How SEO and Reputation Management Work Together

Creating a positive online image is crucial for any business, which is why reputation management is more vital than ever.

One of my favorite authors Haruki Murakami wrote in his book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage a powerful quote on image.

He said, “Image is everything. You don’t spare any expense to create the right image. And word of mouth is critical.

Once you get a good reputation, momentum will carry you.” Every bit in this statement is true. Nothing is more valuable than a well-respected image.

Reputation management is the process of influencing public and online perception about a certain person or brand.

It builds your image by using multiple channels such as social media, press releases, and most important of all, SEO.

SEO and Reputation Management

So how does SEO help in reputation management? SEO can showcase your brand’s strengths and weaknesses. When people search for your brand, the information they will see in the results are all SEO-driven. Of course, you would want people to know more positive things about your business rather than negative ones.

Since reputation management is a multi-channel effort, let’s look at how it works together with SEO on different platforms:

Social profiles

Believe it or not, users search for the social media accounts of the brands they’re interested in. I myself have Googled Facebook and Instagram accounts of certain brands before I patronize them. It pays to see how active they are on social media and how they interact with their followers.

When you create social media profiles, make sure that they are consistent with your brand name so that search engines can easily identify them. That includes your website, too. Register your business address and contact details on Google My Business. Get reviewed on Yelp and Google My Business as well. The more reviews the better for your reputation management and SEO.

Quality content

Building a good reputation begins with saying and doing things that are credible and valuable. Thus, in creating content the bar you should set is high enough to be worthy of a link back. Search engines love high-quality content.

Use industry and brand-related keywords in every content you produce. Search engines will always require that but when they are strategically placed on well-researched and fresh content, your relevance score and SERP become higher.

Share your expertise

Reputation management is at its best when you are validated by your peers. Contribute on sites where you can share your experience and expertise on your niche topic. The more you get published on different sites, the more your personal bio gets spread around.

Make sure that your online bio is standard across all publications. It should have a link to your site and social media profiles. Depending on the site you contributed to, your guest post can rank high in search engine results. You can also add those published articles in your portfolio—another plus in your reputation management.

Consider creating a spinoff blog

We mentioned earlier the importance of having consistent social profiles. Having another blog that has your brand name on it can increase your SEO rankings and build your reputation. So how do you do that? Say for example you’re a well-known marketer named John Willis.

You have your own website called johnwillis.com. Let’s say you’re also a great writer but you haven’t had the chance to showcase it. You can launch johnwilliswrites.com where you share writing tips to all your followers. Link and promote this in your original site and social profiles. You can create new social profiles for this spinoff blog, too! That immediately multiplies your SEO presence and beefs up your online reputation.

Reputation management needs SEO for its foundation and continuous build up. SEO helps in ensuring that your brand is located, reached, and found by your customers. This creates a strong online presence and validates the reliability of your brand. SEO also helps fortify your reputation through the high SERPs of your quality content, strengthening your authority and credibility.

Ultimately, SEO is the oil that fuels reputation management. Without it, rust can easily creep in and chip away at your reputation. Let SEO keep your gears running. It’s the most effective way your reputation can gain traction and get you ahead of everybody else.

Ivy Guerrero is a senior copywriter for Pepper Virtual Assistants. She writes about productivity, digital marketing, and the virtual assistance industry. Pepper is a business solutions firm that specializes on virtual administrative and personal assistance, online marketing, customer support, and copywriting. They are known for reliability through their managed services, responsive client handling backed by extensive training, and rockstar virtual assistants hired for their skills and expertise.