Negative search engine results are a growing problem for many businesses. It is so easy for a competitor or an unsatisfied customer to file a Ripoff report against your company or write a negative blog rant. We've just gotten our second reputation management client in the last two months, which tells me that this is a growing issue for many companies. 

In my last blog post on online reputation management, I wrote about how to address these negative comments. But how does one bury negative search engine results if you can't get them removed or resolved? Here are five tips for how to bury negative search engine results:

• Sign up for every social network you can find and link back to your company's site. Encourage all of your employees to link back to your company's site. Sign up for a company profile on LinkedIn. Sign up for a Google profile. Create a YouTube page, Facebook Fan Page, Twitter account and more.Post your pictures to Twitter. The more you engage in social networking, the more positive your search engine results will be.
• Create company profiles. Placing a company profile on sites like Wikipedia, Wetpaint, Elance and Merchant Circle creates a new page for your site that takes up search engine results.
• Get rated. Search engines like content that has been rated and rank it more highly than non-rated content. Submit your site to StumbleUpon.com or to Google's Local Business results and ask satisfied customers to rank your company online and give you a positive review.
• Submit press releases. Press releases are a great way to take up search engine results for your company, and they can provide you with valuable links back to your site. Write one press release per week and submit it to PRNewswire, OfficialWire, or one of the many other online press release sites.
• Engage in link exchange. Still can't get rid of that negative search engine result? Get links from high-traffic sites that are relevant to your industry, even if you must pay for them. Don't just stop at five links; try to get as many as possible. The more stubborn the negative search engine result, the more positive links you will need (and the more ways people will find your site).
• Use your company name as a keyword. What words did the negative attacker use to describe your company? Did they optimize their negative page based on a certain version of your company's name with keywords specific to your industry? Engaging in some good, old-fashioned SEO might be the trick to buryingthis negative search engine result.
• Start a blog. Start a blog on WordPress or another popular blog site and link back to your site. Include a lot of keywords in your blog. This will take up space in search engine results, hopefully ahead of the negative search engine result.

Still can't remove that negative search engine result? It might be time to hire a specialist. A good internet marketing firm or social media marketing firm can bury a negative search engine result in no time. The key to burying negative search engine results is acting quickly; the longer the negative result stays online, the more customers you might lose.

A few weeks ago, I saw a tweet from a Sales Director (Joe Schmo) of a local IT company that said "I'm looking forward to working with Company X." Since I know Joe Schmo and his relationship with Company X, I know the intent of his tweet was to make a few of his competitors that follow him jealous. But does Joe Schmo have prospects or clients who compete with Company X, and did they see his tweet? If so, he may have lost a potential client.

Broadcasting potentially damaging information is a common problem in social media marketing- employees don't always think through the extent of their actions, which is why internal rules should be established. Here are my guidelines for how to establish social media guidelines for your company:

1. Distinguish sensitive, non-sharable information from sharable information.

I share many tools and techniques with my audience on marketing best practices that I think would be helpful. However, I don't share information that would cause me to lose an account because a prospect already knows exactly what I do. We draw the line at Aqua Blue between information that can and can't be shared.

2. Decide whether or not its okay to talk about your customers.

Are you a B2B marketer? If so, then I'd consider refraining from talking about your clients at all. Aqua Blue Marketing has a strict "no talking about clients on social networks" policy because I may have competing customers or prospects, and my audience might not like one of my clients (one of my clients is a divisive political pundit figure).  In addition, my target audience is those who purchase web and marketing services. Are they really interested in what my other clients are doing? Probably not. If you're in the B2C space, I encourage you to talk about your customers using social media and engage with them.

3. Draw the line between personal and business accounts.

I often see people get overly personal on business/personal social network accounts by giving divisive opinions or talking politics. You can deal with this in one of two ways: either ask employees to have separate business and personal accounts (the more lenient option), or ask that they keep all personal/professional accounts at a professional level. I'm of the belief that if you put it online, others will find it- keep it clean so you have nothing to explain. If you don't want your clients or co-workers seeing it, then don't put it up.