Reverse SEO can help a restaurant or small retail shop overcome a bad review or two on different review sites. The problem that many restaurant and retail owners face is when a disgruntled customer or troll — someone who gets their jollies by overstating problems or even making up outrageous complaints — leaves a bad comment on a review site, sometimes even making it up. In fact, some trolls even try to parlay their fictionalized complaint into free food, merchandise, or in some cases, cash.

But there is no need for restaurant owners to fall prey to these negative reviews. Rather than buckling or running in fear from bad reviews, it is possible to use reverse SEO tactics to push them right off the page.

Here are four reverse SEO tactics business owners can use to push down negative reviews.

Reverse SEO Tactic #1: Ask customers to write positive reviews. Enough positive reviews will outweigh the negative reviews. Plus, people who read the site will also see that while one person may have complained, there are plenty of other people who enjoyed it. They will attribute the bad review to an uncommon experience. That does not mean owners should bribe customers to leave reviews or even fake customer reviews.

Reverse SEO Tactic #2: Create and publish videos on video sharing sites. This is an ideal reverse SEO strategy, because search engines love videos. Make them customer interviews, behind the scenes looks at the restaurant, or previews of upcoming menu changes. In many cases, search engines will place video results at or near the top of the search engine results page, which will help push down any normal, non-video results that might have appeared. Plus, because videos are often evergreen — that is, they last for a long time, because it will take more videos to push them off the page — they are a reverse SEO mainstay.

Reverse SEO Tactic #3: Use social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+; follow customers who follow the restaurant Twitter account. Social media is beginning to have an impact on search results. Now, when someone does a Google search, Google looks at their social media footprint to see if they are connected to anyone who has talked about that particular search topic before. If a potential customer does a search for a restaurant name, they will see that one of their social media friends has either tweeted about, written a status update about, or even written a blog post about that restaurant. The friend's content will show up in the search engine results page, which may help push the negative comments off the front page.

Reverse SEO Tactic #4: Start a blog. Blogging about positive aspects about the restaurant, the community, and the staff can all help the restaurant website rise above the negative comments, and help push it off the site. The more content with the restaurant's name and brand that gets placed on the Internet, the more it can push down the negative content. This works because search engines love websites that update frequently. The best way to update a website is with a blog post.

A blog can contain customer testimonials and special reviews and letters, making it a powerful reverse SEO tool. They are a place to embed videos, rather than just leaving them on YouTube. And a blog can be promoted on social tools like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. All of these can occupy a place on a blog, making it not only a place for fans and customers to interact with the restaurant, but a way to keep negative comments from rising to the top of the search engines.

Reverse SEO, when done properly, can undo damage that has been done by trolls, disgruntled customers, and even legitimate complaints. But remember that reverse SEO cannot replace good customer service, no matter how hard one tries.

Reverse SEO can help mitigate a corporate crisis, especially when the crisis is being played out in social media networks and on blogs. Many times, a story grows online instead of in the mainstream media, which can cause major problems with a company's search engine rankings. Whenever someone searches for the company name, the story will be the first several listings to appear on the first page, not the company's home page. But with proper tactics, this story can eventually be pushed down off the first page.

Here are four tactics a PR professional can use reverse SEO to suppress the negative stories from search results

Reverse SEO Tactics #1. Start a Blog on the Company Website

Search engines love websites that post new content on a regular basis. A blog is the best way to do this. Not only does it help the PR pro do some reverse SEO during the crisis, it also helps the marketing department with regular SEO, so the company can be found for their chosen keywords.

If the search engines can see regular updates to a website, they are more likely to push it to the top of their results, displacing the negative story.

Reverse SEO Tactics #2. Respond POSITIVELY to the Criticisms

The worst thing to do during a crisis is to let emotions take hold and to respond in kind to negative comments in the heat of the moment. While the first instinct may be to take on the naysayers and critics, a shrill outburst will not only delay the reverse SEO efforts, it will fan the flames of the story. There are too many cases of PR pros forgetting themselves and causing the story to grow bigger than it would have if they had left it alone. In some cases, the response even becomes a story of its own.

