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Online Reputation Management Complete Guide

If you are keen on making an entry in the world of online reviews and online reputation management but do not have a wholesome idea on the topic, then fret not. Just go through our complete guide on Online Reputation Management and then you will have all the necessary information that you need to be aware about.

So, if you think that Online Reputation Management is a difficult task and a bit out of reach, do read on to gain a complete understanding of this topic and learn how to use it in practicality too.

What is Online Reputation Management?

Online Reputation Management is nothing but a task that one must undertake in order to create and maintain the brand name and brand image online. It is all about protecting and preserving the brand’s identity in the online space.

Thus, in short, we can also say that Online Reputation Management also means the process to build a public image of the brand digitally, checking the reviews, and highlighting the best customer reviews and experiences so that people can view your company in a positive manner. Thus, it becomes your job to ensure that your brand or company is being viewed by others in a positive light.

This also means that to keep the negative press to the minimum possible and ensure there are very few or no negative reviews for your brand. You must also work hard to ensure that whenever anyone searches for your brand or company online, then only good reviews and ratings should pop up in the results.

Online Reputation Management is different in the sense that you do not pay the press or make false headlines about your brand, but you have to develop strategies to create, improve as well as respond to any online review that the customers provide about your business and its operations. The main focus should be on some famous review websites such as Google My Business, Yelp, etc.

Why Should We Care About Online Reputation Management?

Your and your business’s online reputation is determined by how your business is perceived by others when any user or viewer comes across your brand or company in an online forum. Thus, we can also say that Online Reputation Management also influences the kind of information that the users will find when they browse online.

For example, there are many techniques and strategies which are used in Online Reputation Management that help to push the negative and harmful content to the bottom of the pages when one is searching on Google by using the search engine result.

This is done by either giving a rank to your own or some other person’s material so that it is published at the top of the search results. This is extremely crucial and important as only the top five listings that are there on Google Search Result get about two-third of all the total clicks.

Why Do We Need Online Reputation Management?

In today’s generation, the internet is everywhere. People are available more in online mode rather than offline mode. In fact, the impact of internet is so strong that we cannot escape it and most of our day to day activities revolve around it. We rely on the internet for everything – be it looking for what is happening in the world to finding out information about anything and everything.

Thus, this is also true about businesses. These days, people look up your company to find more information about it, and subsequently, read up on the existing views, comments, and reviews to understand whether the company is good for them or not, whether they should engage with that particular brand or if one should buy a product or not.

Based on these reviews and data available to them, they make their decisions. So, imagine if you are browsing and come across a product that you wish to buy. However, when you read about the company, it says that the company is not user - friendly and sells fake products.

In this situation, would you want to buy products from this company? Absolutely Not! Therefore, it is becoming utmost essential to manage your online reputation so that it does not impact your sales or the bottom line of your company.

There are various reasons why you need online reputation management and how can help you in keeping a good and positive image of your company. Some of the reasons as to why management of online reputation is required are given below:

Negative Review Removal

Today, there is free communication everywhere and people love to express their views and opinions. So, there are various websites that allow you to express your views about any company or brand without charging for this. There are many review sites as well that want the users of that service or product to talk and comment about it in terms of usability, customer experience, etc.

While this is a good thing, this can also be the turning point for your company as one bad review can turn the whole situation. Thus, you need to ensure that all reviews made about the company you work in or your product is genuine and not written to just sabotage your reputation.

So, you need to take control of all the negative reviews, check if they are genuine or not, and then take action for it accordingly. Checking for negative reviews online and removing them forms a crucial part of managing your reputation online and everyone must do this regularly.

Eliminate Hate Sites

Sometimes, it may so happen that people may go beyond just writing bad reviews or comments about you. Many people indulge in this illegal practice of not only writing false claims and reviews about your product but also go so far to the point of creating illegal content.

What they do is essentially create websites and fill it up with all sorts of false information. They talk negatively about your company and create a bad image of you in the public. This can wreak havoc for your company as if one searches for you online and comes across this website, then you will end up losing a lot of clients.

Thus, it is best to keep hate sites at bay. So, what you need to do to protect the image is track all these web pages that are not authentic and report them as soon as possible.

Make Good Transparency

One of the most important things in order to make and maintain a good name and reputation about yourself in the market – be it online or offline is to be transparent. You need to ensure that you maintain full clarity in everything that you do so that there is not even a speck of dust against you.

