16 Jun 12 Tips to Improve Your Online Reputation With Reviews, Blogging, and Social Media

What Is Online Reputation Management

Online reputation management is a mix of strategies that marketers use to influence people’s perceptions about a company. It builds trust and positively influences buying decisions when done right.

Online reputation management includes Google reviews management, monitoring social media, and community engagement.

How Is Managing Your Business’s Online Reputation Important

Your first impression is made by your online reputation. Do your best to make your online reputation a positive one. People are less likely to trust a brand that doesn’t reflect their values.

1. Do Proper Auditing of Your Current Reviews to Understand What People Have to Say About Your Business

Understanding your reputation is key to managing it. You can start by looking at your reviews online. Although this may seem daunting considering the number of online review sites, research shows that there are four primary sources of information that most consumers use to do their research.

Google is the preferred site, with 63% checking reviews before visiting a business. Most consumers use Yelp to find reviews before visiting businesses, while 30% use TripAdvisor, and 23% use Facebook.

These are the best sites to concentrate your efforts on. You might also find other review sites specific to your industry. For instance, hospitals may want to be aware of Healthgrades, and home improvement companies should keep an eye on HomeAdvisor.

2. Ask Your Customers to Leave Reviews

You may be getting negative online reviews that are affecting your reputation. It’s inevitable, and this is a part of the business.  Everyone will not share the best experience about your company.

However, if there aren’t many reviews online about your product, the negative ones will be more prominent. How about your existing customers who are happy with your company? They need to rate your brand. What can you do to get them to do it? Ask them.

3. Expand Your Presence

What are the best places to find more information about your company? Ratings and reviews can’t be relegated to one platform. Customers have different preferences when researching brands. Okay, now your company has a Facebook Page. That’s great.

4. Remove Ads from Your Site

Your website could be damaging your credibility, even though you may not know it. You might be making design decisions or using elements that make people suspicious of your business. This must be corrected immediately.

Compare your website to identify the most important elements that add credibility to your website. You should get rid of all ads that you are currently running for other companies.

Take a look at the different types of ads that consumers don’t like to see. Both banner ads and pop-ups ranked high on this list. It’s possible that some of you might be trying to sell ad space on the site in order to increase your revenue streams. However, it’s not worth it.

What are your ad revenues? This compares the revenue you could make from selling products and services through your website. It doesn’t make sense for advertisers to prioritize ad space.

5. Encourage Customers to Upload Photos

You want your customers to leave reviews online about your business and upload photos. Why? 77% of customers believe customer photos are more influential than professional photos in their purchasing decisions.

This is a great idea. Photos of your business will be great and help to build your brand. However, customer photos are more authentic. They will not be photographed with a professional camera or in perfect lighting.

6. Report Customer Complaints Publicly

It can be difficult for businesses to receive negative reviews online. You want to defend your rights, and you don’t want anyone to get into an argument.

Neglecting complaints is not the best choice. Others will be interested in your ability to deal with a negative situation. The first rule of business is to remember it. The customer is always right.

7. Share User-Generated Material

As we have discussed, attaching customer photos to reviews is an excellent way of improving a brand’s image. But not all reviews will include a photograph.

You don’t have to do this alone to get your customer photos. You can start sharing user-generated content through your social media platforms. You can now control what customer photos will make your brand stand out.

8. Use Tools to Monitor Your Reputation

What is your online reputation? Some people might not know if they have a negative or positive reputation online unless they are involved in a severe event. You might monitor certain comments and review sites, but it is not enough to see how others feel about you.

Online tools should be used to alert you when someone mentions your company. A third-party review site could post a negative blog post about your product. You can get them removed from the internet through online content removal services. However, you wouldn’t be able to see this if you only monitored reviews on Yelp or Google.

9. Start Prioritizing Your Blog

An excellent way to improve your online reputation is to increase your domain authority. This is something I love about blogging. You know I believe in this strategy if you are one of my loyal readers. Blogs can be used to scale your lead generation.

Your SEO will be improved if you publish posts to your website on an ongoing basis. This strategy will allow you to obtain both inbound and external links.

10. Partner with Social Influencers

Another way to create social proof is through social influencers, as I mentioned earlier in my discussion about user-generated content.

According to studies, 90% of consumers trust recommendations made by their peers, and social media referrals are 71% more likely to lead to a purchase. This is the reason why social influencers are so attractive.

11. Showcase Customer Testimonials

You can improve your reputation by getting customer reviews from third-party websites. You can also showcase top reviews on your website by posting a testimonial. Ask your top customers to send you a testimonial.

12. Keep Track of Your Competitors’ Online Reputations and Strategies

Your online reputation will always be a reflection of your competitors. Are people more likely to like them or you? What makes your customers prefer you to them? What do people think when they compare the two brands?

These are all vital information that can help you build your online reputation. The best thing about monitoring your competitors is avoiding making many mistakes. You can either see what they are doing well and be able to implement it before you make any mistakes, or you can learn from others’ mistakes.

You can also reverse engineer marketing strategies by looking at what they have published. It’s all available to the public. You need to have the right tools to locate it.

Conclusion

You can ensure that your business is trustworthy and credible by managing your online reputation. Online reputation can make a big difference in buying decisions.

This is especially true since most people read ten reviews online before deciding to trust a business. You might not believe this, but 79% of people trust online recommendations more than personal recommendations.