We did it again. Surely you remember the post in which we boosted the KW Scarlett Johansson for Forbes, making it climb several positions in the SERP in just 6 hours. Well, in this new case study, our lab has been looking into the online reputation problems that Red Bull was having with media such as The New York Times.
When a brand becomes a hot topic, the information published by the media is beyond its control. And if these pieces of news are negative, they can start to receive visits, be at the top of the SERPs, and be very detrimental to the company’s brand image and its online presence.
You wouldn’t like it to be your case, would you?
This is what recently happened to Red Bull. The Thai energy drink brand is in the media spotlight because of a scandal involving its heir. The grandson of the brand’s founder was charged in 2012 for a fatal hit-and-run. The legal proceedings were closed with all charges dropped last summer but reopened soon after with an international arrest warrant for the heir.
As a result, if you search for ‘Red Bull heir’, the results are plenty of headlines that are very damaging to the brand.
This kind of problems, also on a smaller scale, are the ones that online reputation management attempt to solve. By applying the right SEO techniques, it is possible to privilege the results that most benefit the brand in the users’ searches, and therefore move the most detrimental ones down in the SERPs.
If, for example, your brand has negative reviews or harmful information that is already obsolete, they can be displaced for content that shows the best of you. In this way, the most damaging results would be relegated to marginal positions in the SERPs. And with SEO actions, it is possible.
That is what we are going to demonstrate with this case study. We are going to choose an online reputation crisis to show how we can boost the best search results for a brand. And we are not going to do it with just any case, but with the one we have already mentioned above: the Red Bull heir scandal.
To see how we did it, you can continue reading the post, or you can watch the video prepared by Luis Duato, our Head of International SEO:
Although we have probably already met in previous posts, I’m Javier Gázquez, CEO and founder of Interamplify. In this new case study, we are going to go into another of the tests carried out in our SEO Lab. There, we develop the strategies we apply in any country and market in which our clients need to rank their brand. And on this occasion, we are going to approach for the first time one of the techniques we apply to online reputation management, and we are going to do it step by step.
Are you ready for us to get started? Here we go!
The Challenge:
Working With Reputational SEO in the Red Bull Case Search
Our challenge, this time, was to work with reputational SEO for the search related to the Red Bull scandal, where the top positions are occupied by very high authority pages.
An initial search for the keywords ‘Red Bull Heir’ returns results from CNN, BBC News, the New York Times, the Guardian, etc. –headlines that have been published in very relevant media in recent months, and that can have a strongly negative impact on the brand and consumer perception, especially in the Asian market.
The goal was to work The New York Times result titled ‘Thailand Drops All Charges Against Red Bull Hair in Deadly Crush’ in a search for the USA. This result, the least damaging to the brand, was relegated to the fifth position.
Let’s go step by step:
1. APPLICATION OF REPUTATIONAL SEO TECHNIQUES TO THE NY TIMES RESULT
First, using a search simulator to work on the USA SERPs, we applied the SEO techniques that would allow us to move the chosen result up on the page.
These techniques were related to achieving a higher CTR and building quality backlinks to reinforce the selected URL, as well as obtaining traffic through viralization on social networks, among other aspects.
For example, to build quality backlinks we entered our database and, through our platform, we filtered the URLs until we found the most interesting publishers to obtain appropriate and relevant natural links.
Soon, you will also have access to our international self-service service, where you will be able to get backlinks and release content with publishers from around the world. But let’s continue with the case:
Our links and traffic strategies began to be applied at 12.01 a.m., when The New York Times’ result was in the fifth position. All that remained to do was to perform the actions and check the results, and this is what happened next:
2. JUMP TO THE SECOND PLACE IN JUST FOUR HOURS
At 16.09 p.m. that same day, it could be seen when refreshing the search how, after the SEO actions performed, the chosen URL had moved from the 5th position to the 2nd position, and in only four hours:
The website that had kept the first position may have done so, depending on the case, due to CTR or other issues, and it is usually a mere matter of time to overcome them. By working on any URL’s SEO, the best positions can be achieved for the desired searches, thus ensuring that the online presence of any business is the most beneficial for their brand.
CONCLUSIONS: SEO APPLICATIONS IN ONLINE REPUTATION
The techniques used in this case study, which allowed us to move the result to second place on the SERP, can be applied in any SERP and country for your own brand and online reputation.
If at some point your brand is hit by any kind of reputation crisis, these techniques can be extremely useful. It may be the case that your company is involved in a scandal that is finally resolved favorably for your brand, and that negative content has been well ranked and still appears in users’ searches. In this and any other types of crisis, SEO actions can be the solution.
Moreover, these techniques are very difficult to be penalized by the algorithm: the actions performed come from the social media feed, or from the building of high-quality natural backlinks and other SEO techniques that, in any case, are White hat, and for which you will have no reason for concern.
With the strategies and techniques tested by our experts, your online reputation will be in the best hands, with measurable and effective results to achieve the best online presence for your brand.
Do you have online reputation problems with your brand? It doesn´t matter in which country it may be happening. We love a challenge. Put us to the test!
