Controlling the Narrative: A B2B Brand Reputation & Content Suppression Strategy
Client: A B2B SaaS company in the competitive “project management” software 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The client’s sales team was struggling because a negative, out-of-date “hit piece” was ranking on page 1 for their brand name: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 news article was “stuck” at position #3 for their brand name.
No Positive Assets
The client had no other online properties (blog, microsites, social) to compete with the negative article.
Losing Sales
The sales team reported that 30% of warm leads “went cold” after Googling their brand name.
Low Brand Trust
A Competitor Reputation Analysis showed their brand sentiment was significantly lower than their top 3 competitors.
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
Comprehensive Reputation Audit
We conducted an audit of their brand SERPs to identify all negative and positive URLs and establish a benchmark.
Positive Content Creation
This was the core of our brand reputation marketing strategy. We built a “fortress” of new, positive web properties:
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 for Negative Content Suppression. We ran a 6-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 3) | -100% |
| Positive-Controlled Results (Page 1) | 2 (Homepage, LinkedIn) | 8 (Homepage, LinkedIn, Blog) | +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 reputation management agency find your vulnerabilities!”
Advice for Marketers & Brand Owners
- Don’t wait for a crisis. Build your “fortress” of positive assets (blogs, social profiles, microsites) before you need them.
- You can’t always remove bad press, but you can bury it. This is the core of Negative Content Suppression.
- Build high-authority links to your positive assets, not just your homepage. This is how you give them the power to outrank negative content.
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.
- Creating a “microsite” was a fast way to get another high-authority, brand-controlled asset onto Page 1.
- Using Social Listening Tools (like Brandwatch) to ensure the sentiment around the new content was positive.
