While the internet is an incredibly powerful tool for businesses, it also comes with its challenges. Negative reviews can significantly affect your reputation, and many customers are quick to share their bad experiences with other users, often without all the details.
Poor ratings on social media and business listing services, such as Google My Business (GMB), can have a substantial impact on your online reputation, affecting traffic and sales. Therefore, it’s vital to take control of your online reputation.
The Importance of Your Business’s Online Reputation
The internet has made it possible to reach a broad audience through skilled marketing. With marketing techniques, such as SEO, social media marketing, and video marketing, business owners have a variety of options for getting their products in front of their target audience. Check out Digitalspotlight.com.au.
For example, most customers choose results from the first page of a Google search. Very few are likely to click to the second page. Then, they consider the reviews of a product or service and may be dissuaded if there are bad reviews or no reviews at all. This is why online reputation and presence are vital for any business.
A business’s online reputation determines how potential customers perceive products/services, customer support, and overall brand identity. Reviewing news coverage of your company, search results, reviews, social media posts, and other public posts is necessary to ensure there’s no damaging information.
Steps You Can Take Yourself
So, what can you do to maintain your business’s online reputation? There are several strategies, including:
- Work On Your Website
Don’t allow other people to tell your brand story—you should tell it yourself. One way to do this is by working on your website. If you don’t have a website, you should work on building one. Nowadays, this process is quick and easy and can be handled by a professional.
If you already have a business site, be sure to keep it updated. The “About Us” and “Contact Us” pages should provide accurate information for visitors. Share the latest information with your audience and ensure there are no broken links on the site. The design should also be modern and user-friendly.
- Take SEO Into Account
Take advantage of search engine optimization (SEO) to improve online presence and rankings. SEO is the technique of optimizing your website to improve your chances of ranking in the top search engine results. Google is the top search engine to consider when enacting SEO best practices.
One way of improving SEO performance is by publishing a blog. Blogs are an opportunity to target different keywords and drive traffic to your website. Regularly publishing new posts is an integral part of building up this asset—successful brands publish new blog posts weekly, at a minimum.
If you’re not familiar with the technical aspects of SEO, consider contacting a professional SEO service. There are many that can help with keyword research, placement, site optimization, and off-page SEO for a reasonable price.
- Look At Your Own Online Presence
As a business owner, you’re connected to your company and, in a way, the public figure of your business. Any action, whether online or offline, can impact your business. Especially today, customers often disengage from a company because of something its owner said online.
For these reasons, you should mind what you share or post on your social media accounts. Be sure to respond to people appropriately or ignore them when necessary. Avoid oversharing personal details on social media. You can also manage your online privacy by configuring your social media settings to limit what people can view.
- Know When to Call In Professionals
While there are cases of reputation management you can personally address, others will require help. For example, you can easily delete outdated social media posts and address the matter personally.
That’s not the case with search engine results, particularly for content published on other sites. If it’s too big an undertaking to do in-house, you can employ professionals to help manage your personal information on Google. They can also target specific reviews or negative content for removal.
Protect Your Online Reputation
Proactively protecting your reputation is much easier than trying to clean up a damaged reputation after the fact. In some cases, a removal request can take a long time, while some sites may reject your request altogether. The best way to protect yourself and your business is to take control of your online reputation.
