How to clean up a SERP?

[SEODinosaur]

I have a new customer and he wants me to clear up the SERP for his branded keyword, the SERP currently has his site and two other sites related to him under his result... Under that is bad reviews and old reports. My client does own the top spot (#1) for his branded name.

My client has a:

linkedin

facebook

twitter

myspace

I was thinking to push all these to the first page, this will clear up some of those bad reviews.

What are your thoughts?

Have any of you ever had this type of case?

I need to get 6 different sites to all rank for the same exact key term, however I have the top spot to link from...

[Mcarle]

This sounds like a case for reputation management.Where are the reviews?Yelp Google PlacesIf the bad reviews are on yelp then I would talk to your client about getting more good reviews.Have him talk to his clients and get those good Yelp reviews flowing.If they are on a site like rippoff report, then bumping that site down will help.If he has lots of places that have complaints then a hard look at WHY people are giving him bad reviews...I know of an online zine that was just a horrid spammer & guess what, those complaints stayed at the top as well as all the forum posts about his spammy ways & insulting emails ....Your client needs to know what sites covert traffic and clients.If he actually GETS clients & income from twitter then yes get that twitter acoutn to the top.If not, then having low ROI sites cluttering the top serps won't help much.

[icecarats]

You're thinking about it the right way at least. Many clients come to me with "get rid of that bad listing right now!!!" and I have to respond with "I'm sorry but if I controlled the internet I wouldn't be working for you" and then they storm out and it's generally a bad scene.

All those things you mentioned are good tactics to push something down the SERP. Some others off the top of my head:

• Press Releases
• Guest Blog/Friend Blogs about the company
• Bizarrely, YouTube works sometimes if the account is co-branded
• Registering for services like Manta, TechVibes, citdirectory, macrae's, other industry directories
• Legitimate forum postings made in the company's name

There's others, but I think you get the idea.

[jennita]

I agree with what they've said above, but one piece that's been missed is Google+. Be sure to get a Google+ brand page set up and link it to the website and other social sites. When you do a search these days, not only do they show Google+ pages in the normal SERPs but they also show a callout on the right sometimes. Having a Google+ strategy is a necessity these days: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-every-marketer-now-needs-a-google-strategy