The work that online reputation management services do for you is all about making sure you look as good as you possibly can on the internet. Reputation management is no longer a luxury that only the rich can afford, but rather a necessity that everybody has to engage in. The internet is basically a huge soap box where people can say what they want about whom they want, and be heard by the world. You need to make sure, therefore, that they say the right things or, if they say the wrong things, that they aren’t listened to.
Suppressing and Removing Negative Information
If at all possible, negative information that exists about you should be removed. Unfortunately, this usually means hiring investigators and a legal team, which can be really costly. Some of the factors that will affect what the exact cost is, include:
- The type of websites that the negative content is listed on (.co.uk, .com, .org, and so on).
- How many links of high authority are going to and from the site.
- The country in which the site, or its servers, are based in.
- The type of information that is listed (unwanted images, blogs, links, reviews, and so on).
Removal is often very difficult and sometimes impossible due to free speech. This is where suppression comes in, however, which is a form of search engine optimization (SEO). Good SEO can cost between $2,000 and $10,000 per month. However, that is full SEO. If you are only looking for suppression SEO, then the cost will depend on:
- What your online identity is.
- How much needs to be cleaned up.
- How much existing positive content can be leveraged.
- What your current social media presence is.
Steps for Suppression
Suppression is the most commonly used tool when it comes to managing an online reputation and removing negative content. Exactly how it is done depends on what your personal needs are. However, most commonly, it involves:
- The creation of professional content, including social media bios, blog posts, and articles that are fully optimized and make you look positive.
- A social media and website build out, which means that you will need to start a website and launch various social media sites. These will then be populated with relevant, positive information.
- Maintenance and monitoring of your online reputation, which means that your reputation management company will keep tracking what is being said about you, so that any new negative things can be addressed as soon as they appear.
How intensive each of these things have to be will make the price vary greatly as well. A few other factors of importance include:
- Whether you are recovering from a crisis.
- The current status of your reputation.
- Whether you can provide access to websites and social media profiles.
- The reach of your website and domain.
- The authority of your domain and page.
- How quickly you want to see results.
- How many links are involved in it.
- Whether you already have positive content that can be used.