Online Reputation Management for Business – Best Tips
If the term “reputation management” is limited to Google reviews of your company, there may already be a problem somewhere out of your sight. The Internet is vast, and some people are less loyal and more demanding than others. Even a perfect business will have at least a couple of destroying reviews.
Your reputation goes much farther than blog comments and Google+ ratings. Consistent neglect of your business’s online image will lead to financial issues. So, you have to be ready to manage it and do some damage control when needed.
Gladly, we know exactly what to do! Let’s see if some of the following tips for business reputation improvement can help you out.
Create an Online Presence and Be Consistent with It
To be good at online reputation management, you want to build a relationship with current and potential customers to see what they think, want, and ask for. To achieve the goal, create accounts on:
- Google+;
- Facebook;
- Twitter;
- Instagram, etc.
Consider some industry-specific platforms as well. Make your pages interactive, beautiful, and interesting. Post useful information, reviews, present your products and services. Build your audience and engage with them. Customers want that one-on-one conversation with brands nowadays. And you can give it to them.
The best strategy here is to be consistent. Never neglect a social media page, even if you don’t see much growth from the beginning. One of the most frustrating things for a potential customer is to look for a brand online and find their dead SNS accounts with updates back in 2017.
And rest assured that there will be people who will look you up. Usually, potential customers research companies before buying products or services from them. And seeing a lively page with polls and live communication will become a boost for building trust.
Start Guest Posting with the Help of a Special Service
Many people don’t take up guest posting because there’s too much to do. You have to:
- Find blogs to post on;
- Write interesting pieces that would match those blogs;
- Adjust them SEO-wise and insert a link to your website naturally;
- Negotiate terms, the number of links, article length, etc.
That seems like too much work. But you know there’s a service almost for anything now online. Make a partner like Adsy, and you’ll never have to worry about guest posts ever again. A professional team will make all the steps, and you will only have to provide links and say “Yes, this is good.”
Guest posting is an amazing way to make your project known and manage online reputation. For every bad review from a competitor, you will have 10 expert articles that will show the readers who’s the best.
Get Deeper into SEO Practices
One of the best practices to control your online reputation is using SEO. It will help you get to the TOP of any SERP (search engine results page), and bring necessary information there.
Do you want people to learn more about your product range before seeing what reviewers say? Promote such articles and pages of your website. Google will see a page with proper keywords and interesting information on the topic that’s also easy to crawl. As a result, you’ll get more TOP pages than your competitors.
Do you want searchers to see the amazing testimonials about your business? Bring that info up in the same way! You’re in control here.
One of the most effective SEO practices is building links. High-quality backlinks will get you to the TOP in the shortest time.
The best way to build links worry-free? A backlink creation service where professionals work on building proper links to improve your profile!
Analyze and Improve Your Link Building Strategies
This recommendation is somewhat connected with the previous one, but the value of backlinks and SEO for your brand reputation management online is just too big for one section.
A reliable USA link building company will build Tier 2 and 3 links for you easily, improving your ratings and completing link-building strategies.
For better business reputation management, you should also analyze the existing profile. There may be bad links that slow down your growth on the Internet. Some may even get you penalized. There are links:
- On spammy websites;
- On penalized websites;
- On sources with poor ratings.
Using Google Disavow Tool to get rid of bad links. Then choose a decent backlink service to compensate with some good mentions on reputable websites. Such a simple substitution will help you manage your reputation in most cases.
Involve Individuals Who Take a Large Part in Your Business
While the social media presence of your business as a unit is essential, another great recommendation is to improve the presence of people associated with it. Founders, chief engineers, managers, writers, etc., are suitable.
Make separate accounts for them if they don’t mind, and engage! Let those people talk about their jobs, advantages of the company, etc. It’s very interesting to peek into another person’s life. And if these stories are connected to your company, that’s one of the digital smoothest marketing strategies.
It’s like NASA engineers and their witty, super-interesting Twitter accounts.
They promote NASA as a loyal organization, make people excited about science, and show their job from the inside.
Besides, if you want to benefit from guest posts, making some names known will ease the search for host blogs. Maybe they will even ask you for guest posts in the future.
What is so special about associating names with your business? Well, people like it when brands are responsive, but a personal conversation will make potential buyers much closer to converting. As a result, you’ll create an image of a highly active company that listens.
Listen to Feedback and Communicate with Reviewers
There will always be good and bad reviews. One thing you should do is to analyze them and listen to your customers. If they care enough to give feedback, maybe there’s really something you should work on to make the company better?
Here are some things you should definitely do:
- Analyze the feedback once a month and see where you’re having trouble;
- Reply to every review that has a question or if you want to clear something up;
- Apologize, even if the person was rude. This will make you feel and look good, and usually, the person will be ashamed of their tone. Kill them with your kindness!
- Don’t engage in negative conversations and arguments unless it’s between two customers and you just want to stop the hate. We know it might be tempting, but don’t write anything that may damage your reputation.
The only occasion when it’s OK to be harsh and answer strictly is if the person addresses your representatives in a very negative way. Also, if there racial or sexist comments, you have the full right to protect your beliefs.
Be loyal and grateful yet strong about your principles.
Never Neglect Reputation Management
Even if you’ve never thought about it before, doing damage control now is better than thinking it’s too late. It’s never too late; hire proper teams, find decent backlink and guest posting services, create social media accounts, and you’ll be on the rise very soon!