How to Best Manage your Online Reputation the Correct & Proven Way
Every business in Australia and it doesn’t matter the size – from the big end of town, right through to the mum and dad corner store – must manage their online reputation. All business owners will truly understand how damaging to their reputation a negative online comment, fraudulent blog post, nasty article or even worse a fake & malicious mention on a website can be. It’s the stuff that gets your heart racing, and there is good reason for this. If a customer or potential client reads this, no matter how untrue or how unfounded these claims are, there is still a blur on your reputation or brand. It puts a negative connotation on your business or brand and most businesses will try, once they see this online, to negate these comments. Failure to do so can lead to loosing out on potential new leads or loosing good customers. You don’t want to let these malicious comments end up hurting you – so this is where we step in and HELP.
At SEO MELBOURNE EXPERTS we can repair reputations online quickly and efficiently. So stop stressing, and give us call on 1800 916 191.
In any case I thought I would list 5 MUST do tasks to protect your online reputation.
1) Constantly be vigil about your online reputation.
The best way to do this is to ‘Google’ your name or type your URL into the search box on Google and see what comes up. If there is anything on the first or second page that looks damaging it’s time to take immediate action. Do this task about once a month. You can also set up a Google alerts that will send you an email every time your name or brand is mentioned online. It’s a great way to keep this type of negative publicity in check – as soon as your name is mentioned – you get the notification. If you are part of a bigger company or organisation then you may want to push your own message out there by publishing positive content through relationships you have with PR agencies, bloggers or SEO firms.
2) Write Content on as Many Different Platforms as Possible.
Don’t just stick to writing content on your company website. Think further afield and write fresh, new copy on other platforms or channels that you have immediate access to. Think about your Facebook page or your Google+ page. These are great avenues where you can write positive, affirmative copy that will get noticed. The more and varied sites you can have your brand on, the more this will dominate page 1 of Google. This is the foundation of good online reputation management and it really all starts with you and what you are able to do from the beginning. Make sure that you have registered your brand ON ALL SOCIAL MEDIA platforms – this way your intellectual property is protected from would be malicious people, ex staff members, spouses, competitors…what ever…just do it!
3) Get as many testimonials as possible.
Publish as many testimonials as possible on your website. Showcase these on the home page to reinforce just how trustworthy your brand or business actually is. Also a really good idea is to publish a blog post and call it ‘great client reviews’. This will get indexed by Google and rank whenever someone types in your brand name. This is a nifty trick and used by many online reputation management agencies.
4) Look to take up as much online real estate as you possible can.
There are hundreds of websites that you can sign up to for free that will allow you to publish your brand and website URL. These citation based websites can in many cases be very powerful and launch your brand right up there on page 1 of Google – do as many of these as you can, taking up as much real estate as possible when it comes to your name. This will make it difficult (not impossible) for ugly comments to appear.
5) Outsource your online reputation management
The above tips are a recommended first step – kind of do it now before anything happens. What we advice due to the severity and consequences negative online publicity, you should be looking at outsource your online reputation management to a professional SEO team that can repair any damage quickly. Some articles online are just too difficult to eliminate on your own.
This is where we come in and do the work for you. Letting this problem fester and grow will only do further damage as more and more people read it. What ever you do, don’t think that this issue will simply disappear quietly, because it won’t!
You are the one that needs to take action and terminate these types of comments.