Believe it or not, there are some successful ways to repair a damaged reputation via the search engines.
Often people don’t realize that their comments and actions on the web get archived and sometimes when someone is searching for you they’ll run into some information that might contain negative things about you or your business. These items cannot be totally removed from the internet but in some countries they can be removed from search engines.
It’s quite a task to get results removed but on the brighter side, there are tactics you can do with your websites, blogs, and social media that can push those negative items to the bottomless pit of the search engines.
People who want to hire you or date you or even prospective in-laws will search for your name on a search engine. If five years ago you were screaming online about some law or political or religious issue, then your nae will pop up prominently when searched for because that content is what the search engines can find if you haven’t added content about yourself elsewhere. You may not feel the same way now as you did then but that information is still there. To beat this you need to establish a website with your name prominently or a blog or social media.
The newer content will rise to the top of the search engines and slowly but surely push the old content to the bottom.
To do this is going to take some time and it may not happen overnight so patience and persistence is advised. One way to speed things up is to do so via social media as mentioned before. Your Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest and other social media accounts should be updated regularly with pertinent information you want others to know about. Stay away from political arguments and religious arguments but that doesn’t ean you should ignore the altogether. Being a responsible participant in your culture and beliefs is important.
If you are a specialist in an area like electronics or the culinary arts, populate your online social media content with the best information about you regarding them. Things like awards, certifications, happy customers and fans and keep a bright and cheerful outlook about you. After several weeks of this with updated content, the search engines will spot them and list them higher. Continuing this practice for six months to a year should make quite an impact on improving your online reputation.
Finally, it’s not a necessity to spend a lot of time doing SEO but it helps especially if you’re doing online marketing. Just know that you’ll have to come up with a recipe of content that focuses on your marketing goals and your good name. Think wisely as to what you want others to know about you and how you can present yourself. Some people out there just might not like you no matter what you post about yourself or whatever others post about you. They may not like you because of your favorite sports team, hairstyle, or anything they can find fault with. Those kinds of people you don’t want in your life anyway so don’t count it as a loss if they don’t hook up with you.
All is not lost in rehabilitating your online reputation. Just a matter of skill and patience and you should see improvements.