Reputation management: what does your online reputation say about you?
When someone comes across a mention of your business online, what do they think? If that mention is from a page on your website, you’ve got every chance to convince them of your reputation and authority. If that mention is somewhere else though, you probably have little control over what is being said about you.
Enter reputation management.
What is online reputation management?
One of the lesser known services available, online reputation management ensures that you stay abreast of what is being said about your business online. With this service, you can shape the image of your business across the net, fostering positive images and combating negative mentions should they occur.
Reputation management is not a concept that people readily associate with search engine optimisation. However, with the difficult-to-control nature of the Internet where disgruntled customers or even ex-members of staff can all too easily publish content to websites, reputation management is something that fits in surprisingly naturally with SEO and something you should think about as your business evolves.
Why bother with reputation management?
The idea of reputation management is not new. Ever since companies began having to deal with image, rather than straightforward product sales, they’ve had to concern themselves with what the public thinks. Reputation management is about making sure that one customer’s bad opinion of you doesn’t spread out of control or rank highly in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
How SEO can help
Online reputation management is all about controlling the search engine results pages, meaning it slots in easily with regular SEO plans.
So how do we go about reputation management? Many people association online reputation management with preventing any bad news from hitting the top search results. In order for this to happen, you need to ensure that you control as many of those top pages as possible. Control of the top mentions of your company should be worked into your SEO plan from the start but this level of reputation management can merely displace the negativity. With social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as blog search engines, video sites like YouTube and other growing forms of search, you need to have an all-encompassing reputation management plan in place.
The Engage Web approach to online reputation management
We look after your reputation online in three ways following our Monitor, Optimise and Engage three-step process.
Monitor: We monitor mentions of your brand in conjunction with negative connotations so you stay abreast of what is being said about your company, services and products online – and even key employees if you wish – using a variety of methods to monitor not just the search engines, but the social media sites, forums and anywhere else relevant to your target audience.
Optimise: Being reactive is how many companies approach reputation management. The good news is that proactive reputation management comes as part of a good SEO campaign. Well-optimised web pages and content, images, press releases, article submissions, video and social media pages make sure your own coverage is most likely to present itself to a user.
Engage: If, or when, a negative mention is identified, often the natural reaction is to jump in and rebut any criticisms. If you’re smart about reputation management though, such comments shouldn’t have to be a concern. Firstly we work with you to investigate if a situation has any merit. If not, then we can help you to identify the facts and to request corrections or, if it does, then we can help you to address the matter.
The result of an on-going, pro-active online reputation management plan should ensure you get a positive turnaround and even turn past complainants into loyal future customers, whilst increasing revenue from onlookers. At the bare minimum, reputation management can defuse a situation and prevent escalation and lost business.
Is your online reputation working for or against you?
Complete our enquiry form or speak to one of our team here at Engage Web about how we can help your business to grow.
