Controlling the Narrative: A “Reverse SEO” Suppression Strategy for a B2B Brand
Client: A B2B SaaS company in the “financial software” (YMYL) space.
Challenges We Faced
The client’s sales team was struggling because a negative, out-of-date “hit piece” was ranking on page 1 for their brand name:
Negative Search Results
A negative, 2-year-old “review” from a tech blog was “stuck” at position #3 for their brand name.
Losing Sales
The sales team reported that 40% of warm leads “went cold” after Googling their brand name, a critical issue for their reputation and brand management.
No “Positive Fortress”
The client had no other online properties (blog, microsites, social) to compete with the negative article. Their homepage was their only positive result on page 1.
Low Brand Trust
A Comprehensive Reputation Audit showed their branded search sentiment was overwhelmingly negative.
No Content Control
The brand lacked owned content to push down negative results and shape brand perception online.
Protect Your Brand’s Reputation
“Is a negative search result costing you sales? Our Negative Content Suppression services can help you control the narrative.”
Our Approach – How We Solved These Challenges
Strategic Removal Plan
We first attempted a De-Indexing & Legal Takedowns approach, but the webmaster was unresponsive. We determined the article was “legal” (opinion) and shifted our strategy to Negative Content Suppression (“Reverse SEO”).
Positive Content Creation
This was the core of our corporate reputation protection services. We built a “fortress” of new, positive web properties:
A new, high-quality “company news” blog.
A new microsite: “[BrandName]Trust.com” featuring positive client stories.
Fully optimized LinkedIn, Twitter, and Crunchbase profiles.
On-Page SEO for Positive Assets
We optimized all these new “positive assets” to rank for the brand name and related keywords, using Organization Schema Markup Implementation.
Off-Page SEO (Link Building)
This was the critical step. We ran a 9-month, high-authority link-building campaign to the new positive assets (the blog, the microsite) to give them the SEO power to outrank the negative article.
Results
| Metric | Before | After | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Negative Results (Page 1 for Brand) | 1 (Position #3) | 0 (Pushed to Page 2) | -100% |
| Positive-Controlled Results (Page 1) | 2 (Homepage, LinkedIn) | 8 (Homepage, LinkedIn, Blog, Microsite, 4 positive articles) | +300% |
| Qualified “Demo Request” Leads (MQLs) | 20/mo (Leaking) | 55/mo (Leak Plugged) | +175% |
Free Reputation Audit
“Not sure what your customers see? Claim a Free Reputation Audit and let our corporate reputation protection company find your vulnerabilities!”
Advice for Marketers & Brand Owners
- You can’t always remove bad press, but you can bury it. This is the core of Negative Content Suppression.
- Build your “fortress” before you need it. Positive Content Creation (blogs, social profiles) is the best defense against a future crisis.
- Off-Page SEO (link building) to your positive assets is the only way to make them outrank a strong negative link.
- A proactive reputation protection online strategy is the best defense.
Extra Factors That Made It Work
- The Off-Page SEO (Link Building) campaign was the real driver; it gave our new, positive pages the “authority” to rank.
- The new microsite was a fast way to get a new asset ranking.
- Using Brand Monitoring Tools (like Ahrefs) to track the SERP rankings in real-time.
