Writing at the Daily SEO blog, Brian Patterson highlights a problem many companies are starting to encounter: "As you began to type our client's brand name into Google Search, Google Suggest displayed our client's brand name + the word 'scam' as the second option, directly below their brand name." Patterson's client believed it was losing business—unfairly—and needed an immediate solution.

Upon investigation, he learned his client's legitimate business was the victim of competitive sabotage and a few vocally unhappy customers. "There were even a few positive reviews on blogs that were inundated with numerous scam accusations in the comment section, thus making a positive article turn very negative and harmful to the brand," Patterson notes.

That is exactly what potential customers saw when they—quite understandably—clicked on the "scam" suggestion. And thus began an aggressive campaign by Patterson's team with the goal of controlling 90 percent of the first two pages of Google results within a six-week timeframe. Their strategies included:

Optimizing new and existing content. "We decided that we would define 50 pieces of content, and as time went on, we'd determine which pieces of content Google was signaling that it liked ... and which it didn't," notes Patterson. They augmented this strategy with link building and interlinking.

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