first 10 or so pages of Google, looking for positive or neutral mentions of a client’s keyword. LinkedIn company profiles that haven’t been optimized, old press releases, scholarship mentions on an .edu site, and splash pages from old promotions are all gems that can be re-purposed, optimized, and used as part of your online reputation management strategy.

Create an excel sheet of any positive mentions you find and include the PageRank, # of links to domain, and # of links to the page. You should constantly be adding results to this worksheet: since you don’t have control over the positive mentions you’re finding, you’ll need to keep in mind that some posts will be deleted/removed, won’t be optimized enough to ever outrank negative posts, or are updated to turn into negative mentions.

Tools For Finding Positive Mentions:

Search engines
Google News
Steprep
Soloseo
Search operators
Analytics
Google Alerts
Variety of online reputation management software tools (Trackur/Radian6/Brandwatch/StartPR/etc)

Tips and Tricks:

Below are a few search operators you can also use to help find positive mentions. The .edu and .gov search operators will find education or government sites that mention the keyword you are looking for. Both .edu and .gov sites tend to rank high in Google since they are (generally) trusted sites. For both the .edu and .gov search, I was able to find a plethora of links. For the .edu search, I found Alumni mentions of current American Laser Centers employees, scholarship mentions, graduation/job fair mentions, and case studies. The .gov search didn’t bring up as many positive results, but it’s always best practice to search.

The inurl and intitle search operators will bring up sites that have your keyword in the title or url of the domain, both of which will make your linkbuidling efforts more productive.

Find .edu mentions: american laser center site:.edu [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS306US306&q="american+laser+centers"+site:.edu&aq=f&oq=&aqi=]

Find .gov mentions: american laser center site:.gov [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS306US306&q="american+laser+centers"+site:.gov&aq=f&oq=&aqi=]

inurl:american laser centers [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS306US306&q=inurl:"american+laser+centers"&aq=f&oq=&aqi=]

intitle:american laser centers [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS306US306&q=intitle:"american+laser+centers"&aq=f&oq=&aqi=]

Deciding Which Mentions To Focus On First

Once you have a list of 10+ positive mentions, sort them by PageRank, whether the keyword is in the title, and how many links are pointing to the page that ranks and the domain of the site.

What to look for in posts:

Keyword in title
Keyword in URL
Trusted Domain

I did a brief search for “American Laser Centers” on StepRep, Google News, and on the first 5 pages of Google to find the above 11 positive results. I also used the .edu and .gov search operators to find additional mentions. Depending on the PageRank of the results you find, whether they mention your keyword in the title, or how optimized the posts are, you may have to find many more results than 10.

Why Look For Positive Mentions?

Often times, reputation management clients come to me and assume that they need to create new web sites and landing pages and put extra money into the design and implementation of those sites in order to push down negative results. In most cases, however, you can leverage the effort that others have already put in to writing about your brand. Some of the results above, such as LinkedIn, entrepreneur.com, ltu.edu, facebook, and dailycandy can easily rank for the “American Laser Centers” keyword with the help of additional links to those pages. While owning domains related to your business and claiming profiles in your name is always a best practice to manage your online reputation and presence, positive results that have had time to age and that were created by an outside party can often rank high with a few links pointed towards them.

In the instances above, some of the positive mentions already have a fairly high PageRank, with some higher than the negative results that are currently ranking for the “American Laser Centers” keyword. By increasing the profile links from 0 to 10+ (in this case the negative results don’t have many links pointing to their pages, but in other scenarios, you may need hundreds to thousands of links to outrank a negative result), these positive mentions can most likely outrank the negative mentions.

Next Steps: Building Links To Positive Mentions

In the next few posts, we’ll focus on how to create links to already created positive mentions and explore the tools used to find those positive mentions.

If you can’t wait until the next posts, a few ways to build links to positive mentions include:

Article Marketing
Blog posts on sites that you own (with links to the positive mentions)
Directories
Profile creation
Link wheels
Emailing relevant sites that you think may find the link(s) useful
Blog commenting (do-follow sites)
Analyzing competitor links and/or sites that link to the domain already

ORM Suggestion (for those fixing negative results):

When looking for positive results that you will look to eventually push up in the rankings, keep an eye out for whether or not comments are allowed. If all of a sudden a post comes up and people that are watching you notice, they may leave negative comments on those sites.

