SEO
Reputation Management SEO: A Beginner’s Guide
All forms of marketing play a part in good brand management.
Using the same tone of voice throughout your ads and emails, and choosing the same photo assets for your website as your billboards, contribute to the picture that is painted when a customer considers your product or service.
Sometimes, however, your brand might be in receipt of some negative press or reviews that can alter the way it is seen.
If a potential customer wants to know if your business is reputable they will likely search for you online.
Visiting your website isn’t enough and they’ll want more objective feedback.
So, online reputation management is critical.
It is the process of shaping and controlling the narrative around your brand online.
SEO is an important step to consider in that process.
Why Is Online Reputation Management Important?
Research into a brand, product, or service often begins online with a search.
Your website is likely to only be one or two of the results brought up when someone searches for your brand.
All those other search results will potentially be saying something about your brand that might not be as favorable as you would like.
For Corporate Brands
Negative reviews happen.
Unfavorable comparisons about your product and a competitor can be made by an objective third party.
Bad press can be high ranking.
If you aren’t actively monitoring what appears at the top of the search results for your branded keywords then you could be missing out on the opportunity to spot potential reputation issues.
Once a news story starts circulating about your company, or even incorrect information is added to a third party website, it can be hard to repair the damage to your brand.
It is important that your brand’s message is what’s seen on the first page of the SERPs.
Proactively working on your online reputation management can put you in a strong position to correct misinformation or outrank unfavorable content.
Our Personal Brand
This all applies to your personal brand as well as your corporate one.
You need to make sure that the information available online paints a positive picture.
We’re all getting very good at portraying ourselves positively on social media.
Photoshopping images, curating our life highlights, and only sharing information that paints us in a positive light.
Employers and recruiters are increasingly visiting social media profiles when considering candidates for a job.
But what about when someone searches your name.
What comes up on the first page of the SERPs?
How to Carry Out SEO for Online Reputation Management
I’m not going to tell you how to get your website to rank for your brand term, just that you need to.
That can be particularly tricky if your brand name is a word that means something in your or another language.
It can be especially difficult if your brand name isn’t that unique.
You do want to be ranking as close to position one as possible for your brand name, however.
This way, the first result (excluding paid results) for your brand name is a property that you control.
That said, you want positions two, three, four, and five to be properties you own, too.
1. Control the Front Page
Wherever possible the first five or so top-ranking results for your brand should be controlled by you.
Your website, any other digital properties you host, and your social media pages.
If a potential customer is looking for information on your brand you want to be maintaining the information they read.
This means taking advantage of the prominent social media sites in your region.
Set up a branded Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter profiles.
Social media sites are hugely authoritative and will rank highly for most branded search queries.
Don’t just settle for a social media presence though.
Set your company up with a profile on review sites, industry comparison sites.
Essentially, any property outside of your direct ownership that you can still have some say over the content of.
2. Be Active on Social Media & Review Sites
Setting yourself up on social media and review sites does come with risk.
People will comment, reviews will be left.
They will not all be favorable.
However, even if you do not have an official Twitter handle or a company created Glassdoor page doesn’t mean competitors or disgruntled employees won’t be talking about your company anyway.
You might just have less visibility of it.
Make sure you are responding to comments, positive and negative.
A negative Twitter comment might well be returned in a Google search for your brand.
Keep your company active on social media and review sites both to address any negative comments but also to keep them off the front page of Google.
3. Set up a Google My Business Listing
This is another area of the branded search results you can own.
Your Google My Business listing could well be the first result a user sees when searching for your brand.
Around festive holidays, or even during the COVID-19 restrictions, your opening hours or availability of your office might change.
Google My Business is the perfect place to keep that information updated.
If you don’t have a Google My Business listing then a search for “[your brand] opening hours” might pull information from a website that hasn’t been updated.
Google Posts
Another benefit to a Google My Business profile for reputation management is Google Posts.
Posts are small snippets of content that will appear directly on your Google My Business listing.
They allow your brand to inject timely offers, articles, or updates straight into the Google search results without having to battle the ranking algorithm or waiting for indexing.
If you are in need of some reactive PR or want to promote something quickly, this is an effective way to do that.
Reviews
A Google My Business listing does bring with it the potential for reviews of your brand to appear at the top of the SERPs.