Reverse SEO Tactics #3. Use Social Media Ranking Tools to Determine Whether the Person is Even Worth a Response

Hopefully, companies managing their reverse SEO efforts are using social media monitoring tools to keep up with online mentions. These tools find all mentions of a company's keywords in different social networks, blogs, and forums. The temptation is for a PR pro to respond to all of them. This can be a big mistake.

Not everyone who responds has the influence to have a big impact on the story. Use a social media scoring and ranking tool to see whether the person has any real "clout" before responding. If they have a low score, it is safe to ignore them. Otherwise, a wasted response to a non-influencer may give continued life to the story.

Reverse SEO Tactics #4. Give it Time

Keep in mind that regular search engine optimization takes time — as much as three to six months. So does reverse SEO. Companies cannot count on immediate results on their reverse SEO efforts. They need to remember they are in this for the long haul. While companies need to deal with a corporate crisis in the usual manner, they need to realize this is a long-term strategy as well.

Just like with every other crisis and problem, this too shall pass. But its effects can linger, thanks to the search engines, if it is not dealt with properly. For some companies and individuals, an old crisis will still rear its ugly head whenever someone searches for the company name, because they did not take the proper steps. But reverse SEO techniques will suppress those results after the original furor dies down.

Reverse search engine optimization is an ideal long-term strategy to deal with company crises, and to protect its online reputation. Not only does it deal with problems as they arise, it can be an effective inoculation against future crises as they develop.

may seem like an extravagance for some smaller companies companies, but it can be the thing that separates a successful company from a mediocre one, a successful online campaign from a failed campaign. SEO consulting may seem like an added expense to companies operating on a smaller budget, but the benefits it can reap will make the SEO consulting costs more than pay for itself.

Here are four reasons small companies need

.

SEO Consulting Tip #1: It Can Create a Positive ROI in Months, Not Years The whole reason to do search engine optimization (SEO) is because it can help a company be more easily found on Google and other search engines. When companies sell products online, the most important thing they can ever do to survive and thrive is to be found at the top of the search engine results page. If companies are on page two, they might as well not be on the Internet at all. Studies have shown that users rarely go past the first page of search results. Page two is rarely visited, and if a company is on page three, they might as well be selling televisions to the Amish.

SEO Consulting Tip #2: The SEO Learning Curve Is Fairly Steep Search engine optimization is rather complicated and requires in-depth knowledge. While anyone can learn to do it, it takes months and months of reading, implementing the lessons, monitoring, measuring the results, tweaking the parameters, remeasuring the results, and constantly tweaking and measuring, especially when there are major changes to the search engine algorithms. SEO consulting is a full-time job for a reason. This is not necessarily knowledge that can be picked up by reading a book. It requires constant learning and testing.

SEO Consulting Tip #3: SEO Tactics Change Constantly Search engines are always trying to provide the best possible experience for users that they can. If a user has a good experience during one search, they will be back for another. And then another. Pretty soon, they are regular users of that search engine, which means the search engine can continue to serve up their ads, which is how they make money. In order to get people to use that search engine, they constantly work to provide the best experience possible.

This means they are constantly working to weed out spammers, eliminating unimportant or useless websites, and making sure the Internet experience is as useful and enjoyable as possible. All of these changes can have serious ramifications on a website's search ranking. This is why SEO consulting is a full-time job. The SEO consulting professional is constantly keeping up with changes in the industry via articles, white papers, and blogs. They know that any information in a book is usually out of date before it is ever printed. The SEO consultant is always keeping up with these changes, which is something that a part-time practitioner just is not able to manage.

SEO Consulting Tip #4: Search Engine Optimization Takes a Lot of Time Search engine optimization is one of those tasks that usually get relegated to the bottom of the to-do list. It is one of those tasks that most everyone agrees is important, but there are always meetings to take, phone calls to make, copy to write, and sales to close. As well-intentioned as the business owner is, search engine optimization will always take a back seat to the meetings, phone calls, office tasks, and sales, which means it will never get done.

