These Proven Online Reputation Repair Strategies Will Fix Your Brand's Negative Image Follow these proven online reputation repair tips to build a clean image online. The 4th tip can really make a difference.

According to a study published in Adweek, even a little bad buzz affects the perception about a brand to a great extent. So any piece of negative news surfacing online when people are googling can change the perception of you and affect your brand image. Can you prevent negative PR about you? The answer is a big resounding "no'. Disgruntled employees, dissatisfied customers, vengeful competitors are always out there to vent on social media and online forums. Solution? Online reputation repair management is the only tool that can help you fight bad buzz and negative PR about you and build a strong positive image online.

In today's article, I'm going to discuss seven tips that are proven to do online reputation repair fast. Without further ado, let's dive in:

Proactive Social Media Listening

Social media is the most preferred channel where people release their frustration. If you want to have a positive image on social media, you should do proactive social media listening and keep tabs on the mood of your audience.

You can use a social media tool to do the social listening. HootSuite, Klout, Sprout Social are a few good social media tools for social media monitoring. You should address it the moment you spot any negative buzz around you on social media. This will be your best online reputation repair strategy for social media.

Guest Posts on Authority Websites

Let me tell you something up front - none can pull down negative information from the web (in most cases) unless they have posted it themselves. What can be done, as an online reputation repair, is to send these negative PR pages to the 4th, 5th, or the next search engine ranking pages where people seldom check.

Guest posts on high authority websites tend to have a high ranking on search engines, which will push negative search results into the next pages. And people will not find the negative buzz on the first page of search engines.

Comments on Leading Websites

Leaving insightful comments on leading websites will help you efficiently do online reputation repair. How? Comments are a type of user-generated content, and Google loves web pages with user-generated content, implying that leading websites' pages with lots of user-generated content are likely to have top ranking on search engines. And most often, comments on these pages also rank, helping you push negative PR into 4th, 5h or the next search engine ranking pages.

Here are a few best practices for commenting:

• Always choose high authority websites to comment

• Always leave insightful comments that spark discussions

• Try to include your name in the comments if it is possible

• Follow the community guidelines, or else your comments will not get published

Get Influencers Said Something about You

Influencers are leading personalities in their respective fields. If they say something about someone, it influences people. Also, due to their authorities, influencers' websites rank well on search engines. Getting influencers said something about you can be a good online reputation repair strategy. How can you rope in influencers? Well, there is no shortcut. You will have to find out how you can encourage influencers in your industry to say something about you.

Create Profiles on Leading Forums/Directories

Creating profiles on leading forums/directories will not only help you with online reputation repair but also help you spread a word about your business. Some forums and directories, which have high authority, rank on the first page of search engines. Therefore, profiles on such forums and directories have the power to displace the negative results and send them to the next pages.

Create Your Own Blogs and Promote Them

Having your own blogs, and if you promote them aggressively, is a proven online repair strategy. Many websites such as Blogger.com, WordPress.com, Tumblr.com, etc. allow you to create blogs in just a few minutes without spending a dime. However, only having many blogs won't make a difference. You will have to regularly update them and promote them. It is always better if you include your name in the domain names of your blogs.

Managing online reputation through blogs often takes some time, but the results stay for longer.

Earn Mentions on Authority Websites

If a high-authority website like Entrepreneur mentions your name, it is likely to rank high on search engines due to high-authority of the website (Google gives a preference to high-authority websites). So getting your name featured on leading websites can be a winning online reputation repair strategy to push negative search results on 4th, 5th, or the next pages. However, it is not easy to feature on leading websites. You need to do innovative work in your industry and create linked resources on your website. As I mentioned in the subheading, it is all about earning mentions. So you need to earn it by your work.

Final thoughts

You owe it yourself to have a clean online image. Follow these online reputation repair tips and push the negative buzz into 4th, 5th, or the next page of search engines where nobody visits.