In order to do this, you must be clear in your approach when dealing with customers. Make sure that they understand you and your company well so that there is no mismatch or misunderstanding. All your customers must be aware of what is your company doing. Only through this, the customers will be satisfied with you and despite all the negative reviews and websites, will stay loyal to you.

Online Reputation Management Strategy

Your online reputation can make or break the image of your company. Thus, it is extremely important that you take good care of it. Nowadays, there is a lot of information available online and the authenticity of that can be seriously questioned at times. Thus, you must make sure that you formulate and develop strategies so that the right content with good and authentic information only can reach to the audience.

This is not a very easy task to do as on the Google Search page, the ranking of the pages keep fluctuating due to various parameters. Thus, in order to make sure that your website or your page is visible to all at all times, you must manage your online reputation well.

There are many strategies and techniques that will push certain pages down below in the rankings and the search engine. Thus, you must deploy these strategies effectively so that it plays to your benefit.

Top 5 Online Reputation Management Tools To Improve Your Brand

There are various online management tools that can help you improve your brand image and show them in a good light. Some of the most important and useful tools are given below:

Brand24 – Brand24 helps you to create projects and it can also track the social mentions of any given entity. You can also have a number of projects, brands or campaigns. You can also use Brand24 to look for keywords, pull mentions as well as filter your data. Thus, we can say that it is an extremely useful tool to use.

YouScan – YouScan is basically a listening tool that has the ability to scan the internet and social media for any mention of your brand. It can easily go through billions of data and find exactly what you are looking for. The analytics tool is also quite helpful as it helps in deriving various charts and data points that you may require for further processing.

BrandMentions – BrandMentions is an excellent tool to search for keywords as well as keep an eye on competition. You can track your keywords, do your analysis and also filter our data as you require it. Moreover, you can also see your brand mentions and understand the results accordingly.

Buzzsumo – Buzzsumo is yet another tool that you must have. It helps in searching for data using a variety of filters such as date, country, language, domain, publisher size, etc. It is one of the best tools for providing a content analysis report and it does the job perfectly. You can even create alerts to keep track of your various ongoing campaigns by using this tool.

Mention – Mention is an amazing tool to use if you want to keep track of any mentions or conversations that are happening around your brand and whether the users have mentioned you on any social media platform.  This tool helps in quickly sorting the positive mentions from the negative ones so that you can discern any problem that may take place right at the beginning.

How To Monitor Online Reviews? Why Do They Write Bad Reviews?

Bad reviews or negatives are written primarily by people who want to demean and badmouth your company. This is done so that your rankings can go down on Google Search Engine when someone types in your brand name and your page can hit the bottom of the search results.

Thus, in order to make sure that no irrational bad reviewing is happening for your company, what you can do is simply use BuzzBundle. What happens in BuzzBundle is that any content regarding your brand or company is automatically checked and you can easily identify negative reviews, and then take them down before it does any damage.

How To Improve Online Reputation Management Score? Explain With An Example

In order to improve your online management score so that you can reach more and more consumers, you can employ some of the techniques given below:

Ask your genuine customers to write feedback – This is very important. You must ask your genuine and loyal customers to write reviews about you so that others can perceive your good image and be motivated to deal with you.

Keep expanding to different platforms – It is very important to keep diversifying and not stick to one platform only. Thus, you must explore various other social media websites and start making your presence felt on sites like Facebook, Yelp, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.

Remove unnecessary ads from your page – We understand that monetizing is important but it is more important to be mindful of the number of ads that you have on your page and the relevance of those ads. If there are too many advertisements, the customers might get irritated and might stop visiting your page altogether.

Respond to Customers – It is very important to be transparent and respond to your customers. You must engage with them on a regular basis and also, respond to them if they are having any issues or are facing any concerns.

Benefits of Online Reputation Management

The benefits of online reputation management are innumerable. Managing your online presence helps you understand how your brand is perceived by customers, what problems they are facing and the work accordingly. You can also see candid thoughts of your consumers regarding your own company.

Moreover, managing your online reputation also helps you stay ahead of the competition, reach out to the mass at once and also convert new and potential leads. Thus, it is absolutely essential to take great attention when managing your reputation online.

Conclusion

So, now that you have read the complete guide on online reputation management, make sure you use the tips suggested in this guide to take your brand to newer heights!