And by the time the owner has time to do everything — because sales and phone calls have slowed down, thanks to a poor search engine ranking — it is already too late. The months they should have spent optimizing their website are now lost, and it will take several more months for an SEO consulting professional to repair the damage. But by then, sales may have slowed to a deadly pace, and the business owner is looking for a quick fix just to keep the business going.

SEO consulting is not something a business owner can ignore or trivialize, not if they want their business to succeed. If a business needs to make a great impression online, an SEO consulting professional can really save their bacon.

Reverse SEO is an ongoing battle for a lot of people. One little mistake and a photo gets posted to dozens of websites. One lapse of judgment and the mistake is blasted all over the Internet. Or one person who shares a job seeker's name but doesn't share their sense of morality and good judgment can confuse people searching for that candidate.

Reverse SEO (search engine optimization) can help push negative search results down the search engine results pages (SERPs), and make the positive content appear at the top. Here are four reverse search engine tips that can start working almost immediately.

Reverse SEO Tip #1: Use Quora, Yahoo Answers, and Other Q&A Sites

Q&A sites like Quora, Yahoo Answers, and LinkedIn are all great places to not only establish expertise and credibility in a subject, they are also a good place to drop in URLs that point back to one's main website or blog. Visit the Q&A sites on a semi-frequent basis — at least every three days — and answer questions in a few niche areas. If there are useful blog posts or websites, include those as well. But this is not a place to spam articles or websites, because users will often report users as spammers. Rather, give high-quality useful answers, and only include URLs when they are important and valuable.

Reverse SEO Tip #2: Buy Personal Name as a URL

Using one's own name as a URL is the most effective reverse SEO technique, because search engines put a lot of stock into domain names. Any name or keyword in a .com URL gets extra attention from the search engines, and in many cases, they are likely to place that website at the top of the SERPs. As a result, it does not matter what content is at the top of the page, a named URL will trump even that, as long as there is some useful content. Create a basic website with a WordPress site or free Google page, and point different backlinks to it.

Reverse SEO Tip #3: Start a Blog

A blog is an excellent way to reverse SEO negative content off the top SERPs. It is regular content about a specific topic and by a specific person. If it is one person who is trying to remove negative content, then a blog is an ideal way to do this, because they can write and post everything under their own name. Every post has the potential to not only help reach its own high positions, but as each post is promoted on different social media networks, it can also push the positive content to the top of the SERPs, and push the negative content off.

Reverse SEO Tip #4: Use Videos

Videos aid greatly with reverse SEO, because they get a lot of search engine "juice." (It also does not hurt that sites like YouTube are owned by Google.) Just by posting a video to YouTube, adding a link that points back to the hosting website, and then embedding that video on the site, and it can boost the website's search engine rankings. This can be especially useful for a blog that requires regular content and needs a boost from the search engines to improve its performance.

While reverse SEO is not an easy fix — plan on taking at least three months and as long as a year to remove negative content — it can be an effective tool to overcoming negative search results. Whether the project is for a job candidate, a corporate brand, or even a politician who has made some drastically unfortunate life choices, reverse SEO can ultimately help restore the positive aspects of the person's or company's brand and image.

Reverse SEO was all about getting negative information pushed down off of Google, keeping it out of the top search engine ranks, to make sure people did not associate a brand with being an awful place to do business. Reverse SEO was necessary for companies that had a run of bad luck, or a few cranky customers who wanted to harm it. But no one used negativity as a marketing tool.

Then one New York business owner found that the negative results actually increased his sales. The owner of an online eyeglasses company found that by providing bad customer service, which people would complain about online, his page ranked higher on Google. The angrier people got, the higher it went.

It was not until a New York Times article detailed the company's practices — including fraud and violent threats — that Google was "horrified" to find their search engine was being gamed in so evil and heinous a manner.

What was happening was as people posted their complaints online, they backlinked to the vendor's website, which is a popular reverse SEO tactic. Google assumed that a backlink to a website was an endorsement, which meant Google believed it was an important site that provided a good user experience. (This is why backlinks are crucial in a reverse SEO strategy.)

Google quickly released a statement that they had "developed an algorithmic solution which detects the merchant from the Times article along with hundreds of other merchants that, in our opinion, provide an extremely poor user experience."

