Managing online reputation

Management
Written by Patrick Martin at Search Perfect
Friday, 05 March 2010
If you are already established online you can also effectively monitor and improve your reputation. The nature of the internet is such that negative news stories, comments and reviews can appear in the search results of Google or on social media websites very quickly. What can happen, and frequently does happen for some businesses is that when a prospective customer searches Google for your businesses name, negative commentary appears. Related Articles: Businesses fail to use social media properly Online marketing tips for small businesses How to boost business through social networking SEO in 2010 - how to stand out Google rankings battle intensifies This commentary can take the form of a negative headline, review, social media comment or article. If it is on the first page of Google for your name, or above the fold of the page, the adverse impact on your business and its brand could be large. For many businesses, reputation is everything. A good name can be tarnished online very quickly by a negative blog post or some bad reviews. An initial drop in sales can be followed by a longer term image problem if users searching for a companies name constantly find negative publicity. Keeping track of what is being said about you There are a number of ways to track what is being written about your business online. Google Alerts lets you track a single phrase as it’s mentioned on its search engine. You could therefore track your businesses name. There are also other more in depth tools to let you track variations of phrases and different brands or individuals online. Taking ownership of your name It’s important to rank number one in Google for your businesses name. You want to be able to control what’s being said about you, and there is no better way than having your website at the top of Google when prospective customers type in your name. It’s also advisable to use Google Adwords and buy a paid placement for your businesses name at the very top of Google’s search results. This serves to enhance branding and improve the visibility of your company name. It’s a good idea to make sure that the first page of Google is full of listings you control. Set up Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts in your name as they can often rank high in Google. Write some articles which include your businesses name and have them published on other websites, together with submitting online press releases. These can often rank well for your name. If you use the methods outlined above you are building the foundations for protecting and building your brand and your businesses image. You will have more control, and that is always a good thing on the internet. What to do when you lose control Sometimes people will write negative things abut your business. It might be a blogger, a customer on a social media website or even a former employee. You can take action to remove the comments but it does depend on the context. The best thing to do is to contact the author and put your point across, which may then lead to the removal of the offending article. Sometimes removing the article just isn’t possible and action needs to be taken to actively promote positive, or at least neutral, brand worthy articles about your business. You can do this in the hope that this positive publicity will out-rank the negative news, which will reduce the likelihood that potential customers will see it. Catch bad news quickly The importance of constantly monitoring what’s being written about you is so if there is any negative news or comment that has just broken about your business you know about it immediately and can take action to release positive news. This can be in the form of press releases and other PR to push the negative news out of any online breaking news headlines. Online Reputation Management is about monitoring what is being said about you and keeping a strong base of positive news going all the time. When something negative is written, you are then in a stronger position to take action and promote the good stories that are already there. Patrick Martin is a Director for Internet Marketing, SEO and Online Reputation Management firm Search Perfect. For more information visit http://www.searchperfect.co.uk Share this: digg del.ico.us Newsvine Reddit Furl technorati Facebook Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Post a comment Name (required) Email (required) (not published) Website Title By posting on this website you are agreeing to abide by our website comment policy and all posts are subject to the approval of the website editor. We will remove posts that contain offensive or threatening language, personal attacks on the writer or other posters, posts that are off topic and posts that are considered spam or specifically used to promote any commercial products or services. Any poster who repeatedly contravenes the policy will be banned from posting on the website.