You want to find new brands.
You’re probably in the majority if you answered “the Internet”. Consumers aged 16-64 use search engines to find brands. To find brands, more than 25% of consumers use social media, brand websites, and digital ads.
It is crucial for a business to have a good online reputation in order to retain and attract customers.
Brands aren’t the only ones responsible for establishing a reputation. Online audiences are active thanks to the internet. Through reviews, social media and other means, consumers can influence how a brand’s image is perceived online. The brand’s media coverage is spread faster than ever before. In a click, industry “best-ofs” lists and expert reviews can be accessed.
Brands cannot control everything that is published online about their brand. However, they can use strategies to manage the bigger narrative. That’s what this article will cover. You’ll find out why the online reputation is so important for a business and 9 strategies to manage it.
Quick Take-Aways
More than 90% of consumers say they are more likely to choose a company with positive reviews and that just one bad review can change their mind about a business.Conducting a brand audit is the best way to get a grasp on your company’s current online reputation.It’s critical to control the first page of Google results for your branded search terms — 98% of users never go past page one.Consumers trust online reviews just as much as word-of-mouth recommendations.Responding well to bad reviews can actually build trust and improve the online reputation of your business.
What is the importance of an online business reputation?
Online reputation is the new storefront for a business. It is what people first see and what they use to decide if they want more.
Consumers can quickly get a feel for your online reputation in just a few minutes. It takes only a few minutes for consumers to do a quick Google search and scroll through reviews to decide if they want to move on.
However, the best way to see why a brand’s online reputation matters is through numbers. Take a look at the following:
91% of customers prefer brands with positive reviews. 84% of customers trust online reviews more than word-of mouth recommendations. 94% of customers said that one negative review was enough to convince them to not use a business. 71% of U.S. workers stated they wouldn’t apply for a company with negative press.
Research has shown that the average user takes 50 milliseconds for an online opinion to form about a brand. It is important to make a good first impression. You risk losing customers if you don’t control the first impression people make when they visit your brand online.
How to manage your online reputation for your business
Do a brand audit
Knowing where your company stands online is the first step in gaining control over its online reputation. A brand audit is a way to do this. A brand audit is a process that evaluates how your brand is perceived by the public and its current position on the market. It is a good idea that you do them frequently. Many brands include it in their quarterly review.
This framework is designed to help you get started with your own.
img alt=”The 5-step process to conduct a brand audit” class=”aligncenter” height=”421″ loading=”lazy” src=”https://marketinginsidergroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Brand-Audit.jpg” width=”799″/>
Source: NetBaseQuid
Here is a quick overview of the five steps:
Benchmarking past and present efforts – Assessing whether or not your past and present marketing efforts met their goals.Competitor comparison and monitoring – Measuring your efforts against those of your competitors.Identifying trends – Looking for what’s trending with your target audience and considering how your marketing efforts align.Sentiment analysis – Looking at reviews and other user content to determine how consumers feel about your brand.Understanding news vs. consumer perceptions – Looking to see if what the press says about your brands and what consumers are saying lines up.
Create a reputation management strategy
After you’ve done your brand audit, the information you need for an online reputation management strategy will be available. Two main components will make up your reputation management strategy:
Make a plan to monitor your online reputation and address any issues currently affecting it.
Although the idea of creating such a strategy might seem daunting, there are simple steps you can take that will make a huge impact.
Set goals
What are the most important goals you have for online reputation management? Do you have specific issues that need to be addressed immediately? Do you have any gaps (ex. no online reviews)? What are your new strategies? Set clear goals to guide your strategy.
Know your resources
How many people do you have at your company to manage online reputation? What amount of time can your staff spend on this? Are there technology tools that could help? What other resources are available that you can use?
Prioritize your priorities
What are the most critical things you need to focus on first? Priorities are the most important things to address in your strategy.
Make an execution plan
A clearly defined plan will keep your strategy on track and hold your team accountable for following through. You should set deadlines and assign responsibility for each task. Also, you need to identify who will be responsible for each initiative. Finally, determine how you will keep track of progress (example, a Google Sheets shared work plan).
Take control of your first Google search result page
A top priority initiative should be to control the first page of Google results when your company searches for branded terms. Search engines are the most popular method for brand discovery. Consider this: 98% of people won’t scroll past the first page in Google search results.
It is important to control the content that users see on the first page. But how do you do it? A strong SEO strategy is the key to improving search rankings and controlling what content ranks highest.
Your SEO strategy should be focused on ranking controllable pages, such as those from your blog and website, for brand-related queries. This will help you move negative content to the top of the search engine results pages (where almost no one sees it), and positive content to the first page.
