April 7th, 2010 by Dan

Also known as online reputation management, SERM is usually offered under the umbrella of search engine optimisation services. As with SEO, it uses a number of tools, one of which is online directories.

A negative search engine listing can do untold damage to a company’s reputation, so an SEO company offering SERM will usually look at why your site got a negative listing, before looking at ways of getting that listing changed or taken down. Unless there’s a clear-cut case of libel this isn’t always possible, so it’s usually quicker and easier to look at ways of repairing the damage instead.

The first thing an online reputation management company will do is look for positive search engine reputation listings, i.e. those that show you and your company in a good light. They will then work on placing those results higher, and displacing the negative listings to the second page of the search or beyond. Most browsers don’t go beyond page one when searching for information. This is where directory listings come into focus.

A large number of e-Commerce websites have listings in directories like Business.com, Yahoo or the Open Directory Project (Dmoz). An internet directory is simply a list of websites organised in categories to make searches easier. The problem is that each site is mixed in with hundreds, perhaps thousands of others. Also, unless the directory is a very specialised one, the page title will be the name of the category. The HTML of a page is one of the strongest elements in search engine optimization, making the listing basically useless. To improve its online reputation, what a site will need is a page of its own, with a title that SEO services can have some kind of influence on.

As a rule you won’t be able to use keywords for the title of your page (unless your company name is a keyphrase, of course). The leading directories have an internet reputation management strategy of their own, and won’t want to compromise this. Instead, you’ll generally be offered a listing under your company name. In the case of a sole trader this may be your legal name, or the DBA (Doing Business As) alternative, i.e. your trading name.

At this point, a search engine optimization company will look very carefully at the niche their client is in, and look for vertical directories covering that specific area. A vertical directory is one that provides in-depth listings for a niche category, rather than thousands of non-specific listings. As a comparison, Dmoz is an open-content site with a high incidence of spamming and favouritism among editors. Although it is widely used by e-Commerce sites, often the first advice internet reputation management firms offer them is to get the listing taken down.

Vertical directories are very useful. They don’t have to be tied to an exact area of expertise. For example, if the company has a physical as well as virtual presence, an online reputation management company may suggest a local directory listing to improve SEO rankings.

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