SEO 101

As a business owner, you want to see how well you are doing in search results. So, you get online and do a search for your business name or, perhaps, your name. To your surprise, on page one of the search results are slanderous comments made about you or your business that are not founded. A competitor may have hired someone to comment on blogs or write articles or reviews about your business in order to harm your web traffic.

This is a serious problem and steps need to be taken in order to protect your reputation. But what do you do?

Not much can be found on the web with advice on combating this issue, but there are a few steps that you can take to help reduce the harm these comments are doing. I recently had a client who was in a similar scenario. He is an Austin Lasik Surgeon who specializes in LASIK, E-LASEK/PKR, and cataract surgery with amazing results for his clients in and around Austin, Texas. He is successful because he and his eye surgery staff take the time to answer all their clients’ questions and they put in the effort to be available around the clock for their clients. This can be a very high bar for a competitor. When marketing tactics have failed to make you do better than your competitor, you may be tempted to lower yourself to slander. This is what Dr. Howerton’s competitor did.

This competitor may have hired someone to post slanderous blog comments about Dr. Howerton and his Texas Eye Surgery Center. The interesting thing is, these comments were posted on blogs that had nothing to do with eye surgery or Lasik. They were on a blog about the most random topics.

I was asked to combat these slanderous attacks with SEO techniques. I started with research and brainstorming. This was something new to me and I wasn’t sure where to begin.

1. Requesting the comments be removed.
   I started with going to the sites that hosted these malicious listings and tried to find a place where I could submit a complaint and request that the comments be removed. Not all websites have this option, but some have a place on each comment where you can flag it as “spam” and place a warning on it. You may have to create an account in order to do this, but it is well worth it. Even if the comment isn’t removed, at least it has been flagged so others can see the potential harm.
2. Searched for blogs in his target market.
   Having a list of blogs for Dr. Howerton to leave medical advice on and to leave his URL in the contact area of the comment helped give more places for good listings in search results when his name was searched.
3. Searched for review sites:
   I found many sites for his clients to place reviews about their experience with him and his staff. Creating as many places as possible for good comments will help override the bad in searches. Some sites I suggested for reviews are Epinions, Kudzu, and Real Self.
4. Created profiles on business listings:
   I helped Dr. Howerton create profiles about him and his business where his URL could be left. We added a photograph of him as well as his contact information and address of his Austin Eye Surgery Office. Some sites we used are Epinions, Kudzu, and Insider Pages.

The great thing about the slanderous comments made against Dr. Howerton is that they were comments in blogs and not articles are blog postings. This means that the comments get pushed down over time. A slanderous article or blog posting gets staying power with time. The longer information is on the web, the higher the rankings can get. This means that it is important to start combating the slander right away.

These steps were a good start against the slanderous comments, but I needed to do more. That’s when I started researching.

I came across a very useful blog posting titled Blast Negative Publicity off Google & Yahoo. This post gives five useful steps to attacking slander on the web. I have summarized these steps and added my own comments. So, please visit the original posting at the link in the first sentence of this paragraph.

Step 1:
Contact the website owner about the slanderous comment and politely ask that it be removed. You may have to prove who you are and that the comment is indeed slander.

Step 2:
Look at the keywords used in the article, blog posting, or comment that search engines might be picking up on. These keywords could be your name, business name, or the keywords you use on your website. The author of this blog suggests clicking on the ‘cached’ entry in the search engine listing. The keywords that the search engine used to index the page will be highlighted. Use these same keywords when writing articles, blog posts, comments, or when your clients are writing a review of your business. This will help these good comments to appear with a search and hopefully will appear before the slanderous comments. Make as many listings with these keywords as possible to push out the slander. This is important. Put these keywords in the title of the article, blog posting, comment, or review and in the body text.

Step 3:
Create free classified ad listings and post these listings under the business services category. Make sure you put your name and business in the title and the body text for search engines to find. Use other important keywords in your body text as well. Free classified ad listings show up in search results in the first week of posting. Do as many postings as possible and post them for the longest time allowed.

Step 4:
Write articles about your business and expertise with a title that uses important keywords with your name and business. Post these on your website and on free article submission sites. Be sure to include keywords with the body text including your name and business name.

Step 5:
Create free directory listings. There are many free directories out there and you can leave your name, business name, contact information, a small blurb about your business with keywords, keywords, and a link to your website. Using the keywords that are used in the slanderous material will help push the slander down in the search results.

Trying all these steps will help combat the slander. The situation may improve immediately if you start right away, but it may take a few months depending on how long the article or blog posting has been on the web. The sooner you start improving the situation, the better. If you have any problems or need more help, please be sure to contact your nearest SEO representative.

Good luck!