How to Take Over Your Business’s Internet Reputation

You want to find new brands.

You're probably in the majority if you answered “the Internet”. Consumers aged 16-64 use search engines to find brands. To find brands, more than 25% of consumers use social media, brand websites, and digital ads.

It is crucial for a business to have a good online reputation in order to retain and attract customers.

Brands aren't the only ones responsible for establishing a reputation. Online audiences are active thanks to the internet. Through reviews, social media and other means, consumers can influence how a brand's image is perceived online. The brand's media coverage is spread faster than ever before. In a click, industry “best-ofs” lists and expert reviews can be accessed.

Brands cannot control everything that is published online about their brand. However, they can use strategies to manage the bigger narrative. That's what this article will cover. You'll find out why the online reputation is so important for a business and 9 strategies to manage it.

Quick Take-Aways

• Positive reviews are more popular than negative ones. However, consumers believe that one bad review could change their mind.

• A brand audit is the best way for your company to assess its online reputation.

• It is crucial to control the first page Google results for your branded terms. 98% of users never get past page 1.

• Online reviews are just as trusted by consumers as word-of mouth recommendations.

• Reacting positively to negative reviews can help build trust and increase your online reputation.

What is the importance of an online business reputation?

Online reputation is the new storefront for a business. It is what people first see and what they use to decide if they want more.

Consumers can quickly get a feel for your online reputation in just a few minutes. It takes only a few minutes for consumers to do a quick Google search and scroll through reviews to decide if they want to move on.

However, the best way to see why a brand's online reputation matters is through numbers. Take a look at the following:

• 91% of customers will choose a brand that has many positive reviews.
• 84% of customers trust online reviews more than word-of mouth recommendations.
• 94% of customers said that one negative review was enough to convince them not to use the business.
• 71% of U.S. workers stated that they wouldn't apply for a job with a company suffering from negative press

Research has shown that the average user takes 50 milliseconds for an online opinion to form about a brand. It is important to make a good first impression. You risk losing customers if you don't control the first impression people make when they visit your brand online.

How to manage your online reputation for your business

Do a brand audit

Knowing where your company stands online is the first step in gaining control over its online reputation. A brand audit is a way to do this. A brand audit is a process that evaluates how your brand is perceived by the public and its current position on the market. It is a good idea that you do them frequently. Many brands include it in their quarterly review.

This framework can be used to help you get started with your own.

img alt=”The 5-step process to conduct a brand audit.” class=”aligncenter” height=”421″ loading=”lazy” src=”https://marketinginsidergroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Brand-Audit.jpg” width=”799″/>

Image Source: netBaseQuid

Here is a quick overview of the five steps:

• Benchmarking past marketing efforts and current efforts – This is a way to assess whether your past and current marketing efforts have met their goals.

• Comparison and monitoring of competitors – Comparing your efforts with those of your competition.

• Identifying Trends – Look for trends in your target audience to determine how you can align your marketing efforts.

• Sentiment analysis: This is a way to see what other users think about your brand.

• Understanding news and consumer perceptions – Seeking to determine if the media's coverage of your brand matches what consumers are saying about you.

Create a reputation management strategy

After you've done your brand audit, the information you need for an online reputation management strategy will be available. Two main components will make up your reputation management strategy:

• Resolving problems with your online reputation
• Create a plan to monitor your online reputation.

Although the idea of creating such a strategy might seem daunting, there are simple steps you can take that will make a huge impact.

Set goals

What are the most important goals you have for online reputation management? Do you have specific issues that need to be addressed immediately? Do you have any gaps (ex. no online reviews)? What are your new strategies? Set clear goals to guide your strategy.

Know your resources

How many people do you have at your company to manage online reputation? What amount of time can your staff spend on this? Are there technology tools that could help? What other resources are available that you can use?

Prioritize your priorities

What are the most critical things you need to focus on first? Priorities are the most important things to address in your strategy.

Make an execution plan

A clearly defined plan will keep your strategy on track and hold your team accountable for following through. You should set deadlines and assign responsibility for each task. Also, you need to identify who will be responsible for each initiative. Finally, determine how you will keep track of progress (example, a Google Sheets shared work plan).

Take control of your first Google search result page

A top priority initiative should be to control the first page of Google results when your company searches for branded terms. Search engines are the most popular method for brand discovery. Consider this: 98% of people won't scroll past the first page in Google search results.

