The authority and reputation of a brand, good or bad, is not only reflected in its organic search results – they strongly shape it. A healthy, well-performing website, with quality traffic and a positive digital footprint, is a significant business asset. One negative, out-of-control piece of content, a review mishandled by a frustrated employee, or a blog post you wrote in 2008 that has outlived its purpose can quickly erase years of carefully invested brand equity.
This is why modern, and particularly digitally-native or reputation-sensitive organisations – from national brands to state or federal government departments – are turning in ever-greater numbers to the twin capabilities of a search engine optimisation (SEO) expert and online reputation management services to ensure that their digital brand ecosystem is fully under their control and built to withstand whatever the online world might throw at it.
Why SEO expertise matters more than ever
A decade ago, there was a much stronger focus on keywords, rankings and ensuring that sites “SEO’d properly.” Today, SEO is a technical discipline like no other. It is part architect, part content strategist, part user behaviour analyst and part data-driven scientist, all working in harmony.
For mid-large organisations and enterprises, that complexity is magnified tenfold. The more sites, integrations, pages, customer journey maps and touchpoints a business has online, the more difficult it is to not only maintain performance, but even just to know where you should be focusing efforts.
Enter the search engine optimisation expert. In a perfect world, all businesses would have an internal SEO consultant to help them figure out just how to thrive in an organic environment that grows more challenging by the day. In this case, ‘expert’ is truly the operative word. There is an ocean of technical optimisation requirements, from your site architecture and indexation all the way down to schema markup, Core Web Vitals, page speed, mobile considerations, accessibility compliance and more. On top of this sits the strategic elements of any SEO project, from holistic content strategy (targeting not only keywords but users, customers, support journeys and your entire ecosystem) to conversion optimisation, multi-site expansion, multilingual considerations and analytics.
The most impactful search engine optimisation experts combine a focus on tech excellence with broader experience in data analysis, business goals, brand touchpoints and customer journey mapping. SEO is not just a technical checklist or battle of the SERPs – it is an end-to-end approach to ensuring that your digital ecosystem is:
- Technically excellent and future-proof;
- Structurally efficient, well-governed and cohesive;
- Aligned with broader business priorities;
- Delivering for customers not just in conversion, but in user experience and brand equity.
Where SEO meets online reputation management
The Internet is, by its very nature, fickle. A single customer review, an old blog mentioning your company, a disgruntled employee, a change in search results, or even another brand mentioning yours can all impact your results. The job of any online reputation management team, then, is to actively and proactively safeguard your brand’s digital presence.
What that means, though, is ensuring that reputation management becomes not a tactical or even tactical marketing function, but a continuous digital marketing function that sits at the top table alongside SEO, conversion optimisation, data analytics, CRM and other customer-facing and reputation-shaping disciplines.
When it is not handled with forethought and an eye for the long-term, online reputation management can quickly fall into the realm of firefighting. It is only once a reputation management strategy is properly structured, aligned with broader business objectives and connected to the tools that shape what is being said about your brand that it can become truly meaningful. Strong online reputation management should:
- Monitor brand mentions and comments across all online channels:
Google, social media, review sites, industry forums, webchat platforms and relevant business networks and industry websites are just some of the places that should be constantly monitored to get a sense of how your brand is being perceived online.
- Guide reviews professionally, responsively and with a structured voice:
Reviews factor heavily not only in how customers trust your brand, but how search engines see you. This is particularly true for services-based or high-volume public-facing brands.
- Support positive content and messages that build and grow:
Thought leadership, PR outreach, well-moderated case studies and articles or video/audio content that position your brand as an expert can all help to not only surface trusted messages but ‘anchor’ your brand’s most positive digital presence.
- Strategically remove, bury, or otherwise deprioritise content that may pose risks:
In some cases, negative content or legacy mentions may be actionable (e.g. review removal) or removable. In others, they may be out-of-date or irrelevant and may be counterproductive to continue to engage with them in any way. In these cases, ethically deploying suppression strategies may be more effective.
- Underpin communication and reputation during high-impact events or crises:
Organisations in regulated environments, critical state infrastructure, major public-facing companies or those under heavy public scrutiny are all under implicit pressure to remain above board and reputation-intact at all times.
Building a future-proof digital presence
In many ways, a search engine optimisation expert provides the technical intelligence of how to truly maximise organic performance – the acumen of where to place your focus, where to prioritise and what’s needed to truly excel in the organic space. Online reputation management, on the other hand, provides the safety net and strategic guardrails needed to ensure that your brand’s reputation and digital asset value stay intact.
As essential as those two functions might be in isolation, though, in a holistic, brand-aware, forward-thinking and future-proof digital environment, they are table stakes. Only by making both a priority and having the specialists and tech available to make them a reality can an organisation ensure it is future-proofed in a digital world where SEO and search engines more generally are now the true arbiters of organisational success.