In building a strong Internet brand, there’s little room for mistakes or bad publicity.

Because news articles on the web often stay there forever, like an elephant’s memory, it can be hard to undo a bad reputation. Here’s what you need to know to help protect your online reputation.

A Good Online Reputation Takes Time to Build

One of the keys of marketing a product or business online is to develop a powerful brand that people recognize everywhere. It takes time and well thought-out branding strategies to build a strong online reputation. Information available on the Internet about your company becomes part of what’s known as your “online reputation”. And no matter how long it took you to get where your business is now, your good standing can be destroyed in an instant through bad press. It’s even more frustrating when you’re not aware of its existence.

Bad News Articles on the Web Can Quickly Destroy Your Reputation

While every company likes positive news articles on the web, bad press can travel fast. Both good and bad press make up your business brand, making it necessary to monitor your brand (keep an eye on what others are saying and doing) so you can rapidly address concerns that could hurt your business. Unfortunately, you can’t always erase or limit the bad news. Reputation management should now be considered a core part of any business.

Take Strong Steps to Reduce the Effect of Negative News

Some online companies now deal exclusively in reputation management. They watch over your reputation, take active steps to repair it when needed, and help minimize the damage when there’s a problem. Software, either in the cloud or on your desktop, is available to monitor online activity about you and your company. The minute it finds potentially negative information, it will send a notification, allowing you to nip the problem in the bud.

Bury Bad News Quickly with Many Positive Articles

Check your sources often and take action quickly whenever bad news is discovered. There are two ways to handle this properly.

1. You can try and contact the individual involved and see if they will remove it – which may not happen; or,
2. You can create a stream of content and news that will rank higher in Google than the bad news – basically burying it.

Online reputation management companies can quickly provide positive content that will help to bury negative news and reviews. These types of services make it almost irrelevant that the Internet never forgets. They quickly flood the online world with positive spin, pushing those frightful reviews far down the search results.

Conclusion

Regularly monitoring your reputation online will enable you to respond to attacks and criticisms and even use it to build a positive online brand reputation. Quick responses can depose bad news from page one of the search results and put your carefully crafted response on the front page – allowing people searching about your business to see it first. Because, like an elephant, if you want customers to have a lasting impression about your business, you want it to be positive.