Cleaning up your online reputation is possible, but it’s something that doesn’t happen overnight. As we’ve mentioned, the first step is to perform an audit of your online reputation to understand the specific search results that are positive, negative, and irrelevant. After you understand where you stand, it’s a matter of improving and increasing the number of positive results so that any negative results are less relevant, as well as dealing with any irrelevant results.
What if you find “bad” or irrelevant results? Many people erroneously believe that the best approach is to contact the offending website and ask them to remove the result; however, this rarely works and can even inflame the situation. One strategy that may yield results is to optimize any owned or earned media channels featuring positive content. Many individuals and businesses choose to work with a personal reputation management firm like Blue Ocean Global Technology to monitor and optimize their online reputation.