When a business approaches the online space for the first time all they really have standing behind them is how their audience perceives them as a company online. From what they can gather in the search results your audience will make a number of assumptions for the data that is visible. If you are a business that doesn’t necessarily have a strong following your online image in the search results will have to stay squeaky clean at all times. That means no negative listings and no negative reviews appearing in search results. Your search results should always be filled with clean positive information and data surrounding your business. Don’t get comfortable and think you don’t need it and then one day you get BP’d and have to spend every dollar in your bank account to clean up the PR mess.

Here are some ways you can start building up a wall and strengthen your brand online so that doesn’t happen to you.

Social Media: Right out of the gates social media should be your best friend. Start connecting and communicating showing your audience you have a soul and you actually like to speak with people. I think many companies these days forget that humans actually purchase their products and sometimes we just want a little love. Start a conversation with a stranger in your audience once in a while.

Business Profiles: Each time you build anything online it has the potential to appear in search results. The more business profiles you can build early in the game the longer they will have time to age and anchor themselves in the search results for your company name making it harder for negative press to find its way in.

Press Releases: Start writing and launching press releases on different news worthy announcements going on in your business. Always make sure to put your company name in the title and the first paragraph so it can really start appearing in search results for your business name. This will not only build a nice barrier for any negative press but it also helps out the user experience quite a bit.

Pay Per Click: PPC does not directly help your organic search results but by purchasing a PPC ad for your businesses branded name as a keyword you can help increase the amount of trust you build in your community when they search for your company name. Remember that online reputation is all about building up trust for your community and your audience and every little way is going to help.

Don’t wait until you are caught with your own oil spill and have a reputation management issue on your hands. Prepare for the worst now because once negative press does find its way into your search results it could take twice as much effort to remove it.