Online reputation is everything. It can boost your profits or taint your good name like James Russell Lowell once said:
“Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.”
A single flaw destroys a whole reputation of integrity.
Most times the Internet makes online reputation management easy and hard at the same time, and it requires a carefully planned strategy to ensure you’re on the right track. Of course, it’s difficult to please every customer, so get ready to have some online bad reviews as responding to bad online reviews could sometimes be more effective or rewarding than focusing more on getting good reviews.
Practicing regular online reputation management will help keep the business in check. The fact is that one person’s reputation is another person’s online gossip; thus, every business needs to deal with contents about their brand regardless of the report’s authenticity or credibility because ignoring just a few complaints can result in long-term problems for your business.
There is absolutely no quick method for repairing a damaged reputation, but attempting to fix the damage is a good starting point, and as you’re rebuilding your online reputation, you need to pay careful attention to the following key metrics to ensure you’re making tremendous progress.
- Conversion/ Monitoring metrics
Conversion metrics are basic tools in online reputation strategy and most importantly, paying attention to the following metrics will help monitor your progress
- When your reputation is damaged, you then have a reduced chance of customers patronizing your business. Your source of traffic gets reduced or die out entirel
- The rate of converting on your website gets down drastically, and new visitors (if any) just end up surfing and bouncing.
- Those who return to your website should also be watched closely and try identifying what made them revisit your website. Also, observe their behavior and comment so as to make adequate adjustment where necessary.
- Pay close attention to your value per visit and cost per conversion as a damaged reputation would cost more to convert a new visitor.
- Using tools like Google Analytics you’ll be able to monitor the bounce rate and exit pages of your visitors as this tool allows you to know the rate at which visitors exit your site without doing anything.
- Social-media activity
Social media activity analyzes everything about your audience, and how engrossed they are with your content. You can gain a lot of insights on your analytics by using Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn accounts to check comments and how they respond or react to your techniques.
- Online reviews
This gives you a better picture of your customers view about you or your brand.
Thankfully sites such as Yelp, Social mention, Hoot suite, Google My Business, Amazon, and Foursquare can help check if your customers are satisfied or dissatisfied with your brand and also setting up Google alert to find out the opinions of your customers quickly.
- Google Autocomplete
Have you ever tried searching for a phrase and while you’re still typing it Google suggests or completes it for you? Yes, that’s Autocomplete.
Now imagine a business that gets a bad press, receives a negative review, how can you remove these curious clicks?
It’s suggested that to repair this, you first investigate the origin if you don’t already know then try deleting it by reporting such predictions to Google. Also, try promoting your positive review in other to bury the negative ones and avoid manipulating the terms as it does lead to worst outcomes.
Finally, having an online reputation management expert in place is a major key in protecting or repairing your brand’s name. These are professionally trained individuals with excellent crisis management strategies tailored to both enhance your reputation, monitor, and manage your reviews and forum comments online.
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Request a demo to see how Reputation Shielder’s efficient, mobile process can help your business collect 20x more reviews than traditional platforms. This will, in turn, improve local SEO and ultimately boost revenues.
