Friday, February 15, 2013

How Long Will Reputation Management Take?

By Mike Munter
The first question most individuals ask me when we discuss their situation is, "How long will reputation management take to get results?"

The short answer is that it could take anywhere from 3-9 months, although we've seen results happen quicker and we've also seen them take longer.

Factors Affecting The Timeline For Reputation Management


The length of time it takes to push down your negative listing(s) depends on several factors.

#1 - Strength of website(s) we are trying to push down.

affordable reputation management takes longer on news sites

A disparaging story about you or your business that's been published on a strong, authoritative website is going to take much longer than an article or mention of you on a less powerful site.

For example, pushing down a negative listing about you that appears on a news site will take longer than pushing down an errant "tweet" someone posted about your business on their Twitter account.

The reason is that Google puts a high degree of trust into most news sites, so it is harder to get them to budge.  Learn more about how to determine how strong a website is.

#2 - The number of keyword phrases we are working on.


If the only keyword phrase you need help with is your name, this is going to take less time and money than if you require innoculation against several keywords.

For instance, if your name is Joe Smith and you only need your reputation cleaned up for the search phrase "Joe Smith", this would probably take closer to 3 months.

However, if you have negative listings removed that appear for "joe smith", "joe smith carpet cleaning", "joe smith boise", and "joe smith carpet cleaning boise", this will take longer.

The reason is that each keyword phrase requires its own campaign in order to obtain effective results.

#3 - How far down you want to bury the negative listings.


Some people are happy just moving a negative story or comment about them off of page 1 for their keyword.  Others want it BURIED, deep!

The deeper you want your negative content buried, the more time and work it's going to take.  Each search result in Google requires a piece of content to fill up a slot ABOVE your negative listing.  

So, if you want something buried to page 4 of Google search results, there will need to be at least 3 pages worth of search results X 10 results per page = 30 websites that need to outrank the bad listing.

#4 - How the negative content appears on Google.


This is sort of self explanatory, but if there is a bad news story about your business in the #2 position of Google search results, it will take longer to push it down than if that same story appear in the 8th position.

Also, the number of negative page 1 listings about you and your business can sometimes take a little longer.  Although, we usually base our estimates on how long it we believe it will take to push down the strongest of your negative listings.

Summary

Reputation management takes time depending on the strength of the website that you want to have pushed down, how many keywords you need help with, and how far down you wish to bury the nasty listings about you or your company.

We've seen lots of cases and can give you a general estimate of how long it will take to clean up your reputation, simply by taking a look at your situation.  Just call 503-890-6663 to get an estimate.


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