Gradiva Couzin@gradiva

Wednesday 10/24 10:30 am | Ballroom G

Gravity Search Marketing

Gradiva Couzin

Partner, Gravity Search Marketing LLCLos Angeles and San Francisco, CA

Coauthor, Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day (Wiley, 2011)

www.yourseoplan.comTwitter: @jengrappone, @gradiva

Practical Online Reputation Management

Everything your business does on- and off-line is part of your reputation management.

Today I am focused on: • Search results for your brand• Preventing social media crises

Everything is Reputation!

What results do Google/Bing display when someone searches for your brand, your name, or a product name?

Search Results for Your Name or Brand

LOCAL SEARCH

REVIEWS

YOUR OFFICIAL SITE

YOUR SOCIAL PROFILES

IMAGE & VIDEO

NEWS

PAID SEARCH

ETC…

Search Results for Your Name or Brand

Search Results for Your Name or Brand

I didn’t read the book, but…

What to do?

• Ask: Which queries?• Monitor & track branded results to

catch problems• When take-down is possible, go for it!• Crowd out bad search results with

SEO/Social efforts and enhanced listings

• Prevent problems before they start

What to do?

Monitor

Take down

Crowd out

Prevent

Search Results for Your Name or Brand

Queries

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

• Name of business• Personal names of president,

execs, etc.• Names of products

Choosing Queries to Monitor

Google AdWords Tool: Number of people searching may not matter, when reputation is concerned.

• {my brand} … ?• Is {my brand} … ?• {my brand} vs … ?

More Keywords with Google Suggest

• Google Alerts www.google.com/alerts• Track search results on a regular basis

Monitoring Name/Brand Search Results

Important: Don’t trick yourself with personalized search results!

PERSONALIZED GLOBAL

Monitoring Name/Brand Search Results

Social listening, search monitoring & dashboards

Google Alerts (f)Tweetdeck (f)

Brandify (f - beta)

radian6 ($)

BrandsEye ($)socialmention

twilert (f)Sprout Social ($)

Monitoring Name/Brand Search Results

Google Alerts (f)Tweetdeck (f)

Brandify (f - beta)

radian6 ($)

BrandsEye ($)socialmention

twilert (f)Sprout Social ($)

Monitoring Name/Brand Search Results

Social listening, search monitoring & dashboards

The take-down: When is it possible?

(take down)

Google organic, accepted reasons for a removal request:

• Page contains confidential personal information (gov’t ID number, signature, bank or cc #)

• Page contains SEO spam or malware• Adult site contains your full name or name of business• Site contains your copyrighted materials

http://support.google.com/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1114905&page=ts.cs

Take-down opportunities in organic search are rare

(take down)

Free speech, eh? Someday Google is going to go nuts with this

thing!

The take-down: When is it possible?

Other Google properties have broader take-down options

• Google AdWordsIf an ad is using your name, you can submit a complaint

• YouTuberemoval includes defamation, privacy, abuse/harassment, selling counterfeit goods

The take-down: When is it possible?

Complaints to Hosting Company an Option

• WordPress.comPage can be removed for abuse: personal threats, calls to violence, impersonation, more. en.wordpress.com/abuse

• Other hosts will have various policies. Find out who the host is on who-hosts.com and get contact info here:www.plagiarismtoday.com/dmca-contact-information/

PUSH THE BAD LISTING DOWN

FILL TOP RANKS WITH GOOD

LISTINGS

Crowding out Undesirable Listings

• Optimize pages on your own site• Create new pages such as new social profiles• Throw your power (links) at other desirable pages• Press releases (temporary)

Best methods for crowding out undesirable search results

Crowding out Undesirable Listings

• Google will usually show a max of two pages from your domain

• You can snag a bit more real estate with SERP enhancements

Optimize Pages On Your Own Site

HTML title

Page URL

Text on page

Internal links on site

This page is an attempt to rank well for “egypt protests”

On Page Optimization Example: Huffington Post

Ranks on top page for “sonos reviews”