In other words, Google was now looking at the sentiment surrounding a backlink to determine whether it was a real vote or not, and their solution served as a notice to companies who screwed their customers: do business right, treat people decently, or get banned from Google.

This also means that the best reverse SEO tactic is going to be great customer service.

A lot of businesses already worry about what will happen if they receive a negative complaint on a user review site. They might lose sales, the complaint might be seen on the search engines, etc., so they use any reverse SEO tactics they can. But now that Google has changed, a new strategy to eliminate these complaints is to reverse SEO them through kindness and decency.

The best way to do this? Use these three "customer service reverse SEO tips:"

Customer Service Reverse SEO Tip #1: Ask customers and visitors for positive reviews, if it is truly deserved.

This can done on a comment card, a copy of their receipt, a sign by the front door, or even a quick email to the company's contact list.

Customer Service Reverse SEO Tip #2: Make sure to earn those positive reviews by providing great service and a memorable experience.

Everyone loves being made to feel special and important. They love a great experience. And they certainly love being treated with respect and kindness. Nothing will engender a greater positive review than treating customers with sincere respect and kindness.

Customer Service Reverse SEO Tip #3: Visit the sites and social networks where most of the business' customers are.

Many businesses make the mistake of continuing to market and advertise in the places they "always have" — phone books, newspapers, billboards. But these are not always effective marketing channels. Instead, ask customers where they spend a lot of their time online. If it is a social networking site like Facebook, join Facebook, and friend them. Communicate to them like a person, not like a commercial.

Google has made sure that companies that game their algorithm through customer anger will not benefit. But that does not mean they will eliminate all negative comments. For any companies who still need to remove those from the search engine rankings need to let a positive customer experience be the reverse SEO they need.

Reverse SEO can save a company's Internet bacon, although one hopes they will never need it. Regular search engine optimization (SEO) is the science of getting your chosen website to the top of the search engines. Reverse SEO is when a company or individual needs to get negative results off the front page, because it can harm their reputation.

Here are four likely scenarios where a company might need reverse SEO.

Reverse SEO Scenario # 1: An individual shares the same name with someone else.

Bill (not his real name) is a respected businessman and former sportscaster on ESPN. Unfortunately, as uncommon as his name is, he shares it with a convicted felon. A year ago, when someone Googled Bill's name, he owned results 2 - 10. The felon? Ranked #1. Today, it is an even mix between the two.

Anyone who did not know Bill would assume that these were the same men, even though they were not. What was worse is the two Bills lived in the same state, so that did not help matters either. Bill needs to push the felon's name off Google, and to make sure that only his name appears at the top of the search results. Not only should Bill's reverse SEO efforts be about positive things the he done, but they should also include a page about how he and the other Bill are not the same people.

Reverse SEO Scenario #2: Someone made some bad choices in the past that won't go away.

No one means to put those photos on Facebook. No one means to get into the shouting match with the political troll on their favorite discussion board. But that is what keeps appearing at the top of the Google search results. While it may not seem like a big deal, it will be when a possible employer starts doing some basic online research for their new candidates, and those photos and discussion pop up.

Reverse SEO would hide those search results, by pushing more positive content to the top of the search engines, and hiding the negative results on a deeper page. In the meantime, it would not hurt to delete the posts and photos. It will not completely solve the problem, but it would help.

Reverse SEO Scenario #3: One of your patrons badmouthed you.

Restaurant owners always try to do their best to please their customers. They provide good service, work hard to train their staff, and make the best food they can. But things have a way of going wrong from time to time, and a customer leaves upset.

Thanks to social networks and online review sites like Yelp, UrbanSpoon, and Google Local, unhappy customers can leave negative reviews and list every grip — real or imagined — about the restaurant, and use every trick to hurt the restaurant. The first reaction for most restaurant owners is to challenge and discredit these trolls, which only makes the owner look bad, and makes the customer look good.

But some reverse SEO and online customer service could go a long way to hiding the negative reviews. The owner should respond positively and apologize in the same venue, so future customers can see they tried to solve the problem. It also does not hurt to ask other customers for positive reviews on the same site.