If a user leaves a review on your Google My Business profile there is little that can be done to remove it.
It would need to contravene Google’s review guidelines in some way and even then there is no guarantee it will be ruled by Google as such.
Good reputation management is about effectively dealing with negative attention as much as positive.
A negative review can be responded to on Google My Business giving your brand the opportunity to turn a negative experience into a positive one.
Questions & Answers
Google My Business also features a Q&A section where the public can submit questions to your profile.
The main issue with this is, the public can also answer those questions.
This is a good opportunity to understand what your target audience is interested in knowing but it is a very public way to find out.
It is crucial that you stay on top of any questions asked so you can ensure the answer is accurate.
There is nothing to stop a well-meaning (or ill-intending) member of the public from answering a question and it being wrong.
Ensure you are managing your online reputation well by keeping an eye on this corner of the SERPs.
4. Create Content Around Potentially Negative Keywords
Brand searches will often yield a series of People Also Asked (PAA) search prompts.
The PAA results are a goldmine of information for your reputation management keyword analysis.
These prompts can cause searches to consider questions about the brand they may never have asked.
For instance, based in the UK, I have little exposure or understanding of the brand Walmart.
However, searching the keyword “Walmart” produces these PAAs.
Prior to seeing this PAA, I would not have known that some people may consider it a bad idea to buy clothes from the brand.
I do now.
Not only is the question “is it bad to buy clothes from Walmart?” off-putting for someone who doesn’t know much about the store, the search result it features is even worse.
Other common PAAs that will appear for brand searches include “is [brand] legit?”, “is [brand] a scam?” and “can I cancel [brand] subscription?”
Your potential customer might not have any reason to consider your brand a scam, but seeing those questions that have been searched by others may raise that concern.
Check the PAAs that appear for your brand.
If they are even slightly negative you need to ensure you are ranking as the featured snippet for them to counter that notion.
5. Be Newsworthy for the Right Reasons
If you are trying to bury a high-ranking negative news article that is grounded in fact, many will have little sympathy for you.
Instead, work on being newsworthy for the right reasons.
Gain press about your charitable giving, your encouragement of local teams, or your work to protect the environment.
Focus on digital PR for PR’s sake, even if all you get is a brand mention.
If it is on a high authority website it might be enough to outrank review sites, comparison sites, and other more dangerous properties for your brand terms.
The key is stacking the front page with positive commentary of your brand beyond the properties you have direct control over.
Set up a Brand Alert
Using Google Alerts or other brand mention monitoring tools keep an eye out for when you’re mentioned online.
It may be that a journalist, or reviewer, will be amenable to hearing your side of a negative story.
It might simply be that your company opening hours have been misreported or other inaccuracies stated.
That alert could give you the opportunity to correct misinformation or damaging accusation before it is too widely read.
6. It’s Not All About Google
Don’t forget that there are other search engines aside from Google.
Make sure you are following these steps for those search engines too.
Set up a Bing Places listing and monitor the first page of DuckDuckGo for your brand phrases.
If there is the potential for your brand to be searched in a different search engine, it is critical that you are managing your reputation there.
Author/Image Credits
All screenshots taken by author, October 2020
SEO
brightonSEO Live Blog
Hello everyone. It’s April again, so I’m back in Brighton for another two days of Being the introvert I am, my idea of fun isn’t hanging around our booth all day explaining we’ve run out of t-shirts (seriously, you need to be fast if you want swag!). So I decided to do something useful and live-blog the event instead.
Follow below for talk takeaways and (very) mildly humorous commentary. sun, sea, and SEO!
SEO
Google Further Postpones Third-Party Cookie Deprecation In Chrome
Google has again delayed its plan to phase out third-party cookies in the Chrome web browser. The latest postponement comes after ongoing challenges in reconciling feedback from industry stakeholders and regulators.
The announcement was made in Google and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) joint quarterly report on the Privacy Sandbox initiative, scheduled for release on April 26.
Chrome’s Third-Party Cookie Phaseout Pushed To 2025
Google states it “will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4” this year as planned.
Instead, the tech giant aims to begin deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome “starting early next year,” assuming an agreement can be reached with the CMA and the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
The statement reads:
“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence, including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June.”
Continued Engagement With Regulators
Google reiterated its commitment to “engaging closely with the CMA and ICO” throughout the process and hopes to conclude discussions this year.
