Your business’s online reputation is made up by all the things said about you online. These “conversations” are often one-sided, but still powerful in how they shape potential customers’ trust and perception of the quality of your product and reliability of your service. You can control how you appear online and win more customers by learning how to own and earn a positive online reputation.
Owning and Earning a Customer Winning Online Reputation
When you search the internet for your business or name, what shows up? A large part of reputation management is owning, and thus controlling, the information that shows up in online searches. The power to create an attractive online reputation is literally at your fingertips. If you have a website and a blog, you should be consistently creating and publishing quality content and media (images, videos, and infographics) that are optimized for internet search.
Earn positive reviews from customers to show consumers that what they see on your website, read in your ads, and find in their online research is true. According to a recent BrightLocal survey, over 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Additionally, your business profiles and pages with customer ratings and reviews on popular sites like Yelp and Google rank high in search results. While you can’t control every review, you can successfully manage this process to show consistent high ratings.
Own Your Domain Name(s)
Even if you aren’t ready to build a website or start a blog, purchase domains that should belong to your business and keep them current so someone else doesn’t use it in a way that will hurt your online reputation or force you to pay a ridiculously high price to get it back.
Earn Positive Ratings and Reviews
Start with a great product and exceptional customer service, and you’ll have a smoother journey to creating a stellar online reputation. But even the best businesses need to nurture the feedback process and proactively promote their customer reviews to ensure that the best reviews are making it to the review sites that matter most. Effective reputation management involves using a system that includes:
- Continuous gathering of feedback from customers
- A process to address customer issues before they become negative reviews
- A way to make it easy for customers to post positive reviews to the review websites your potential customers use the most when making their buying decisions
- Consistent monitoring of customer reviews across the main review sites
Click the logo to check out how Reputation Loop’s software automates reputation management to effortlessly build a five-star reputation.
Put Out Fresh, Valuable, and Search Engine Optimized Content
You have a better chance of controlling the online conversation about your company if you are talking the most and the loudest. Learn how to get or create quality content first and then brush up on your search engine optimization (SEO) to make sure it gets found online. Read “SEO in 2016 – What You Need to Know” for a refresher on how you can rank higher in search engine results.
Create and Manage Your Online Business Listings
Statistics show that over half of local searches are for a business’ location and hours. Search engines pull this information from dozens of sources, most of which are business listings – some you’ve created and some which were automatically created in the process of just being online. Don’t underestimate the importance of business listing management and the damage of having inaccurate or missing information about your business online. Not managing your business listings is how many businesses end up with conflicting information online, and search engines don’t like to give inaccurate results so your business will end up lower in search results. Read “The What Why and How of Business Listings and Citations” to get a better understanding on owning and leveraging your business listings.
Claim Your Social Media Profiles
Again, even if you aren’t ready to use them, grab up your business name and obvious variations before someone else does. But with so many consumers on social media and social media post now showing up in search results, learning how to engage your audience and promote your business gives you even more online content to control and leverage.
You’re In Control – Own and Earn Your Online Reputation
When you consider the importance of your online presence and how hard it is to rebuild a tarnished online reputation, it clear that creating and maintaining a positive online reputation for your business should be a top priority. Building on the foundation of a strong foundation of a search engine optimized website and fresh content, managing your online reputation to a five-star level is a little bit of work with a HUGE return on investment.
Use this free Local Score grader below to search the most important business listings and customer review sites to see where your business’s online presence is working hard for you and quickly find where you can make improvements.
http://ift.tt/214xAEs
What’s Your Local Score?
Enter any business name and zip code and see how you show up on directories.
About The Author
Zach Anderson is the co-founder of Reputation Loop (helping small businesses grow by generating customer feedback and online reviews) who loves online marketing and golf.
The post How to Own & Earn a Customer Winning Online Reputation appeared first on Reputation Loop.
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