At its core, a company is really a group of people who are developing products and services to address other people’s needs, earning money at the same time. Take note of the word “people.” As much as the company wants to have a 100% satisfactory rating for each delivered product or service, its team of human beings are prone to commit errors. After all, human beings are not perfect.

However, these errors can generate a perception of inadequacy, carelessness, and bad service—things that can give a business a bad reputation. A damaged reputation can spell disaster for an enterprise. Remember that bad news travels extremely fast through word-of-mouth alone. Worse, with the advent of the Internet, bad news can travel all around the world. With the online era, where information can be preserved indefinitely, it can be extremely difficult to correct your name.

If a company does not repair its reputation, that negative name becomes imbedded in the minds of viewers and customers. The business loses its credibility and, subsequently, customers, business partners, and stakeholders, eventually leaving the owners no option but to fold.

If your business has suffered a bad reputation due to an error on your part, a customer’s bad experience, a prank, or any other cause, you need to fix it so you can get back on track. Check out these few tips so you can make a positive comeback.

1. A person who specifically Googles your company indicates that he is serious about doing business with you. Thus, it is better to control the terms of the disclosure instead of waiting for him to know about the negative information on his own. Therefore, in your website, inform viewers of what is out there, what the truth is, and what actions you are taking to respond to it.

2. If your company is at fault, apologize as quickly as possible. A quick apology is crucial so you don’t inflame the public’s anger and disappointment by appearing clueless, defiant, or indifferent. By taking responsibility and apologizing, it shows that your company is honest and ready to do something about the mistake.

3. Take action and deal with negative reviews quickly and to the best of your ability (within reasonable terms, of course). Provide an explanation of how and why the error was made. Then offer a discount, process a refund, provide a freebie, etc. to make it right. If you are indifferent or engage in a public pissing contest, viewers are only going to perceive you as being uncooperative, even if you are probably right.

4. If your negative reputation stems from questionable content (e.g., an offensive blog reply, a malicious tweet, a tasteless Youtube video, etc. ) that you posted on your website, fan page, social networking site, or any other place in the net, delete them. Eventually, the content will be removed from search engine caches. Hasten the process by e-mailing Google and other search engines and request to remove the offending page or site from its listing.

5. If your negative reputation stems from a tasteless, biased, untrue, and malicious content, delete the content if you have the capability to do so. If not, politely ask the person who posted an offending review to remove his content and explain to him what his content is doing to the company. In most cases, he will probably oblige. However, if he insists on letting it say, warn him that you will enlist the services of a lawyer if he continues defaming your company.

6. The best way to bury the bad is to create your own content. What does that mean? It involves frequently writing blogs, articles, replies, and other kinds of Web content that positively reflects about your company. Doing this pushes bad stuff down in search engine rankings. No person will bother visiting page 30 on a Google search just to check something negative about your company; most people limit their search on the first page or two.

Create a positive and healthy social media and online presence so that the top search engine results will be the ones that you want people to see. Create profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networks. Include inspiring and crafty video ads or blogs and post them in YouTube and other video sharing sites (according to studies by Forrester Research, Google spiders love videos and rank them highly).

Finally, learn from your lessons. For instance, if the negative reputation stems from a product that is not working, then make efforts to rectify the problem. If it is about malicious content being freely posted on your website, then make sure you have screening protocols that require approval before publication. By learning the lessons being conveyed and taking actions on them, you improve your company image.

Follow these tips on your road to recovery.