How to repair your online reputation
Contents
What your reputation online determines how they perceive your brand. Example: Three-quarters of consumers trust a firm more if it has positive ratings, while sixty percent of consumers believe negative reviews discourage them from using a service.
Wondering what steps you should take to repair your online reputation? We will outline a simple procedure and the necessary expenditure to ensure that customers can easily locate favourable information about your organisation.
Why It Pays to Repair Your Online Reputation
Numerous aspects, including low star ratings on Google Business or Yelp and unfavorable comments on Twitter, can negatively damage the reputation of your online brand.
Even if they appear to be minor or insignificant, if you don’t take proactive actions to address them quickly and efficiently, they can snowball into larger problems before getting out of hand.
Before you know it, the reputation of your brand will be characterised by poor reviews and negative client experiences.
93% of consumers claim to read online reviews prior to making purchases. This means that if your firm gets unfavourable evaluations, or worse, none at all, you are likely to receive only seven clients out of every hundred that search for your brand.
On the other hand, if you proactively establish a positive internet profile, you will enjoy a number of advantages. People are more likely to do business with a company that has a positive internet reputation, which will ultimately enhance your revenues.
According to a Harvard Business School Working Paper, each additional star on your Yelp rating might increase your company’s sales by up to 9%.
In addition to generating consumers and earnings, fixing your internet reputation can assist you attract top talent. One in five job hopefuls will consider working for a one-star rated company. Before accepting or applying for jobs, applicants also read workplace evaluations on sites such as Glassdoor, which is another venue to monitor your reputation.
The Required Investment to Restore Your Online Reputation
We are confident that you concur with us about the significance of mending your company’s online reputation. To achieve this effectively, however, you need a sound approach and a commitment of time and/or resources.
You can take matters into your own hands and rebuild your reputation in a do-it-yourself manner, but there are a few areas where you would be better off seeking professional assistance.
If you’re doing something on your own, time is the primary worry. You may be able to organise your Google Business profiles and social media pages without compromising your ability to focus on other tasks. This is when a prebuilt plan is useful. You will need to prioritise your approach to this undertaking based on whether you’re concentrating on cultivating positive sentiment or suppressing unfavourable evaluations.
However, if you want to properly develop or repair your image across all the online channels and places where your organisation is being evaluated, this soon becomes a full-time job.
Here’s how to rebuild your online reputation:
- Establish your web – based business profile
- Before addressing bad reviews, make sure present and potential clients can readily locate business information and that you control your company’s narrative.
- Create or identify your company’s profiles in two places.
- Yelp and Google are important for your internet reputation. Don’t overlook these pages like others.
- Create a business profile (or claim the existing one) on both sites to allow reviews. Customers can submit reviews on Yelp even if you don’t have a company profile, but you’ll need one to reply. After creating your profile, acknowledge bad reviews and apologise if required.
- Social media completes the equation. You don’t need to be active across every social media site; only those your target audience uses.
- Ensure your firm information is complete on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok. This will boost your official accounts’ search rankings.
- Social media encourages customers to share their experiences. Users will express their feelings and tag or mention your brand.
- Being engaged on social media allows you to quickly thank clients for favourable reviews or take corrective action when they post anything unpleasant
Find the source of your bad reputation
The internet is enormous, thus you must determine the source of all the negative sentiment hurting your reputation.
Most cases involve a spate of bad reviews. Inappropriate content can undermine a company’s reputation. Google finds anything—positive or negative—to fill its index. Negative publicity can also result from a viral news cycle reporting a defamatory board comment or a consumer data leak.
Assess your online reputation for answers
Analyze the first three pages of Google results for your business. Visit social media, review sites, and other places where your business is being discussed.
Question:
- Are there too many bad reviews?
- A competitor blogged about your company unfairly?
- Negative Glassdoor reviews?
- Have you uploaded libellous or disparaging stuff on Twitter or Facebook?
- If you see widespread negativity, you’ve uncovered the core cause. This platform should be your focus to repair your reputation.
Repair Negative Sentiment
Let’s be clear: Google won’t remove unpleasant comments from results. You can still fix the problem at its source.
For example, if an influencer published a negative piece about your firm, apologise. Ask them how you can improve their experience and ask them to delete or update the content.
If you play your cards well and make a real effort, they may update or generate fresh content that’s more positive.
- Before contacting out, take in mind:
- Use a kind tone.
- Document your request in writing or screenshots
- If you remove the material, remove it from Google’s index.
- Don’t threaten lawsuits
However, news sources won’t erase your content because they must be neutral. To neutralise the coverage, you may need to find alternative venues to print a favourable story.
Also crucial is responding to reviews.
Show your appreciation for great evaluations by saying “we’re thankful for your business” or “thank you for choosing us.” Your answer to unfavourable evaluations needs finesse. Address the problem and apologise when necessary to show the reviewer you care.
Remove Negative Google Results
Google handles 63,000 searches a second. It’s 2 trillion global searches a year. So many people will see your brand reputation when searching for your firm or its products.
Think about the tone of the first page of Google results, noting unfavourable stories. Taking action is required if your company’s internet reputation is poor.
If you own the negative content, remove it yourself. If the unfavourable content was written by a third party, you must contact them as in Step 2.
Alternatively, use Google’s DMCA form. Remember to send a separate notice for each Google service where the item appears.
DMCA requests don’t guarantee Google will delete anything, so consider them a precaution.
Another approach is to overwrite it. Creating SEO-friendly, successful content over time improves Google’s first-page rankings.
If there’s a content vacuum, create new web pages or blog entries. Apply SEO best practices to new and current positive/neutral content. Next, secure backlinks from positive/neutral articles that boost brand visibility.
It will take time for your new material to rank and push the negative items down, but it’s the only method to silence them.
Organize Reviews
Like any business, you’ll get positive and negative reviews online.
Naturally, you want positive reviews. This helps counter existing or emerging negative issues.
Here are some strategies to boost brand reviews:
- Ask your customers—its that easy!
- Find the perfect occasions in the customer journey to ask for reviews.
- Common unfavourable review themes should be addressed internally.
- Configure your CRM to solicit reviews after purchases.
- Request vendor reviews