It is important to control the content that users see on that first page. But how do you do it? A strong SEO strategy is the key to increasing search rankings and controlling what content ranks highest.

Your SEO strategy should be focused on ranking controllable pages, such as those from your blog and website, for brand-related queries. This will help you move negative content to the top of the search engine results pages (where almost no one sees it), and positive content to the first page.

There are many moving parts. These moving parts are summarized in the graphic below:

img alt=”7 steps towards a strong SEO marketing strategy” class=”aligncenter” height=”955″ loading=”lazy” src=”https://marketinginsidergroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/7-Steps-to-Great-SEO-Strategyt.png” width=”1100″/>

Image Source: Mangools.com

Let's take a quick look at each one in more detail.

Keyword research

You can find the most common queries customers have about your brand. This can be done using Google Autocomplete (type your brand name, and it will show up in the results), or Google Analytics Queries Report. To see a list with top queries related to your brand, you can also use SEMRush's keyword magic tool.

Identify the topics

Topic clusters are the key to deciding which high-level topics and keywords you will cover in your SEO strategy.

Publish great content

This is the key. To increase your brand authority in key areas, create thought leadership content and post it regularly. You can also create valuable content about customer reviews. Finally, optimize third-party websites that rank high on Google's first pages (e.g. Yelp or Google My Business).

Optimize your on-page SEO

To optimize your website's rankings, use proven SEO techniques such as keyword usage, metadata and images.

Get quality backlinks

Linking to highly-respected websites increases your brand authority and makes you more trustworthy to online viewers. Link building can be a tedious process. You need to produce high-quality content over time to gain backlinks. Your link building strategy will gain momentum once you get started. Then your backlinks will start to make an impact.

Keep track of your progress

How do you measure success? Rankings and organic traffic are two of the most important metrics you can use to measure your SEO strategy's success. These are indicators that your content efforts have been successful. You must pay more attention to your brand's story when managing your online reputation.

It is a smart idea to make time for regular evaluations of the progress of your SEO strategy.

Keep checking back regularly

SEO is a continuous effort. Don't let your content get outdated. This can damage your online reputation. To ensure that your brand and product information are accurate, you should update your content frequently. Be aware of current trends in your industry as well as in the marketing world and align your efforts accordingly. Learn how Google's ranking factors can change (they do often) and adjust accordingly. To keep your content relevant and high-performing, refresh it.

Your SEO strategy's most important part is updating your content and strategy. It has a big impact on your success.

Market like a PR firm

You can control your online reputation by thinking with a public relations mindset. This will help you to think beyond what you write. Marketing like a PR company primarily means creating positive press and user-generated content that helps to build your reputation. You must also respond to negative reviews in order to reduce their impact.

Positive press

Here are some ways you can build positive press for the brand:

• Quality websites allow guest posting
• Press releases on important announcements and events
• Collaboration with well-respected brands
• Interviews, appearances at events, podcast appearances, and other media can help make company leaders more visible.
• Through charitable partnerships, we can make a positive impact on society
• Correcting mistakes quickly and honestly

Optimize user-created material

Two main methods to encourage user-generated material that improves your online reputation are:

• Testimonials and reviews from customers
• Create shareable content

When it comes to trusting your brand, reviews are second only after product quality.

Image Source: MartketingCharts.com

It's time for you to encourage your customers to review your brand. To motivate customers, you can offer discounts or giveaways. Link positive reviews to your website or place them directly on product pages.

To build brand awareness, second, make sure that the content you create is easily shared. People love sharing content online. Your brand visibility will increase if you encourage your audience to share your content. Easy steps to make your content more shared include adding social media buttons to your blog and sharing blog post on your social media channels.

React to negative reviews

It is easy to overlook negative reviews or press coverage and wish to forget about it. It's also a bad idea. Every business has at least one bad review. Potential customers will look at your worst reviews to determine if they are worthy of a change in direction or if they can be forgiven.

Respond to negative reviews promptly and in a solution-oriented manner. Don't say sorry and then call it good enough. Pay attention to their feedback and thank them when it makes sense. Then, offer a solution that will actually fix their problem and make their customer experience a better one.

Customers trust businesses that show they care. This builds their trust and improves your online reputation.

More to you

You must publish high-quality, consistent content to manage your brand's online reputation. Our team of SEO specialists and writers can provide you with optimized content that is ready to publish every week, so you can concentrate on the bigger story.

To learn more, check out our SEO Blog Writing Service.