Why is this controversial?

In most cases, I would recommend allowing open conversation, as would most social media consultants. In the case of fixing a companies online reputation management, however, I generally focus on fixing negative results and then encourage the company to be more proactive in their social media/online presence afterwards, encouraging feedback and online conversations with potential, current, and previous customers.

Online Reputation Management: Analyzing Negative Results – The Basics

Rachel Kuptz — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:18:24 +0000

Online Reputation Management: Analyzing Negative Results – The Basics is a post from: Karrak Interactive, the online reputation management agency.

[Note: I am not affiliated with American Laser Centers in any way. I picked them as an example because they are a local Michigan company that I googled and – right away – saw a page full of negative results for. I have also not researched the complaints and am not aware of whether they are true or not.]

When taking on a new online reputation management client, one of my first steps is to research the actual client: their brand, current online initiatives and presence, and the background on any negative information that is posted about them.

The second step, however, is to research the actual web sites that any negative information is posted on. Are these web sites solely geared towards bringing down one company/person/product, was it a one-off post that happens to rank high, a forum posting with a number of people who chimed in, an employee/customer/client that had an unpleasant experience, or a combination of the above?

American Laser Centers: 4 Negative Results Above The Fold

I decided to use a real company in this post because it allows me to give real examples that other companies can apply to their situation. The company I chose was American Laser Centers, a laser hair removal and cellulite reduction company with headquarters in Michigan.

While this post addresses analyzing negative results, American Laser Centers first step should be to address the negative information if at all possible. In this case, it is possible. But that’s another post.

When I google the company name, “American Laser Centers,” three of the five organic results that show up above the fold on my screen are negative results, plus one negative pay-per-click result.

If I scroll down to see the organic results below the fold on my screen (I have my settings at 10 results per search term), there are two more negative results, for a total of 5 out of 10 negative results on the first page, or 50% of the first page!

Keywords

In this situation, I searched for the exact company name, “American Laser Centers,” but if you search for variations of the name, more and different negative results come up. Try “American Laser Center,” or “American Laser” and different results show up. Depending on the amount of traffic a company receives for specific keywords, branding

American Laser Centers: An Online Reputation Management Series Case Study

involved, or results showing up, each keyword should be given a different priority level. In this case, the keyword “American Laser” is also showing companies in different industries and only one negative result, so priority should be given to the first two keywords before focusing on the third.

When analyzing negative results, compile a list of keywords to analyze by coming up with a list of products and services, company nicknames, common misspellings of your company name, company name and variations, and common search terms that bring traffic to your site (via analytics).

Search Engines

In the example of American Laser Centers, I’m only focusing on the results as they appear in Google, but a quick search shows negative results (and different results) appearing in Yahoo!, and Bing. When trying to analyze or move down negative results, remember that each search engine ranks results in different ways.

PageRank/Title Tags/Links

Online Reputation Management: Page One Analysis

I’ve stuck with the results from the first page of Google in the chart above, but many companies are looking to push negative results down to at least page three. If that’s the case, you’ll want to analyze three pages deep, as well.

In the chart above, I’ve compiled the URL of the results, the PageRank (as of 11/16/2009), whether the result is positive/neutral or negative, the number of links pointing to the domain, number of links pointing to the page, and whether the keyword being searched is being used in the Title. When working with a client, I update these numbers weekly to graph any movement in both rankings, links, and the actual site. I’d want to see the number of links to positive pages increase week over week and I would want to keep a close eye on any new links to negative mentions.

While some argue the importance of PageRank and whether it will play a part in future rankings, it’s still an important factor when analyzing negative search results. A combination of the PageRank of a site, the links to the domain of the site, and the number of links and quality of those links to the page that is ranking are all variables that determine how high a site will rank for a keyword.

In the “American Laser Centers” example, the first negative results, complaints board, only has a PageRank of 2, but the domain itself has a PageRank of 5, over 29,000 links, and 24 links pointing to that page alone.

