SEO Offense is Always Better than a Defense

There was an article in the The New York Times titled Dealing With the Damage From Online Critics. Many businesses, big and small, have customers that get upset and decide to take it to the net. They write negative things about you and ruin your reputation in the online realm.

Some people think this is nothing to be concerned with. But, the reality is that it can have a huge negative effect on your business. After all, the majority of people today turn to the internet to get a deeper look into a local business or any such business that they are looking at purchasing from.

Armed with little more than a Web connection and a keyboard, these detractors can do everything from irritate, via a scathing review, to causing serious business problems by using message boards to reveal company secrets or spread rumors of unethical behavior. They may also start a gripe site or register a Web address in their target’s name.

What we have here is a classic case of someone controlling what people are hearing about your business. Abraham Harrison has extensive experience in counteracting this type of negative campaign.

Each situation needs a response that is tailored to the situation. Each client is dealing with a different set of problems. As the New York Times article goes on to say…

Your reaction often, if you’re a small business, is to get angry and to fire off a letter,” said Barry Werbin, an intellectual property lawyer at Herrick, Feinstein in New York. “Some big companies do it. More often than not, the person who posts the gripe site can’t wait to get that letter and post it.”

Sometimes, Mr. Werbin added, “it can worsen the damage because it just fuels the fire.”

Assuming that the posting activity is not illegal or defamatory and truly damages a business rather than just an ego, there may be better ways to respond. Scurrilous opinions often appear on Web sites including Yahoo message boards, AOL and MySpace. Those sites may remove objectionable material if asked but are not legally required to do so. Even if they do remove it, the damage may already have been done. Besides, even if the comments are taken down, a determined whiner can find any number of other venues. Other online review sites, like Yelp or TripAdvisor, are particularly influential.

So what do you do? Well at AbrahamHarrison we have several methods of dealing with “cleaning” up negative online conversation. Amongst our methods are the use of

• Defensive Search Engine Optimization,
• Domain Name Protection
• Online Crises Response and Management

In addition to these “defensive” responses one can and should always take a offensive approach. It is here that the marketing services of Abraham Harrison become useful.

“People think, ‘It’s only on the Web. It’s not that important.’ But it’s almost more important than a newspaper or something in print,” she said. “Things live in perpetuity on the Web.”

Never, ever underestimate the power of the conversation on the net. It is something that everyone pays attention to and so one should always think about devising strategies to promote oneself. Rather create a clean positive image from the start then try and defend yourself from attacks after the fact.