Of course, no one wants their reputation to be damaged or tampered with. These are the times when you simply can’t bear the damaged reputation. Whether you are a company or an individual, your online reputation matters and becomes your business card when you are out there representing yourself.
Is it really true that you can repair your online reputation?
The answer is yes, you can. However, if someone is telling you that you can get your online reputation repaired within weeks, then you better run away as quickly as you can. The scammers will pitch you ideas that really attract however, there is no justification for those crazy ideas.
Google normally recognizes changes to an indexed site within 2-6 weeks. And, we are talking about indexed sites and the sites that are already updated on a regular basis. There’s no overnight success when it comes to repairing your damaged reputation.
Above all, repairing your online reputation depends on so many factors that you can’t even count if you have not formed a strategy yet. There are various online reputation management agencies and individuals who will say anything to get business and they will leave you with more problems to deal with. So, if you have accidentally contacted them, then beware of them. You can’t achieve overnight success when it comes to repairing your online reputation.
The time, in these cases, is relative. It depends on many factors including the number of negative search results, the authority of negative search results, and how old they are. We will be sharing every single detail that will help you restore your reputation. You just have to understand the process so you don’t end up increasing difficulties for yourself.
What counts as a damaged reputation?
Before we get into how you can restore your online reputation, you must understand what counts as a damaged reputation. There are things that will leave you with no choice and we don’t want to go there just yet. If your reputation is tampered with and you are finding it difficult to get business or a job, then you can certainly do something about it.
You need to understand that Google’s first page acts as your business card. Whether you are an individual or a business, the rankings on the first page of Google are going to decide whether you are getting business or not.
If there’s been news about you involved in fraud as a high-end individual, then you will probably face the consequences and your reputation is damaged. At this point, you can’t hold business meetings as your profile is visible to everyone and you are done for the moment. You need to restore your reputation before it gets too late.
The same is the case with companies and brands. You can’t simply ignore the voice of the customer. If there is a negative review about the products or services you have offered, then you are going to witness a sudden decline in your sales. In such situations, you will have to build a counter-strategy.
How damaged reputation effects you?
The effects of a damaged reputation will be unknown as it depends on where you were standing before your reputation is damaged. In the case of small businesses, you are going to see the sales graph going down.
In the case of an individual, you may get fired from the current job or it is possible that your license is also canceled if you are offering public services. The effects of damaged reputation are not only calculated in monetary terms. The reputation is all that you have worked for up till now. If you ever decide to leave a job or start something else, then your reputation is the real material thing you will carry to your new endeavors.
A damaged reputation will leave you depressed and as long as it stays out there, you will find yourself in a pit that you can’t crawl back out of. So, if there is something happened that has damaged your online reputation, then you must act as quickly as possible.
While we are on the subject, let’s help you understand the value of time in these specific cases. Once again, overnight success is not possible and you can’t just restore your reputation within a few days.
How long will it take to restore your online reputation?
That’s the question you will get many answers for. This is where you can end up in the hands of scammers so you should understand how reputation management strategies work.
There is apparently no time limit when it comes to repairing a damaged online reputation. The reason is that every case is different and it depends on various factors. We are going to discuss all those factors that will help you understand the time consumption when doing reputation repair.
Google Indexing algorithm is in play here and you can’t just assume when it is going to work for you. It depends on the factors listed below:
- The number of negative search results
- The authority of negative links
- How long they have been out there
- What strategy are you going to use for suppression
- Much more
To understand the time it will take to repair your damaged reputation, we have created a few examples that will help you understand it in a better way.
Time is relative (Examples)
Let’s assume that there are two individuals who are suffering from a damaged reputation. Both the cases are very different from each other and that’s why the time span for repairing their reputation is going to be entirely different.
Example 1:
The first individual is a CEO of a company whose reputation is tampered with by the allegations related to fraud.
In his case, the negatives appearing in the search results are very old, a few years old. He has three negative search results that he wishes to suppress and all the links have average domain authority. These search results are apparently in the middle of the first page of Google and some of the negatives have lengthy content. Another favorable thing for this individual is that there is no link to these negative results. Now, we are going to discuss the time it will take to solve this problem.
Solution:
As we know that the latest and updated content has a better chance to rank on search engines so we have an edge in this particular case. His negatives are a few years old and if the right strategy is used for him, then his case can be resolved easily as compared to others. His perfect strategy should be creating long and in-depth content to overcome lengthy negative content that is already out there.
However, it isn’t as easy as it seems. There are three links that he has to deal with and coming up with lengthy content using the right strategies will take time. Ideally, he should continue doing his efforts for 6 months so he can suppress those negative results down to the 4th page of the search engine. More importantly, he should focus on creating the perfect content to get excellent results and the efforts should be continuous.
