Reputation Management has been around the PR world for many years. However, more recently it is becoming an SEO based practise, where searching for more information about a brand, product or company becomes part of the conversion process. For example, if someone wishes to make a purchase (such as a new phone), the likelihood that they’ll search for the product and the company they’re thinking of buying it from on Google first is very high. However, there are some instance where Google’s SERPs bring up 1 star reviews and negative coverage, which will decrease a site’s click-through and have a potentially damaging impact on the company or person in question.
Online Reputation Management is quite simply the process of looking and managing how a person, company or website is presented online.
So How Does Online Reputation Management Work?
Online reputation management intersects between SEO and Digital PR. Where SEO looks to play to Google algorithms rules in order to top the SERP’s, Digital PR will look to increase a brand’s online presence. This will be through the likes of coverage in online publications and links in target places. These two strategies combined will increase the chances of pushing your website to the top of Google’s SERPs, above the negative coverage. This then gives you back control of what of what exactly shows up when someone searches for you or your business online and offers the opportunity to clean up any negative article, reviews or content.
But Do I Need Online Reputation Management?
Sadly, most people today will head straight to Trip Advisor if they have a negative experience at a restaurant. Restaurants often change hands, chefs and staff members but poor reviews will be on the Internet forever. That one review only shows one side of the story, but unfortunately it will impact whether someone chooses your restaurant over visiting a competitor. Another example would be a bad write up on a businesses product in a national newspaper. Again things can change and get made better, but that article will stay there forever.
If you’ve experienced anything like the above, this is the perfect opportunity for a reputation management strategy to be brought in. The reviews and/or articles have every right to stay online, after all we live in a country of free speech. Yet even if the company has changed for the better and those reviews continue to affect sales, then putting in practices that will change up what is seen on page one of a search engine.
What actionable tips can I do the manage my online reputation?
Create great worthwhile content for your site
By writing useful blogs or great content for your website, you’re already building up a brand presence and authority on related topics and relevant search queries. What also helps is having these blog posts appear on page one of Google, thus pushing any negative search results down to the bottom of page one and onto page two!
Build up your social media profiles
Facebook has strong authority on Google already. For this reason, one of the best ways to manage a business’s online reputation is to carefully vet your social profiles and make sure each one is in the best shape possible. When you do this properly, there’s a strong chance that Google will crawl these pages show them in page one of the SERPs.
Implement a Digital PR strategy
Implementing a Digital PR strategy is a great way of pushing your pages to the top and negative pages to the bottom. How you achieve this is entirely dependant on the company or person. Obtaining a good range of backlinks is one of the top ways to strengthen a website’s authority which increase rankings. Alongside being mentioned in top publications, both national and industry specific, can increase a positive brand presence.
If you’re interested in using reputation management to build up your company’s online presence, then make sure you reach out to our PR team today and we’ll be happy to help!