Reverse SEO Scenario #4: Your competition is copying you.

There is a company whose competitor copied his entire website: photos, copy, everything. Not only was the competitor stealing his design, he stole customers who were confused by the look of the website, and assumed it was the same company.

With some reverse SEO, the original company was able to push the competitor's site off the front page, and out of mind of the customers. This reverse SEO not only saved his business, but grew his business the next year.

Reverse SEO can be important when there is something companies want to remove or eliminate from the search engines. It can eliminate confusion between an ethical businessman and a convicted felon or unethical competitor. It can remove negative or inappropriate content. And it can hide negative reviews that might harm a business. While one hopes to never need it, it is at least good to know reverse SEO is available to help protect a business' reputation.

Why do companies need online reputation management? Julie Ross, President of Rostin Ventures notes recent SEO industry news,"After the New York Times story about black-hat SEO tactics for JCPenney broke on February 12th, more attention than ever has been directed toward SEO companies' practices in helping their clients' websites climb to the top of the search engines. The Times asked an SEO expert to research why JCPenney held ultra-high online rankings for nearly every category, who later revealed that literally hundreds of unrelated backlinks to irrelevant sites had been deployed to pull JCPenney.com to the top.

Google responded to the Times story by severely penalizing JCPenney's site, and subsequently changed their search engine algorithm. Although the improved Google algorithm initially affected 11.8% of the queries, its changes reward websites with high-quality, original content and links to related content -- and reduce the rankings of poor-quality sites with unrelated backlinks generated by link farms. This is great news for Rostin Ventures' clients, because that's precisely what we do: As part of our White-Hat strategy for bringing relevance and high online visibility for our clients, we produce quality online content and blogs with industry-related content that links to other industry-relevant sites."

Twenty years ago, negative press rarely gained traction. If a disgruntled customer or an irritated employee wanted to vent their frustrations, they were limited to writing letters to newspapers and magazines. Both were forgotten by the time new editions hit the store shelves. The Internet changed everything.

Today, social media profiles, blog and forum posts, and entire websites devoted to publishing negative commentary about others, remain online. They gain traction in Google, YouTube, Yahoo, and Bing, Facebook, Wordpress, Blogger and thousands of other social platforms and online sites. Once they do, they can gain momentum in your market. This is the core reason to maintain an online reputation management strategy.

By vigilantly monitoring every mention of your company’s name, you can identify issues that threaten to tarnish your reputation. If you discover a public relations disaster in the making, you can immediately respond. You might decide to open a dialogue to present the facts. Or, you might launch a reverse SEO campaign to remove bad press from the search engines. The goal of online reputation management is to prevent negative commentary from gaining momentum.

There has never been a greater need for using best practices in SEO for online reputation management. Angry customers, annoyed employees, and even disingenuous competitors can spread damaging rumors about you and your company with a few clicks. If the bad publicity gains traction in the search engines, it can spread quickly. Online reputation management is the most effective solution for controlling the message.

We asked a question on Linked In:  See what others are saying about using best practices in SEO consulting for online brand management.

How important is SEO to Online Reputation and Brand Management in Public Relations Online?

Online reputation management begins with proactive public relations strategy. What is your company doing to proactively manage public relations brand strategy within search engine results pages?

Online reputation management (ORM) is a multi-faceted strategy that assists brands and individuals in preserving their integrity online. It is a proactive public relations strategy.  It includes monitoring every mention of your company and evaluating whether any mention poses a potential problem. ORM also includes building a strategy to address issues before they can escalate and impact your public relations online.

This article will explain the reasons online reputation management is a critical component of your overall SEM campaign. You’ll learn the basics of online brand management and how reverse search engine optimization plays a key role in suppressing bad publicity. We’ll also describe the process of determining whether a given negative comment or blog post requires a response. Lastly, we’ll provide a short list of important tools should you decide to do online reputation management on your own.

Why You Need Online Reputation Management

Twenty years ago, negative press rarely gained traction. If a disgruntled customer or an irritated employee wanted to vent their frustrations, they were limited to writing letters to newspapers and magazines. Both were forgotten by the time new editions hit the store shelves. The Internet changed everything.

