Online Reputation management takes a number of forms. Most online reputation management strategies revolve around Google and the other major search engines. However, did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world? And if there are a number of negative videos posted about you on YouTube it could adversely affect your online reputation. Not only could those video appear in branded SERPs and give your customers the wrong impression, but if you’re not optimizing any YouTube content, anyone searching the video hosting platform for your name will be given a series of negative videos about your business or brand.

So, how do you combat negative videos on YouTube? You have to create your own positive videos and push those negative videos down further in the results. Here are a few suggestions to get you started.

1) Create Great Videos

First off, you need to create some video content yourself. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. It could be a tour of your offices, a product demo, a short message form your CEO, or anything else related to your brand. Then post your video to YouTube.

2) Optimize the Titles

Just like optimizing for other search engines, your title counts. Make sure to include your business name in the title and any other keywords that would be helpful for people to find information about your company. YouTube uses titles to match search relevancy, and you’ll have a higher click-through-rate if the people who are searching for your videos can find you easily.

3) Write Descriptions

Again, use your brand name in the video description, preferably within the first sentence, along with other keywords that you want to rank for. You’ll only need a sentence or two—because the first three lines are the only ones that are shown to the user by default. Then tag your video with your business name and other relevant keywords. YouTube videos with longer descriptions and even links to your corporate website will generally rank higher than videos with minimal description. Don't  be shy.

4) Get Views

Unlike Google search, YouTube counts views as a ranking factor. The more views you have—and the most recent views—the higher your video will rank in the YouTube search results. Of course, this is the real heart of the matter. Because if you can get your videos to rank high in the search, then people who are searching for your business name will see your videos before they see the negative videos that anyone else might have posted about you.

5) Build Links

Just like a regular reputation management campaign, you need to build links to the videos that you want to rank well for in the YouTube results. You can build regular links to the videos, but you can also embed the videos in other places across the web. YouTube recognizes embeds as links and they count toward your search rank.

6) Get Positive Ratings and Comments

Another ranking factor for YouTube is the number of positive reviews and comments you have. Just like Google, YouTube is trying to serve the highest quality content to its users, so videos with a high user rating and a large number of comments will rank better—because they generally are better. For your reputation management efforts, this means that you need to get a high number of people to watch your videos on a regular basis, rate them, and comment on them. If you have a large organization, you can leverage your existing employees and co-workers.

Running a reputation management campaign on YouTube is not much different than cleaning up your SERPs in Google—in fact, it might be a bit easier. Just keep in mind that what you are trying to do is simply get your videos to rank higher than the negative videos and focus all your efforts to that end. If you can do that, you won’t have a problem creating a better reputation on YouTube.