Online Reputation Management Explained
The Importance of Reputation on the Web
There’s nothing that follows you throughout your life, for good or bad, quite like your reputation. You can spend years building it up to a respectable level, only to watch it crash to the ground in an instant. To put it simply, your reputation can be the key that opens new doors for you or it could slam them shut before you ever get a chance to make an impression. The reputation of your online business or brand is no different – except instead of worrying about just your close friends, family, and colleagues hearing damaging things about you, it’s the entire world.
The enormous reach of the Internet is undeniable, and while that kind of exposure can definitely do wonders for your business, it can also cause significant harm. Consider this scenario: A potential customer hears about your business and decides he needs your services. He types your company name into a search engine, and four of the top 10 results that show up include the words “rip-off,” “scam” or “fraud” in their headlines. If he’s even the least bit cautious about spending his money, he will quickly expand his search to find other businesses with squeaky clean reputations that look more trustworthy.
Restoring your company’s reputation
The unfortunate reality of doing business on the Internet is just how vulnerable you are to damaging and often baseless criticism. Even worse, those negative comments tend to make their way directly to the top of the search engine results, often right next to the link to your company’s website. It’s like buying an advertisement in a newspaper only to have someone else buy the space next to it with an ad telling would-be customers to take their hard-earned money elsewhere. In other words, it kills business.
Thankfully, the results on the top search engines are dynamic and constantly changing. The negative comments that are at the top of the page today might not be there in a year’s time. With proper online reputation management, they can be pushed back to the second page, third page or beyond. The most effective way of doing this is through SEO (searching engine optimization). By updating all of the relevant information about your business with content that is easily searchable and links back to your business, you can populate the top search results on Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc., with original content that displays you and your business in a more positive light.
5 Methods for Restoring Your Online Reputation
Using proper SEO, it is possible to bury any negative comments or reviews about you and your business deep within the search engine results – away from the first pages and out of sight from potential customers! The most popular methods for this are as follows:
1. Social media and original content. In the past decade, blogs and other forms of social media have exploded in popularity, becoming extremely powerful tools for people to quickly spread information and ideas. They can also be very useful for building up and repairing your business’s online reputation. Posting a blog on your website with regular updates is a good way to increase traffic, as is utilizing Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to promote your business and built contacts. The more times you get your business’s name on the Internet and the more links there are directing back to it, the more control you have over the search results.
2. Use online reviews to your advantage. Online reviews are everywhere – restaurants, schools, computers, businesses, and even doctors are all subject to intense scrutiny by anyone with a keyboard and occasionally — an agenda. Unfortunately, most reviews on the Internet tend to be negative. The customers and clients who receive spectacular service are grateful, but few think of spreading the word on the Internet. It is the people who have an axe to grind that make the most noise. However, it is possible to reverse this trend. Encourage your customers and clients to leave feedback on your website or on other review sites. Over time, the positive comments will begin to drown out the negative minority, and your business’s reputation will recover.
3. Take advantage of press releases. Press releases are vastly underused by most businesses today. While they were once only useful for journalists and newspaper reporters seeking a new story or article, they are now available for the public to read on the Internet. Digital press releases have some major perks: they almost immediately rank very highly in Google, they are delivered directly to a sizeable number of readers, and they represent a way to advertise your business. Consider purchasing a few press releases anytime you have positive news to announce about your business. Not only will you benefit by having more items under your control appearing highly on search engine results, but you will also get positive publicity. Press releases are a win-win situation for any business owner.
4. Respond to the criticism. Although it’s common for disgruntled customers/clients to post baseless complaints or to even falsify information altogether, most of the negative reviews posted online do have some basis in reality. Perhaps the customer felt overcharged or did not have the terms of a contract fully explained to them. Whatever the case may be, it is important that you respond to the customer both privately and publicly. If the complaint is on a message board, create an account and reply to the message. Many potential customers do at least some research online before spending money on a new product or service, and if they see that you have made an effort to appease angry customers or clarify the situation, they will be more likely to do business with you.
5. If all else fails, try to get the comment removed. Sometimes no matter what you do to influence a negative page’s search engine ranking, it will stubbornly remain on the first page of results. If this happens and if the complaint is truly biased or has even been resolved, you may be able to consult the webmaster and have the comment taken down. This is generally considered a “last resort” scenario as it can often fail. It’s much easier to get the comment removed if it’s from a message board or highly moderated fraud/rip-off report website. If you can provide legitimate documentation showing the problem was resolved or prove the comment is unjust, the webmaster may delete the comment entirely.
They say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and that’s certainly true when it comes to managing your online reputation. The best way to deal with negative comments is to make sure they don’t happen in the first place. But if excess negativity does make its way online, you have the power to fight back by following the tips above.