Business owners and marketing executives pour a lot of time and energy into search engine optimization, and for good reason: Being easy to find on the Internet can translate into hundreds, or even thousands, of new customers every year.
But imagine that when your perfect customer visits Google, Yahoo, or Bing and enters in the name of your business, they don't just find your company's home page… instead, they see a flood of negative reviews or misinformation about your business. What would that do to your business online? What sort of impact would it have on your profitability?
Imagining the answers to those questions is one of the first steps to understanding why online reputation management is such a hot topic. While it might not be discussed as often as traditional Internet marketing is, its ability to impact your sales so thoroughly should make it an important part of your marketing strategy.
Here are seven steps to manage and improve your online reputation:
#1 Monitor your online reputation frequently. You can't improve on your reputation if you don't know what it is. If you don't have a web design or online marketing team that regularly checks your Internet reputation (and you should), then make a point of entering your company's name into a search engines once in a while.
#2 Build lots of content around your name and brand. When it comes to online reputation management, the best defense is a good offense. In other words, the more positive content and information people can find about you around the web, the better their overall impression is likely to be.
That means that you should be adding new articles to your website and company blog frequently, as well as social media sites. Not only will this help to improve your online reputation, but it will be good for your search engine optimization plan as well.
#3 Concentrate your firepower. Speaking of social media sites, avoid the temptation to rush out, join every single one, and start wildly posting content to them. Shouldn't "more content in more places" be better? In theory, it is. But when it comes to social networking, the main sites – and especially Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn – are viewed more favorably by the major search engines. That means content you post there is likely to crowd out your other social profiles. Besides, concentrating your efforts on a few social sites keeps things more manageable.
#4 Pay attention to domain names. Again, there is some overlap here between online reputation management and search engine optimization, but it pays to snap up any obvious domain names that have to do with you, your company, or your brand. Not only will search engines give a bonus for matching up with people’s search terms, but you don't want to make it easier for a competitor to register a site that is similar to yours and use it to damage your online reputation.
#5 Look for good press where you can find it. Doing public presentations, being recognized for strong work in your industry and/or community, and being associated with charitable work are all great ways to build good press. All of that positive attention doesn't just make people feel good about you; it also creates great, search engine-friendly links that will stay on the Internet for a long time to come, and enhance your online reputation in the process. There are lots of good reasons to "do the right thing" when you get the chance, and building your online reputation is just one of them.
#6 Don't leave your reputation up for debate. While a lot of online reputation experts will recommend that you start a Wikipedia page as one of your first steps, proceed with caution. Why? Because Wikipedia's strength as a resource is also its weakness as an online reputation tool: Anyone can go on to post or dispute information. And so, if you have unhappy customers, or particularly aggressive competitors, then your Wikipedia page may not turn out to provide the online reputation you're hoping it will.
#7 Build an army of true fans and friends. We aren't talking about increasing your visibility on social media sites here, although we should reiterate that's a good idea. No, what we mean by building a list of true friends and fans is to always go above and beyond your customers' expectations. Also known as "word-of-mouth advertising," it's still one of the most powerful marketing tools there is – online or off. Develop a reputation as a company or professional that can be counted on in the off-line world, and you can be sure it will follow you over the Internet.
Online reputation management might be relatively new to a lot of businesses, but it's not complicated. If you can manage to do the right things on a consistent basis, and make sure enough people can find out about them when they search for you, then growing your company is always going to be a lot easier.
