Presented at SearchLove NYC on November 1, 2011. The presentation is a look into online reputation management and what companies and individuals need to be doing to safeguard and improve their online reputations. As search engines like Google and user-generated content and review sites expose our reputations more, it's increasingly difficult to put our best face forward. This presentation shows you how to spot problems early, manage them and how NOT to manage them.

1. Reputation Management in an
Instant World
SearchLoveNYC
@Rhea | @OutspokenMedia

2. MonkeyGirl

3. She-Ra,
PRINCESS OF
POWER!

4. Rhea
Drysdale

5. Company X

6. THEY STOLE MY NAME!
THOSE BASTARDS.

7. Hero Complex

8. SEO Trademark
SEO Trademark terminated:
http://bit.ly/vh2uBC

9. AWESOME SAUCE WE’RE GOING TO COVER

10. Why you should give a damn.

11. Crap that works.

12. Good stuff that works.

13. Client examples.
(All anonymous examples…. WOOHOO!)

14. Beef.
Crap.
Shit.

15. Existential break time.
When we die, what do
we leave behind?

16. Our reputations are exposed and
under attack.

17. UGC

18. UGC

19. Search Queries

20. But those can be gamed…

21. Competitors
Population of Richardson, TX 100,000
Population of Reston, VA 58,000
Population of Herndon, VA 21,000

22. Amazon Web Services (EC2)
Rackspace
Other cloud computing data centers

23. Let’s dive in!

24. A week ago a prospective client
contacted us.

25. John Carter.

26. John Carter’s Results
JohnCarter.com/ JohnCarter.org/?tag=Johnny-Carter-puppies
JohnCarter.com/?page_id=xxx JohnCarter.info/?tag=John-Carter-puppies
www.John-Carter.com/ JohnCarter.com/?cat=xxx
JohnCarter.biz/?cat=xxx John-Carter.org/?paged=xx
JohnCarter.org/?tag=Johnny-Carter-puppies JohnCarter.biz/?tag=Johnny-Carter
JohnCarter.info/ JohnCarter.net/?tag=Johnny-Carter-puppies
www.Johnny-Carter.com/ John-
Carter.com/downloads/Johnny_Carter.x
www.Johnny-Carter.com/
ml
JohnCarter.com/?cat=x
Johnny-Carter.org/?m=xxxxx
JohnCarter.com/?tag=John-Carter-puppies
JohnCarter.info/?cat=xx
JohnCarter.biz/
Johnny-Carter.com/?cat=xxx
John-Carter.com/?tag=Johnny-Carter
JohnCarter.biz/?tag=Johnny-Carter-puppies
JohnCarter.biz/?tag=Johnny-Carter-puppies
www.John-Carter.info/
Johnny-Carter.org/
JohnCarter.org/?cat=xx
JohnCarter.com/?cat=xx

27. Hold up!
What is this?
JohnCarter.org/?tag=Johnny-Carter-
puppies

28. But the negative is still ranking!

29. Let’s look under the hood.

31. But wait, there’s more.

32. Answer Spam

33. The top answer?

34. The first answer:

35. This is when I slammed my head
into a wall.

36. <rant>
If it takes as much time to put
together crap work, why TF are
you not doing the basics?
USE YOUR BRAIN.
THERE IS NO EXCUSE.
YOU ARE RUINING THE GOOD
NAME OF SEO.
</rant>

38. Worse still…

39. Exact same “about me” text shared across
29 separate properties and profiles.
Hasn’t registered username on:
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Google Plus
• Other business profiles
Duplicate content is a big deal:
http://bit.ly/smU3kj

41. So, we know the crap that works,
but where’s some good stuff?

43. Honorable Mentions
Hoovers Quora
Slideshare Meetup.com
Businesscard2 Gather.com
Visible.me Amplify.com
Huffington Post CareerBuilder

44. Who do those work for?
Online retailer Smash their competition*
Online personals site Fix autocomplete and dispel rumors
International non-profit Convince the world they aren’t a cult
National company Embrace a pending shit storm*
Online reseller Stop illegal marketing practices
CEO of online retailer Make his kids proud
Travel site Do nothing. They’re horrible.
Grow business despite one incident at one
Healthcare facilities location
Local hero Attend college
Politician Focus on issues, not former relationships
Etc…

45. Mr. National Lawsuit

46. CLIENT SUMMARY
Goal: Cushion SERPs
Baseline: Perfect.
• National company
• Government regulates announcement

47. We did our ORM magic.
(all those wacky things that work)

48. Monitored their reputation

49. We soon discovered…

50. Threats
• Reactionary company culture
• Movie launched w/a KW that triggered
news results for our client’s negative
coverage
• Smaller lawsuits announced mid-coverage
and we weren’t informed prior
• Reporters and crazies
• State-level attorneys general

51. We saw the conversations:
Repeat queries = AUTOCOMPLETE

52. We needed to change the
conversation
• Video strategy
• PR strategy
• On-site content strategy
• Internal PR to employees
(Autocomplete Gold!!!)