Example 2:
This is the case of another individual who worked as a project manager in a company and got involved in some conspiracy.
He only has one negative search result which is a news article with 350-400 words. The domain authority of this news site is very high and the negative result has a couple of links as well. Moreover, the article is fairly new in the search results.
Solution:
Some would think that it is only one link and it can be tackled easily but it’s not the case here. You can already see a number of factors at play including the most prominent, ‘high domain authority. Apart from the domain authority, you can see that people have linked to this piece of information and for the Google algorithm, links are very important when it comes to ranking factors.
So, you will have to work on a highly efficient reputation repair strategy to suppress this article. If you were thinking that it will take you only 3-4 months to suppress this, then you are wrong. There is another problem that the information is fairly new and it is ranking with support.
There’s something that may help this individual which is the length of this article. If the right reputation repair strategy is in place, it can be pushed down in 6-8 months. These are the cases that are hard to tackle because of the strong search engine algorithms in play. Ideally, this person should keep 8 months mark in his mind when starting a repair process.
What is a perfect Reputation Repair Strategy?
The online reputation management or repair strategy is something that should be crafted carefully. It is something that will save you time and trouble. The first phase is assessment. Once you have done the assessment, you can then easily craft a reputation repair strategy that will actually work.
Assess the damage
We have already shared a few examples above that will help you get an idea of the damaged reputation cases. The first thing that you will have to do is to assess what you are dealing with. You need to assess the severity of the damage done to your online reputation.
It includes determining the number of negatives appearing in the search results, the domain authority of those articles, the content strength of those articles, and how recent those links are.
Once you have done the assessment, your action plan becomes a lot easier. You will then think about how you can control your reputation. Here is what you are going to do next.
Building a strong base
You now have to start with the basics. The basics will be empowering your every social media profile. As long as your social media profiles are strong, you will keep ranking. However, it is not only about social media platforms that we usually use. For personal reputation management and branding, you will have to use platforms that professionals use.
Linkedin is one of the best platforms out there for improving your reputation. It’s not only about creating profiles, it is about maintaining them and publishing regularly. A strong base is going to solve half of your problems.
Building a strong base means, you will have to create a professional-looking website that you will update on a regular basis. Your professional website is going to play a huge role in restoring your online reputation.
Without covering the basics and creating a strong foundation, it will become impossible to tackle negative links. And, your personal online properties will take time to become authoritative. This is the phase that will take a lot of time and people end up in frustration during this phase. If you want to take complete control over your online reputation, you will have to go through these steps.
Getting rid of negatives that you can control
You can do this along with building a strong foundation. If you think that the negative information spread online is false and they are just allegations with no proof, then you have a chance to reach out to these sites and ask them to take down or correct their facts.
There are various factors that count when it comes to unwanted search results. You should know that more than 80% of employers use social media and online screening tools to check the background of a potential employee.
When you wish to take control of your online image, you need to eradicate all the unwanted results. These include the pictures of yourself taken years ago circling around the internet. If you have access to those images or pieces of information, then it is time to remove them.
These steps will play a vital role when it comes to taking control of your online image. By deleting unwanted pictures and articles that you have control over, you can head in the right direction.
Building positive image
Once you are done with the two basic steps, you will now start pushing things forward. You need to build credibility using all the resources that you have created so far. It means you will start talking about positive things and start working on building an audience.
Every online asset should become an authority to search engine. To reach that level, you must focus on building an audience and growing yourself as a brand. To build credibility, you can take the help of influencers and other professionals.
You simply can’t ignore the power of influencers in this era. You can find influencers on every platform for endorsements. However, you must be doing something good and exceptional to get their attention. You can’t just feed search engines all the positive information about yourself. To get real results, you will have to focus on user engagement. If you are engaging users with the help of your content, then it will become a lot easier for you to establish credibility online.
Focus on growing your positive image
At this point, you would have already achieved a lot of success. Even if you have managed to repair the damaged reputation, you must focus on growing your positive image. You must know that if you stop working on growing your positive image, the negatives can crawl back up to the place where they were. It is extremely important to continue your efforts to maintain and manage your online reputation.
To do so, you will have to continue all the practices that you have been doing. Make sure to continue creating excellent and high-quality content that helped you do better in the first place. At this point, you need to do something different regardless of what you have been doing all along.
Now, it is time to declare scholarships by your name, create new jobs, do mentorship, find writing opportunities, and promotions. Once you focus on growing your online image using all the advanced tactics, you will be able to improve your reputation that will be very hard to tamper with again.
Reputation management and reputation repair come with various tactics and strategies. However, burying the negative search results is the only strategy that works long term. If you wish to gain control of your online reputation, then the only way to increase your chances is by suppressing negative results. You just have to bury them so you can continue living with a positive online reputation.
