When negative content about a company ranks at the top of search results, it’s not hard to panic. You want it out of sight as soon as possible. But the sooner you realize it won’t happen by a snap of your fingers, the more effective your actions will be.
What to do with negative reviews
If a negative review is written about your business, you can’t just delete it. Only the user who left the review can do this.
Contact the dissatisfied user
The most effective approach is to contact the dissatisfied customer to resolve the situation. This can be done by responding to the review.
Once the problem has been resolved, the customer can be asked to remove the negative review. Dealing with each review will have a positive impact on the brand’s reputation.
If it is about old reviews, such as one year old, try contacting the customer and offer to test a new product or service, and edit the review based on the new data.
Complain about the review to customer service
If you have doubts about the authenticity of the review (competitor’s machinations), you can complain about it to Google Support.
When submitting your complaint, select the reason why the review should be removed.
You will then need to enter your email address and briefly explain why the review violates Google’s rules. If the complaint is successful, you will receive a confirmation email.
Keep in mind that the support service will remove the review only if it really violates the rules of the system. It will not be blocked for negative content.
In addition, it will take a lot of time to review the complaint. It will be faster and more reliable to contact the dissatisfied customer yourself.
How to rank above negative content
Understand the peculiarities of search engine rankings
When you’re trying to move negative content lower in a search engine listing, it all comes down to its properties. There can be a varying number of elements on a page. It’s not just links to sites, but also videos, maps, ads, etc. And in the case of showing results on some mobile platforms, subsequent pages are loaded automatically, so you can browse through them endlessly.
You need to understand what’s in the search results for all the queries that produce negative content. And then think about how to rank above that content.
Create positive content
When negative content about your company makes it to the top of search results, the first wish is to remove it. Some companies go so far as to try to hack into other people’s sites to remove the text. Never do that.
The best strategy in such a situation is to say something good about yourself. Tell them what good things your company has done. Talk about customers who are happy working with you. Create your content that presents you in a good light. It will be hard to notice a spoonful of tar in a barrel of honey.
If you are willing, tell your point of view about the situation. In some cases, you can even bid on relevant keywords in Google Ads. But don’t draw too much attention to negative content.
Link building also helps climb higher in search engine rankings. Rejecting links that lead to your site, on the other hand, doesn’t help. One link with negative content won’t be enough to make Google think the site is spammy.
Manage your reputation with SERM
To get rid of negativity from the top, protect and maintain your company’s reputation, order a SERM service. It analyzes the output and produces a heat map of the brand’s reputation background.
We don’t just monitor the reputation background, but also work out the negative, motivate users to leave positive feedback, moderate content on sites.