Today, social media profiles, blog and forum posts, and entire websites devoted to publishing negative commentary about others, remain online. They gain traction in Google, YouTube, Yahoo, and Bing, Facebook, Wordpress, Blogger and thousands of other social platforms and online sites.  Once they do, they can gain momentum in your market. This is the core reason to maintain an online reputation management strategy.

By vigilantly monitoring every mention of your company’s name, you can identify issues that threaten to tarnish your reputation. If you discover a public relations disaster in the making, you can immediately respond. You might decide to open a dialogue to present the facts. Or, you might launch a reverse SEO campaign to remove bad press from the search engines. The goal of online reputation management is to prevent negative commentary from gaining momentum.

Basics Of Online Reputation Management

Your online reputation management program should include several tactics to prevent public relations problems. Reverse search engine optimization can remove damaging press from the first page of the natural listings. Once that negative commentary has been pushed onto the second, third, and fourth pages, few people will see it.

Online reputation SEO will help you control the top listings for keywords that are directly related to you and your company. This strategy dovetails with your reverse SEO campaign. As damaging publicity is pushed from Google’s first page, online reputation SEO places the top position in your control. That prevents negative press from gaining exposure in the future.
Consistent monitoring is critical to your online reputation management program. You should track mentions of your name and that of key employees, your company, brand, and products. This is the most effective way to quell potential problems before they can gain traction in the search engines within your market.

Online Reputation Management: Addressing Problems

So, what should you do in the event that someone posts a damaging account about you or your company? It’s important to realize that not every occurrence of negative press requires a personal response. For example, if you enjoy a stellar reputation within your market, others may come to your defense. In some cases, it will be impossible to satisfy the disgruntled party; a response will only ignite the spark, giving momentum to something that was best left ignored.

Your online reputation management campaign should include a process through which you determine if the accusation or bad press in question is accurate. If so, is there an opportunity to engage the accuser and present the facts in a way that avoids exacerbating the situation? If that is not possible, using reverse SEO  may offer the best solution.

Important Tools For Online Reputation Management

There are dozens of tools that you can use to handle your own online reputation management campaign. For monitoring forums, blogs, social media sites, and other properties, you can use Google and Yahoo alerts. You should also subscribe to RSS feeds from Technorati, BlogPulse, and FeedBurner (currently in Google’s stable of tools). Because Twitter is so popular, you should also subscribe to tools that monitor Tweets (e.g. TweetBleep, TweetLater, etc.).

Search engine optimization is an essential part of online reputation management. To that end, you should incorporate tools for content syndication, keyword analysis, and link-building. While you can perform SEO on your own, be aware that the ranking algorithms used by Google, Yahoo, and Bing are continually growing in complexity.

Protect Yourself With Online Reputation Management

There has never been a greater need for online reputation management. Angry customers, annoyed employees, and even disingenuous competitors can spread damaging rumors about you and your company with a few clicks. If the bad publicity gains traction in the search engines, it can spread quickly. Online reputation management is the most effective solution for controlling the message. The question is, are you using it?

Reverse SEO is becoming both easier and more difficult for people managing a personal brand.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art of getting your name to appear at the top of the search engine rankings, while reverse SEO pushes other results off the first page.

Occasionally, something not very flattering appears at the top of the search results, and it becomes necessary to push those rankings out of sight. That's what reverse SEO does.

Let's say someone takes a shot at your speaking ability after you speak at a conference. Normally you're on your game, but that day just wasn't great. Plus that guy wasn't too happy when you said you wouldn't take requests. But his negative blog post about how you wouldn't sing "Swinging on a Star" is now ranking #3 on Google. This is where reverse SEO comes in handy.

You can push that search result out of sight just by adding more content with your name on it to the search indexes. Reverse SEO basically means you're going to optimize more positive things in order to push the negative down.

Last summer, reverse SEO just involved putting content up on a website, blog, or forum discussion. Facebook and LinkedIn were also searchable, so if you were to put up some great content on those two sites (and no, Mafia War scores on Facebook don't count), you could easily reverse SEO your way out of a jam.

