How to repair your online reputation
As a business owner, it is critical to work on your online reputation as it can help make or break your business or your personal life. Research shows that more than 57% of consumers will only buy a product if it has four or more stars. So if your business has less than four stars, more than half of consumers won’t consider it.
The internet has made it easier for people to read everyone else’s opinions. So that’s why, as a brand, you must ensure that people leave a positive review every time they interact with your business. If you are looking to repair your online reputation, you are in the right place. This article gives you tips for online reputation repair. Keep reading to explore them.
Identify the root cause of the reputation problem
The first step to repairing an online reputation is to identify the source of your problem. You need to find what damaged your reputation in the first place. In some cases, a damaged reputation could be due to a content vacuum that is filled with anything found in the search engines-positive or negative.
While doing your investigations, you should ensure that no stone is left unturned. You need to find out whether a former employee left a negative review or a negative comment from the CEO. Identifying the root cause of the problem can help find ways to deal with it appropriately and start building a positive reputation.
Repair negative content at the source
It is possible to repair a problem right at the source. If a blogger or media outlet published something bad about you, you can try and reach out to them and politely ask them to update or delete that particular content. When reaching out to the author or publisher, remember:
Be polite
Don’t threaten them with legal action as this could worsen the situation
Make an attempt to document the request in writing.
Remove negative reviews from Google
Once you have successfully corrected the issue or deleted the content, you can then submit a content removal request to Google. But remember that this works only if the content doesn’t exist anymore.
Push down negative search results that you cannot get rid of
This process is quite tricky. You can do the process yourself, but it will consume much of your time. Or you can let a professional do it for you. The bottom line is that you need to create and optimize positive information to make it outdo the unwanted content, pushing it down into your search engine.
Strengthen your online presence with positive reviews
The most excellent way to repair a bad reputation and protect your online reputation is by strengthening your own web properties. You can optimize your existing content and continue to publish positive, timely content that is appealing to your customers. You can achieve this by:
Maintaining a strong social media presence
Publishing blog posts and positive review pages that highlight your customer loyalty
Building backlinks that encourage visibility
Producing engaging, timely press releases that represent your business’s voice and goals.
Wrapping up
Online reputation repair is something that doesn’t happen overnight; it takes some time. You can also not ignore it. Having a negative or non-existent reputation can affect your business more than you could have imagined. So it’s crucial to take the above tips in order to repair it.
Sometimes, repairing a damaged reputation can be costly and overwhelming. That’s why you need to hire experts to handle that for you. They use the right tactics to ensure that they improve your online reputation.