53. Results

54. .com acquired Sh*t hit the
site links fan.

55. No longer pro-active, now
reactive and long-term.
This defines a CEO’s legacy.

56. Where do we go from here?

57. Location-specific ORM and social
strategies
• Domain development
• Profile growth
• Wikipedia
• Increased presence on niche sites
• Internal response strategies

58. Now, let’s talk about some
cool SEO shit.

59. “Have you
ever noticed
that your shit is
stuff and their
stuff is shit?”

60. Our client wants all of their STUFF
to out-rank everyone else’s SHIT.
We call this client…

61. Mr. WantsIt All

62. CLIENT SUMMARY
Baseline: Ranked 1st and 2nd only as of
7/20/2011
Goal: Rank 1st page for “stuff” in every
position in 6 months
• Publicly Traded
• Popular Online Retailer

63. Caveats
• Brand name is a variation of the KW
• Lots of assets
• Client develops quickly
• We HAVE to be risk-free to justify p0wnage

64. INVENTORY YOUR STUFF

65. CLIENT STUFF IN TOP 30
brandstuff.com
sub.brandstuff.com
brandstuff.com page 1
brandstuff.com page 2
blog.stuff.com
stuff.org
my-stuff.com
Facebook for brandstuff
Wikipedia for brandstuff

66. OTHER STUFF NOT IN TOP 30
brandstuff.com/news/
brandstuff.com/investors/
brandstuff.com/careers/
brandstuff.com page 3
brandstuff.com page 4
brandstuff.com page5
Twitter
LinkedIn
Stuff-Coupons.com

67. WHAT DO WE TARGET?
.com .com/news/
sub.brandstuff.com .com/investors/
.com pg 1 .com/careers/
.com pg 2 .com pg 3
blog.stuff.com .com pg 4
stuff.org .com pg 5
my-stuff.com Twitter
Facebook LinkedIn
Wikipedia Stuff-Coupons.com

68. This is going to be easy!
Wait.
We can’t rank
what’s already
ranking.

69. REMOVE STICKY STUFF
.com .com/news/
sub.brandstuff.com .com/investors/
.com pg 1 .com/careers/
.com pg 2 .com pg 3
blog.stuff.com .com pg 4
stuff.org .com pg 5
my-stuff.com Twitter
Facebook LinkedIn
Wikipedia Stuff-Coupons.com

70. We get to work on the rest…

71. DUN, DUN, DUN!

72. Site Links Update – August 31, 2011
Reorganizing internal vs. external backlinks:
http://bit.ly/rXppMM

73. Crap. Now what’s left…
.com .com/news/
sub.brandstuff.com .com/investors/
.com pg 1 .com/careers/
.com pg 2 .com pg 3
blog.stuff.com .com pg 4
stuff.org .com pg 5
my-stuff.com Twitter
Facebook LinkedIn
Wikipedia Stuff-Coupons.com

74. We took a
closer look at
what was left
and found…

75. my-stuff.com

77. Links coming from:
Optimized hit counters like:
And, an internal network

78. This isn’t good.

79. What was that caveat?

80. We HAVE to be risk-free to justify
p0wnage!

81. REMOVE DOORWAY PAGES
.com .com/news/
sub.brandstuff.com .com/investors/
.com pg 1 .com/careers/
.com pg 2 .com pg 3
blog.stuff.com .com pg 4
stuff.org .com pg 5
my-stuff.com Twitter
Facebook LinkedIn
Wikipedia Stuff-Coupons.com

82. That isn’t enough stuff.

83. Let’s make more stuff.
Moved categories on brandstuff.com to
subdomains on stuff.com:
brandstuff.com/news/ news.stuff.com
brandstuff.com/investors/ investors.stuff.com
brandstuff.com/careers/ careers.stuff.com

84. Worked with Stuff-Coupons.com
Optimized the doorway that was
most manageable

85. Even then…

86. We don’t want our…

87. Let’s make even more stuff…

88. Stuff that fell in our lap:
Unexpected quarterly financial news

89. Stuff that takes time and money:
Corporate & career profiles

90. Stuff that would make Wil and
Rand smile:
Subdomain on stuff.com dedicated to
an awards strategy for an untapped,
related industry

91. RESULTS 3 MONTHS LATER…

92. .com acquired site links

93. We could also look at those
results like this…

94. My stuff.
More of my stuff.
Still my stuff…
Me AGAIN!
There’s your shit!
Some else’s shit.
MY STUFF IS BACK BITCH!

95. Thank you.
Follow @OutspokenMedia for all of
the SearchLove coverage
And visit
http://outspokenmedia.com/blog/