I looked at the search results on Google, a search engine that tends to rank sites based on the quantity and quality of links that are pointing to a site, as well as the anchor text, and finally, PageRank. In the results above, I can see that Inc.com could be raised a bit higher if a few links were to be pointed at that page. By analyzing the Title Tags, links, and link quality of each of the negative results that appear on page 1 for your keyword, you can determine how hard it will be to outrank them, what they have done to rank so high, and a general outlook of what kind of work you’ll need to do. With 5 negative results, American Laser Centers will be looking at a few months, minimum, to push down the negative results and move up and/or create positive results, but it can be done.

Once you pinpoint the negative results that appear for your keyword, you can drill down to each result and further analyze:

Links pointing to negative result:
1. How many links are pointing to the page that is ranking? Analyze the link quality of each link pointing that page: PageRank, anchor text used in link, context of post pointing to page
On-site optimization of negative result(s): Is the keyword you are analyzing in the title tag or used frequently in the negative post? Have they made use of internal linking, keywords in category/tags pages, in Alt tags, or are they doing any blackhat techniques (when a site is out to get you, opposed to the one-time post that unfortunately ranks high, you may have to do more research into their techniques)?
Are the negative results that are ranking dormant or active?

Analyzing the basics (links, titles, PageRank) of negative results will help to give you a better idea of where to start with your online reputation management initiatives, but it will take a well thought out plan to actually see movement.

In the upcoming posts, I’ll go into detail about the tools you can use to analyze results, what efforts can be made to address negative results, how to find positive mentions of your brand/keyword, how to create positive mentions, and how to push positive mentions up in the rankings.

Optimize Your Press Release As Part of Your Link Building Strategy

Rachel Kuptz — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:50:07 +0000

Optimize Your Press Release As Part of Your Link Building Strategy is a post from: Karrak Interactive, the online reputation management agency.

When most people think of press releases, they think media attention. Press releases can also be used to gain quality inbound links to your web site, though. As part of your overall link building strategy, there are a few reasons why press release writing can be beneficial: get one way links from quality sites, earn links from sites that find you via a press release, and get placed on relevant directories that re-distribute press releases.

To write an optimized press release, start with these steps:

Define Keyword

When writing a press release, identify one keyword that you want to rank for. There are a few free tools that you can use to determine which keywords receive the most traffic, including Google Keyword External, SEO Books Keyword Tool, and ActualKeywords.com. Pick a keyword that is relevant to your site, receives a considerable amount of monthly traffic, and that will be used on the page that you are trying to rank. The keyword should ideally be in the Title of the page, in an H1 tag, included in the body, and used in your internal linking structure.

Include Keyword Throughout Release

Once you’ve identified a keyword, write out a rough draft of your press release, making sure to include the keyword throughout your release. The keyword should be included, at minimum, in the header of your press release, one to three times in the body of the release, and at least once in the “About” section of your press release.

Hyperlink Thoughtfully

For press release services that allow you to include hyperlinks within the release, make sure to hyperlink from the keyword you identified instead of using non-optimized keywords like “click here.” While not all press release services allow html or hyperlinking, most will allow you to at least include a link back to your site in a resource or contact box, or once in the “about” section.

Consider the Upgrade Option

If presented with the opportunity to upgrade, in most cases, do so. Upgrades generally offer you the opportunity to specify the anchor text of a hyperlink or in some cases, include a hyperlink that a free package doesn’t allow. Not all upgrades are created equally, though. Consider the page rank, traffic volume, trust factors, and cost when determining whether to upgrade or not.

Distribute to a Variety of Services

When submitting press releases for link building purposes, don’t submit to just one service – instead submit to a variety. Some press release sites will check to make sure that your release is unique, however, so make sure to distribute to those sites first. Start with the quality sites that have a number of links and tend to be picked up by the press; also re-write some of the verbiage in your release so as to avoid duplicate content. Simple things like re-writing the header or a few sentences within the release can make sure that your release will be picked up by a number of services.

Online Press Releases For Linkbuilding: Press Release Distribution Services

Rachel Kuptz — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:19:17 +0000

Online Press Releases For Linkbuilding: Press Release Distribution Services is a post from: Karrak Interactive, the online reputation management agency.

Paid Press Release Distribution

Free Press Release Distribution