How Reverse SEO is set to Prosper

RSEO is set to make waves in 2016 as our reputation and brand goofs go "viral"

I've been hearing a lot of late about online reputation management and Reverse SEO. As a digital marketing enthusiast and avid follower of the evolution of digital media, I'm always looking at the trends and what's next and watching closely the evolution of social media. I'm of the belief that how brands and individuals negotiate their online reputation is set to really change in 2016. 

Search savy Millennials are experts at Google search, social media search and so forth. Unfortunately for Brands and high profile individuals, this means they are the most sensitive to negative online reviews, poor customer service on social media, PR goofs, arrogant tweets, and negative attention on individuals in the public eye. With News agencies now active on Social media platforms, the possibility of getting bad press is more likely, and that's it finds its way up the search engine results page (SERP), is also more likely. 

Now that Facebook posts are searchable as well, online reputation management, or ORM, is set to take on a whole new meaning and place in SEO and search reputation management services. Given a company that is not very PR savy, I can find a great deal of incriminating evidence on search engines such as You Tube, the second biggest search engine after Google. It's likely the new searchable (post November, 2015) Facebook will eclipse that given the number of users and posts made per day. 

Luckily for brands and individuals who are aware of the importance of PR and the possibility of reverse SEO, to remove negative info from Google is achievable through the right experts.  In age where apps like a crowd-sourced dating intelligence and "Yelp for people" become mainstream, our reputation currency and the transparency of the internet will change as well. As word-of-mouth goes fully online, our business and personal relationships may be more vulnerable to our online reputation. 

This will mean, our online reputation management strategy will be key. Individuals and companies who want to be proactive, will need to be consistently aware of what it being said about them and take measure to minimize the potentially damaging sources and lower their search rankings in Google. To remove information from the internet, will sometimes be the goal.

The attention economy will mean provocative content that is negative, will yield more attention, making negative stories about brands, and articles that are controversial in nature and that may involve high profile figures more popular. You see this on the sort of articles you read on Yahoo News. This is a bit like News stations airing certain stories that get better audience ratings. The VW and Ashley Madison scandals, are good examples of this. However, there were likely a lot of people severely damaged by these scandals, perhaps even ruined. 

The way we consume information and the type of information we consume is changing. With News becoming mainstream on social media, PR issues for brands is set to become a lot more likely. Disgruntled customers can get better coverage. Brands that realize the importance of SEO on sales, recognize that reverse SEO is one of the most important measures they can take to protect their products, their brand identity and the positive associations their customers have with their brand. 

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Michael Spencer helps companies improve their content marketing, blogs, social media & video marketing initiatives. If you are a startup or smallbizz you may want to outsource some of your digital marketing needs. 

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