This marks the third delay to Google’s plan to deprecate third-party cookies, initially aiming for a Q3 2023 phaseout before pushing it back to late 2024.
The postponements reflect the challenges in transitioning away from cross-site user tracking while balancing privacy and advertiser interests.
Transition Period & Impact
In January, Chrome began restricting third-party cookie access for 1% of users globally. This percentage was expected to gradually increase until 100% of users were covered by Q3 2024.
However, the latest delay gives websites and services more time to migrate away from third-party cookie dependencies through Google’s limited “deprecation trials” program.
The trials offer temporary cookie access extensions until December 27, 2024, for non-advertising use cases that can demonstrate direct user impact and functional breakage.
While easing the transition, the trials have strict eligibility rules. Advertising-related services are ineligible, and origins matching known ad-related domains are rejected.
Google states the program aims to address functional issues rather than relieve general data collection inconveniences.
Publisher & Advertiser Implications
The repeated delays highlight the potential disruption for digital publishers and advertisers relying on third-party cookie tracking.
Industry groups have raised concerns that restricting cross-site tracking could push websites toward more opaque privacy-invasive practices.
However, privacy advocates view the phaseout as crucial in preventing covert user profiling across the web.
With the latest postponement, all parties have more time to prepare for the eventual loss of third-party cookies and adopt Google’s proposed Privacy Sandbox APIs as replacements.
Featured Image: Novikov Aleksey/Shutterstock
SEO
How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results
ChatGPT is a game changer in the field of SEO. This powerful language model can generate human-like content, making it an invaluable tool for SEO professionals.
However, the prompts you provide largely determine the quality of the output.
To unlock the full potential of ChatGPT and create content that resonates with your audience and search engines, writing effective prompts is crucial.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the art of writing prompts for ChatGPT, covering everything from basic techniques to advanced strategies for layering prompts and generating high-quality, SEO-friendly content.
Writing Prompts For ChatGPT
What Is A ChatGPT Prompt?
A ChatGPT prompt is an instruction or discussion topic a user provides for the ChatGPT AI model to respond to.
The prompt can be a question, statement, or any other stimulus to spark creativity, reflection, or engagement.
Users can use the prompt to generate ideas, share their thoughts, or start a conversation.
ChatGPT prompts are designed to be open-ended and can be customized based on the user’s preferences and interests.
How To Write Prompts For ChatGPT
Start by giving ChatGPT a writing prompt, such as, “Write a short story about a person who discovers they have a superpower.”
ChatGPT will then generate a response based on your prompt. Depending on the prompt’s complexity and the level of detail you requested, the answer may be a few sentences or several paragraphs long.
Use the ChatGPT-generated response as a starting point for your writing. You can take the ideas and concepts presented in the answer and expand upon them, adding your own unique spin to the story.
If you want to generate additional ideas, try asking ChatGPT follow-up questions related to your original prompt.
For example, you could ask, “What challenges might the person face in exploring their newfound superpower?” Or, “How might the person’s relationships with others be affected by their superpower?”
Remember that ChatGPT’s answers are generated by artificial intelligence and may not always be perfect or exactly what you want.
However, they can still be a great source of inspiration and help you start writing.
Must-Have GPTs Assistant
I recommend installing the WebBrowser Assistant created by the OpenAI Team. This tool allows you to add relevant Bing results to your ChatGPT prompts.
This assistant adds the first web results to your ChatGPT prompts for more accurate and up-to-date conversations.
It is very easy to install in only two clicks. (Click on Start Chat.)
For example, if I ask, “Who is Vincent Terrasi?,” ChatGPT has no answer.
With WebBrower Assistant, the assistant creates a new prompt with the first Bing results, and now ChatGPT knows who Vincent Terrasi is.
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023You can test other GPT assistants available in the GPTs search engine if you want to use Google results.
Master Reverse Prompt Engineering
ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for reverse engineering prompts because it generates natural and engaging responses to any given input.
By analyzing the prompts generated by ChatGPT, it is possible to gain insight into the model’s underlying thought processes and decision-making strategies.
One key benefit of using ChatGPT to reverse engineer prompts is that the model is highly transparent in its decision-making.
This means that the reasoning and logic behind each response can be traced, making it easier to understand how the model arrives at its conclusions.
