In today’s digitally centric world, the prominence of quickly accessible information has drastically changed how human beings behave on a day to day basis.

Phases like “I Google’d it” have become common place, it has changed how we use our brains. We are not longer capable of retaining information like past generations, for every passing year we become inherently more dependant on the encyclopaedia of knowledge online.

The direct effect is that we now turn to the internet, when ever we look for insight into peoples lives, services and products.

Google’s dominance in the search market has also had a drastic effect on how we filter the wealth of information online. Earlier this year they told the world that they are focused on delivering a more comprehensive internet home page especially for you.

If you search for a country, i.e. France, you will now be presented, with hotels, restaurants, travel options and activities that match you past search history.

What this means for individuals and businesses alike, is that we must focus on what information is presented on the results when someone searches for us.

We need to be able to curate the information that is being presented to potential, customers, clients and employers.

It is important to manage any negative feedback that may crop up. The best, easiest and often most effective manner to achieve this is quite simple – Ignore the bad and praise the good.

People make mistakes, they can be small and unimportant or they can be major and have huge effects. But it is vital that we accept that we are not infallible. Fighting to excuse a mistake, explain it or make it go away only gives it more air time.

“Piggate” was a horrendous story, a mistake that would seem somewhat unforgivable. There was little to no comment on this from the Government, and the story fizzled out quickly. Not much is said on this now, as there is so much more news from the Government to report on.

Although you may not have such an affinity for agricultural animals. The best way to improve your appearance in search results is to push as much positive content out into the world. Simply push the negative content off the 1st page, then the second and so on. No one cares what results are on page 300.

What’s the best approach to this? Well, we here at CHC Digital like to look at SEO as a three piece puzzle; embedded data, content and reach.

1. Embedded data, this is really all about getting the basics right. With many developers focused on creating websites that follow the latest trends in design and functionality. It is easy to forget things like meta tags, page titles, page descriptions, structured links etc.

They are still the forefront of in-page SEO, and are the search engine’s “bread and butter” for information on your company. Its worth getting this sorted, right from the get go.

Do some research on competitive keywords, make sure you are really targeting your niche. Targeting “Nice Guy” is not going to serve you well, get a little more focused “Nice Guy london brown hair green eyes six foot one” the more specific the better.

2. Content, most search engines are looking to present “us” with reliable information from the most credible source. Again be specific with your content, write blogs, frequently. Give your opinion, try and integrate some of your keywords. Essentially you need to show these search engines that you are the master of one very specific service or product. They are looking for know-how and insight into what ever you do. Ultimately they are all about building that encyclopaedia of knowledge that we all use on a day to day basis.

3. Reach, the most recent major addition to SEO. Search engines have a tough job, there is a lot of similar content all over the web. A lot is plagiarised from other sources, so how do they determine who the real opinion leader is? Who is the master of their trade? Who’s information will they recommend as the answer to a question? They look to the online community for insight. If your blog has a referral link from the BBC, the search engines are going to see that as legitimate information. Again Google late 2015 told us that they now also rely on the information from the social networks. This allows us a unique opportunity to leverage our communities to benefit our search results. If you write a great blog, post it on twitter and it gets retweeted 100 times search engines now consider that a more reliable source than on that was only retweeted 50 times.

In a nutshell, analyse your website, fix any of the basic issues. Submit your changes to Google etc through the webmaster tools. Build a big community on the social streams, as quickly as you can. Write informed, inspiring and influential content on positive topics about you or your business. Share this content with your social communities, ensure that there is a good back link to your newly optimised site. Given some time and successful sharing, you will see how you can control your own results. This ultimately leads to you controlling your own online reputation.