If you’ve been following these articles, or if you are familiar with online reputation management, you know the main strategy: Find or create web pages with positive content, then get those to rank high. That way, any sites with negative content get pushed off of the first page or two of the search engine results.
Simple and straightforward, though it takes some effort and is not always easy.
One of the biggest issues is how to fill up the first two pages of a Google search with websites that only have good things to say about your company. That’s why your company should have multiple websites where you can control the content.
Sure, we can get your main website to rank at the top position for a search on the company name. But we also need several more separate websites that we can get to rank high. If they already exist, rather than having to create them from scratch, so much the better.
Here are some ideas of other websites you can develop, and which don’t take a lot of effort to build and maintain:
1) Charitable giving. A site devoted to the charities your company supports.
2) Photos. A site with pictures from corporate events, picnics, conferences, or other company activities. But no pictures of drunken Christmas partygoers, please.
3) A blog. While it’s good to have a blog on your main site to keep the content fresh and up to date, you can also have a separate blog about some other aspect of your company’s activities, or about its products or services.
4) Recruiting. If your company hires door-to-door salespeople, or if one of your main efforts involves recruiting people to join your organization, you would probably want this separate from the website that customers see. It can be off-putting to a customer to read about a company’s aggressive approach to sales, or to see what kind of compensation is offered to its sales force.
5) Testimonials. Of course you’ll have customer testimonials on your main site, but there’s no reason you can’t create another site devoted to customer stories.
Look at each category currently on your main corporate website and see if it would work as a separate site. You want a good handful of websites that can rank high for a search on your company name, and which you can keep filled with positive content.
With enough websites associated with your company, you can own the first page of a Google search, which is what it takes to maintain a positive online reputation.