But here's where it gets easier. Google and Bing have announced partnerships and plans with social media tools like Twitter, as well as indexing things like Picasa and Flickr photos, YouTube videos, and other social networks.

Now, rather than putting up several blog posts (which we still recommend, since they're a little more evergreen than tweets and Flickr photos), you can tweet, upload photos and videos, and add some additional fun content that will reverse SEO your negative review off the front page.

But it's still important to continue to use some of the more text-heavy tools, like Blogger, WordPress, and Squidoo, to help create content. If you get a negative review, use your blog to counter it, but don't respond to it. Your reverse SEO efforts will fail if all you end up doing is drawing attention to the thing you're trying to hide in the first place.

(Because nothing will cause a reverse SEO campaign to backfire like "So some big jerk said I was a bad speaker and he gave me a negative review. Here's a link to his blog post, followed by a 27-point rebuttal.")

Instead, if you got a negative review for your presentation, talk about upcoming presentations. Reprise the talks you gave, and publish some of the tips and ideas you discussed. Talk about lessons you have learned in the past from "other" presentations where you didn't do so well.

Another way you can combine your blogging and social media in your reverse SEO campaign is to promote your blog posts through your different social networks. Use Twitter to tell your followers. Connect your blog through Networked Blogs on Facebook. Post your new article and a link on LinkedIn's status update window. Since these three tools appear in search engine results, not only will they add backlinks to your blog posts, but they're searchable as well.

Video SEO can be an important part of reverse SEO. As we've discussed in other blog posts, video SEO can be a little tricky. You need to make sure your target keywords appear in your titles and any surrounding text, and try to include an edited transcript of the video.

Reverse SEO is a necessity in public relations online, given the recent search engine integration of social media comments within search engine results pages. Reverse SEO is an online reputation management (ORM) strategy. It protects companies and notable individuals from negative publicity and rumors that can circulate quickly online. Left unattended, this bad press can find a permanent home within the natural listings of the search engines.

Blogs, forums, and social networking sites have given millions of people the ability to publish their thoughts on a global stage. What's more, they can do so instantly and anonymously. Many companies have discovered that these community-based platforms can attract a groundswell of attention. If bad press gains momentum on such sites, reverse SEO becomes the only cost-effective way to control it in the search engines.

The search engines have given social media and community sites a bump in ranking authority. These sites tend to rank well in Google, Bing and Yahoo. If a company or individual becomes the target of false rumors or negative publicity posted on these sites, the damage to online reputation can be substantial.

Therefore, a growing number of companies are launching reverse search engine optimization campaigns. Reverse SEO can push the bad press off the first page of search listings. Because few people explore past the first page, few will see the negative publicity.

Reverse SEO is an effective strategy for suppressing negative publicity about a company within the search results. However, once the bad press takes root, it begins to cement its position. As a result, it become more difficult to remove.

The grounded information is based on the age and number of inbound links. The longer a page stays within the index, the more authority it receives from the search engine. Meanwhile, the more exposure it receives, the more inbound links it attracts. Those links further strengthen its position. Reverse SEO techniques can push negative publicity from the first page of organic listings. But, it requires time and effort to knock entrenched pages from their ranking.

It is easier than ever for embittered employees, irritated customers, and deceitful competitors to post bad press online. If the sites on which they publish their thoughts gain traction in Google, Yahoo, and Bing, it will become more difficult to remove them. Public Relations Experts are incorporating Reverse SEO into campaign strategy to prevent negative publicity in search engines.

Reverse SEO manages your online reputation, pushing the negative information down in search engine results. Manage your online reputation with these proven techniques of these Reverse SEO Management pros. Online reputation management (ORM) was created to help business owners and professionals deal with bad press. Countless companies – large and small – have found themselves on the receiving end of negative publicity. When it is posted online, it can spread quickly. The size of your business has little influence on the devastating effect of such feedback. Online reputation management curbs the impact of bad publicity in search engine results. It allows you to control information about you. Rostin Ventures, http://www.rostinventures.com, Reverse SEO Experts in SEO Consulting and Public Relations Online