On Page Optimization Example: Sonos

HTML title

Page URL

Text on page

Internal links on site

• Internal links distribute SEO power through your site

• Orphaned “doorway” pages aren’t loved by Google

If you create a new page on your site, you must link to it; don’t try to hide it

Optimize Pages On Your Own Site

Particularly useful for name searches

• Major & minor social media sites

• LinkedIn is top for names• Facebook; Twitter; YouTube;

Pinterest; Google+ etc.• Can be for individual or

business

http://blog.brandyourself.com/brand-yourselfcom/want-to-look-better-in-google-our-data-shows-you-the-best-ways-our-first-infographic/

Create New Social Media Profiles

• Wikipedia page – for your brand or company (individuals must be newsworthy to qualify)

• Central listing databases that will feed into many other sites: Localeze.com, Acxiom.com, ExpressUpdateUSA.com, listings.YellowPages.com

• Press Releases (probably temporary)

More pages to crowd out undesirable listings

What Other Pages Can You Create?

Link to preferable pages that are already in the search results

Your link to this page… ..may improve its rank

Existing pages with ranks already have an advantage.

Send Link Power to Desirable Pages

Enhance & expand your presence in search results with rich snippets

• May draw attention and clicks

• Usually result of semantic taggingschema.org

More Crowding out Tips: Enhanced Listings

Give your listings extra credibility

• Ties to Google+ or on-site profile page

• Adds credibility• Likely to increase

clickthrough rate

https://plus.google.com/authorship

More Crowding out Tips: Google Authorship

• Google will show local results if query deserves

• Google Places listing merging with Google+

• Claim your business to manage, edit

Local results have increased in prominence

More Crowding out Tips: Local Results

• Where do crises originate? • Social reputation rules of thumb• Crowding out bad reviews

Prevent social reputation problems before they happen

Prevention

Sources of social media crises (2011)

13% triggered by other parties

33% triggered by the organization itself

54% triggered by customers

Data from J. Owyang, Altimeter Group

Prevention: Where do Crises Originate?

Top causes of crises

Data from J. Owyang, Altimeter Group

• Negative customer experiences• Poor influencer relations• “Rogue” employees• Failure to respond quickly or

inappropriate response

Prevention: Where do Crises Originate?

Transparency

Security

Identify staff or paid reviewers

Clearly identify staffers who can post to accounts; require firewall between personal & company

Develop a process with a built-in “second opinion” for touchy subjects

ResponsivenessProvide other channels for complaints. Respond quickly and move communications to private channels.

Social Reputation Rules of Thumb

2nd Opinion

• Limited access• Clear boundaries• “Panopticon” philosophy

Don’t let a problem escalate:

www.juanmarketing.com/how-to-deal-with-a-social-media-crisis-and-prevent-a-catastrophe/2011/05/23/

Easy Mistake to make: Tweeting to Wrong Account

Easy Mistake to make: Tweeting to Wrong Account

Same idea as crowding out search results

• Positive online reviews will inoculate you against any future social media crisis

• Ask for reviews at every opportunity & especially post-transaction.

• Follow-up email, phone, postcard: Sooner is always better.

• Make reviewing easy - include a link• Paying for reviews breaks FTC rules

When Negative Reviews Attack: Crowding out the Bad

• WAIT – it may get filtered• Do not reply while emotional. Get a

2nd opinion on your response.• Respond publicly and then take it

offline: “Please email me at {}.com so I can help you resolve the problem”

• Rarely, a review can be removed, e.g., hate speech.

• See some examples:

Replying to Bad Reviews – Should You?

http://www.reviewtrackers.com/case-studies-business-owners-respond-bad-yelp-reviews/

Replying to Bad Reviews – Should You?

Yes No

• Review from influencer• To apologize for true

error• To correct factual

mistakes• Feels fixable

• Excessively angry/inarticulate/drunk review – no way to make happy

• Filtered review• You are too mad to

apologize• Never delete a bad

review

Thank you!

Questions, comments?@gradiva