There are many moving parts. These moving parts are summarized in the graphic below:
img alt=”7 steps towards a strong SEO marketing strategy” class=”aligncenter” height=”955″ loading=”lazy” src=”https://marketinginsidergroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/7-Steps-to-Great-SEO-Strategyt.png” width=”1100″/>
Image source: Mangools.com
Let’s take a quick look at each one in more detail.
Keyword research
You can find the most common queries customers have about your brand. This can be done using Google Autocomplete (type your brand name, and it will show up in the results), or Google Analytics Queries Report. To see a list with top queries related to your brand, you can also use SEMRush’s keyword magic tool.
Identify the topics
Topic clusters are the key to deciding which high-level topics and keywords you will cover in your SEO strategy.
Publish great content
This is the key. To increase your brand authority in key areas, create thought leadership content and post it regularly. You can also create valuable content about customer reviews. Third-party websites that rank high on Google’s first pages (e.g. Yelp or Google My Business) should be claimed and optimized.
Optimize your on-page SEO
To optimize your website’s rankings, use proven SEO techniques such as keyword usage, metadata and images.
Get quality backlinks
Linking to highly-respected websites increases your brand authority and makes you more trustworthy to online viewers. Link building can be a tedious process. You need to produce high-quality content over time to gain backlinks. Your link building strategy will gain momentum once you get started. Then your backlinks will start to make an impact.
Keep track of your progress
How do you measure success? Rankings and organic traffic are two of the most important metrics you can use to measure your SEO strategy’s success. These are indicators that your content efforts have been successful. You must pay more attention to your brand’s story when managing your online reputation.
It is a smart idea to make time for regular evaluations of the progress of your SEO strategy.
Keep checking back regularly
SEO is a continuous effort. Don’t let your content get outdated. This can damage your online reputation. To ensure that your brand and product information are accurate, you should update your content frequently. Be aware of current trends in your industry as well as in the marketing world and align your efforts accordingly. Learn how Google’s ranking factors can change (which they often do), and adjust accordingly. To keep your content relevant and high-performing, refresh it.
Your SEO strategy’s most important part is updating your content and strategy. It has a big impact on your success.
Market like a PR firm
You can control your online reputation by thinking with a public relations mindset. This will help you to think beyond what you write. Marketing like a PR company primarily means creating positive press and user-created material that helps to build your reputation. You must also respond to negative reviews in order to reduce their impact.
Positive press
Here are some ways you can build positive press for the brand:
Guest posting on quality websitesPublishing press releases about important events and announcementsCo-marketing with reputable brandsMaking company leaders visible through interviews, event appearances, podcast appearances and the likeMaking a positive social impact through charitable partnershipsQuickly and genuinely addressing mistakes
Optimize user-created material
Two main methods to encourage user-generated material that improves your online reputation are:
Customer testimonials and customer reviews
When it comes to reasons customers trust your brand, reviews are second only behind product quality.
Image Source: MartketingCharts.com
It’s time for you to encourage your customers to review your brand. To motivate customers, you can offer discounts or giveaways. Link positive reviews to your website or place them directly on product pages.
To build brand awareness, second, make sure that the content you create is easily shared. People love sharing content online. Your brand visibility will increase if you encourage your audience to share your content. Easy steps to make your content more shared include adding social media buttons to your blog and sharing blog post on your social media channels.
React to negative reviews
It is easy to overlook negative reviews or press coverage and wish to forget about it. It’s also a bad idea. Every business has at least one bad review. Potential customers will look at your worst reviews to determine if they are worthy of a change in direction or if they can be forgiven.
Respond to negative reviews promptly and in a solution-oriented manner. Don’t say sorry and then call it good enough. Pay attention to their feedback and thank them when it makes sense. Then, offer a solution that will actually fix their problem and make their customer experience a better one.
Customers trust businesses that show they care. This builds trust and improves your online reputation.
More to you
You must publish high-quality, consistent content to manage your brand’s online reputation. Our team of SEO specialists and writers can provide you with optimized content that is ready to publish every week, so you can concentrate on the bigger story.
To learn more, check out our SEO Blog Writing Service.
Marketing Insider Group’s article How to Take Control of Your Business’s Online Reputation appeared originally on Marketing Insider Group.
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By: Michael Brenner
Title: How to Take Control of Your Business’s Online Reputation
Sourced From: marketinginsidergroup.com/strategy/taking-control-businesss-reputation/
Published Date: Tue, 17 May 2022 16:30:00 +0000
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