Online reputation and institutional SEO for ABSA: from 8 negative results to 0

Aguas Bonaerenses (ABSA) is the public drinking water and sewer utility of Buenos Aires province. Searching its name on Google returned a first page dominated by negative results.

For a public utility the brand search is not a storefront: it is where people land when they have a problem, and what they find there sets the tone of the conversation that follows.

Nothing was in place to turn that around.

• A first page taken: 8 negative results in the top 10 for ABSA and 5 for Aguas Bonaerenses.
• No publishing criteria: the institutional site had no shared guide for writing content.
• No listening: new mentions appeared without anyone seeing them in time.

Negative results are not deleted: they are displaced by publishing something search engines prefer.

We worked so that institutional information would occupy the top positions on brand searches, using the company own channels as the base.

The plan combined auditing, training, content and listening, sustained over fourteen months.

Audit the site that has to take that place

• Monthly audits from August to November 2017: keywords, analytics, tagging, titles, headings, meta descriptions, speed and mobile.
• A site that loads slowly or breaks on a phone will not hold any position, however good the article is.

Give the team criteria to write with

• A writing guide in two levels, one summary version and one detailed.
• Training for the communications team on writing with search in mind.
• Review of every new article, measuring keyword density before publishing.

Original content and listening

• Production and distribution of positive content across the company own channels.
• Monthly social listening from February to September 2018, to catch new negative mentions and answer with original content.
• Regular monitoring of search results for both brand terms, from August 2017 to October 2018, to track progress month by month.

Architecture and technology

• Technical audit of the institutional site and a two level writing guide.
• Monthly social listening and first page monitoring per brand term.

Learn more about online reputation.

Brand searches stopped showing negative results on the first page.

Starting point

• 8 negative results in the top 10 and 4 in the top 5 for ABSA, in August 2017.
• 5 negative results in the top 10 and 3 in the top 5 for Aguas Bonaerenses.
• No writing guide and no listening on the brand conversation.

What was achieved

• 0 negative results in the top 10 and top 5 for ABSA, in October 2018.
• 0 negative results in the top 10 and top 5 for Aguas Bonaerenses.
• 7 social listening reports between February and September 2018.
• Monthly auditing of the institutional site and a writing guide in two versions.

Strategic impact

• Training the internal team is what makes the result hold without the agency.
• Monthly listening means a new mention can be answered before it reaches the first page.