Once you’ve done this a few times for different types of content, you’ll gain insight into crafting more effective prompts.
Prepare Your ChatGPT For Generating Prompts
First, activate the reverse prompt engineering.
- Type the following prompt: “Enable Reverse Prompt Engineering? By Reverse Prompt Engineering I mean creating a prompt from a given text.”
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023ChatGPT is now ready to generate your prompt. You can test the product description in a new chatbot session and evaluate the generated prompt.
- Type: “Create a very technical reverse prompt engineering template for a product description about iPhone 11.”
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023The result is amazing. You can test with a full text that you want to reproduce. Here is an example of a prompt for selling a Kindle on Amazon.
- Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {product), capture the writing style and the length of the text :
product =”
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023I tested it on an SEJ blog post. Enjoy the analysis – it is excellent.
- Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {text}, capture the tone and writing style of the {text} to include in the prompt :
text = all text coming from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-bard-training-data/478941/”
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023But be careful not to use ChatGPT to generate your texts. It is just a personal assistant.
Go Deeper
Prompts and examples for SEO:
- Keyword research and content ideas prompt: “Provide a list of 20 long-tail keyword ideas related to ‘local SEO strategies’ along with brief content topic descriptions for each keyword.”
- Optimizing content for featured snippets prompt: “Write a 40-50 word paragraph optimized for the query ‘what is the featured snippet in Google search’ that could potentially earn the featured snippet.”
- Creating meta descriptions prompt: “Draft a compelling meta description for the following blog post title: ’10 Technical SEO Factors You Can’t Ignore in 2024′.”
Important Considerations:
- Always Fact-Check: While ChatGPT can be a helpful tool, it’s crucial to remember that it may generate inaccurate or fabricated information. Always verify any facts, statistics, or quotes generated by ChatGPT before incorporating them into your content.
- Maintain Control and Creativity: Use ChatGPT as a tool to assist your writing, not replace it. Don’t rely on it to do your thinking or create content from scratch. Your unique perspective and creativity are essential for producing high-quality, engaging content.
- Iteration is Key: Refine and revise the outputs generated by ChatGPT to ensure they align with your voice, style, and intended message.
Additional Prompts for Rewording and SEO:
– Rewrite this sentence to be more concise and impactful.
– Suggest alternative phrasing for this section to improve clarity.
– Identify opportunities to incorporate relevant internal and external links.
– Analyze the keyword density and suggest improvements for better SEO.
Remember, while ChatGPT can be a valuable tool, it’s essential to use it responsibly and maintain control over your content creation process.
Experiment And Refine Your Prompting Techniques
Writing effective prompts for ChatGPT is an essential skill for any SEO professional who wants to harness the power of AI-generated content.
Hopefully, the insights and examples shared in this article can inspire you and help guide you to crafting stronger prompts that yield high-quality content.
Remember to experiment with layering prompts, iterating on the output, and continually refining your prompting techniques.
This will help you stay ahead of the curve in the ever-changing world of SEO.
More resources:
Featured Image: Tapati Rinchumrus/Shutterstock
19 Best SEO Tools in 2024 (For Every Use Case)
Ecommerce evolution: Blurring the lines between B2B and B2C
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 19, 2024
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 18, 2024
How to Make $5000 of Passive Income Every Month in WordPress
2024 WordPress Vulnerability Report Shows Errors Sites Keep Making
10 Amazing WordPress Design Resouces – WordPress.com News
25 WordPress Alternatives Best For SEO
7 Best WooCommerce Points and Rewards Plugins (Free & Paid)
Battling for Attention in the 2024 Election Year Media Frenzy
-
PPC6 days ago19 Best SEO Tools in 2024 (For Every Use Case)
-
MARKETING7 days agoEcommerce evolution: Blurring the lines between B2B and B2C
-
SEARCHENGINES5 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 19, 2024
-
SEARCHENGINES6 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 18, 2024
-
WORDPRESS6 days agoHow to Make $5000 of Passive Income Every Month in WordPress
-
SEO7 days ago2024 WordPress Vulnerability Report Shows Errors Sites Keep Making
-
WORDPRESS6 days ago10 Amazing WordPress Design Resouces – WordPress.com News
-
SEO6 days ago25 WordPress Alternatives Best For SEO
