Written by Online, you have access to a truly enourmous amount of information. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing have made it ridiculously easy to discover anything you want about any person or company. And while this is really nice – and it has certainly revolutionized the way we get information – it also has introduced new problems. The problem is that when you have negative information about your company out there on the internet, it is highly likely that search engines like Google will index and rank it, and it will appear when someone searches for your company or name. Unfortunately, it is ridiculously simple and easy for anyone (competitors, customers, ex-employers etc) to seriously damage a companies online reputation that they may have built up. So something had to be done about it.
Recognizing the problem, a new industry of reputation management has surfaced. But it’s important to realize that taking information out of search engines is usually impossible, and I guarantee that Google isn’t going to give you much a response if you contact them about it. Unfortunately, a lot of websites (like ripoffreport) have a policy of never removing content that their users post, regardless of how wrong it actually is. You can see why there are many people who feel sites like ripoffreport and complaintsboard are a terrible idea, seeing as how anyone can use them to ruin a business or individual anonymously. So if you can’t take out things like this, then what can you do about it? The way these reputation management companies help you out is by knocking down any pages you don’t want out of the first page of results. When this is done, the 1st page of results of Google (listing ten different pages) will only contain positive, beneficial content. Now of course, users will still find the negative pages if they keep searching long enough. But studies show the the majority of web users do not look past the first page of results. And by having a lot more results saying good things about your company, it makes it far more likely for customers to feel comfortable doing business with you.
So you probably want to know what companies are worth dealing with. Apparently RepSpinner is pretty good, from what I have heard. Without doubt RepSpinner is far cheaper than the majority of other reputation management companies, and they are able to get things done quickly according to most of the reports I have seen. Simply, easy projects (where there is little competition) can be completed for under a thousand dollars total. If you give them something really tough, though, it can take them months of work. My best advice is to get a quote from as many different companies as you can and make your decision from there. If possible, have an agreement where you only pay when you see results. A lot of companies will never, ever agree to get paid only when they get the results they promise you, because they are (to but it bluntly) just scamming you and not planning to ever deliver on their promises. But companies that do agree that you pay them only after you see results are the one’s worth dealing with.
RepSpinner actually offers a variety of services that, just like reputation management, can help you out if you are a new or established business. One of the really useful things they can do for a new business is brand building, which is well worth taking a look at.
