What is Reputation Management?
A customer’s perception of a brand improves or worsens their buying experience. The brand reputation of a company depends on its online conduct. Customers experiencing a better buying process will have a better perception of the brand. Managing brand reputation is essential to every business organization. Reputation management is the effort to influence the online image of a brand with digital marketing tactics.
Many business organizations keep a keen eye on their social media pages, blog posts, and online business listings. It is to manage their brand reputation. Businesses also use AI and ML to index and verify the negative customer experience feedback for their credibility. They also hold other websites with fake product reviews accountable.
A brand’s online reputation affects its sales and marketing. A negative reputation about a product can curtail the necessary audience reach. It will also impact the current standing in the market for a brand. Every business organization has a public relations team to keep track of relevant online activities. They verify and get rid of them to improve brands’ reputation in the market.
So can reputation be managed? Can you improve public perception of your brand image? The answer to these questions is yes. We will discuss efficient and effective SEO strategies to improve brand reputation. We will also look at why the brand reputation of a company is essential for its SEO strategy.
Tips to Boost Reputation Using SEO
Building an Efficient Digital Foundation
Brand reputation management starts from your business website itself. Your digital reputation centers on the efficiency of your website. Building a robust digital foundation will create hype around your brand. Perception of your brand among potential customers really matters a lot. It will dictate all the marketing strategies you will integrate for better performance.
There are basic steps to build a robust digital foundation for your business website. Every website needs valuable information and a customer-driven purpose to gain brand recognition.
Hence, these are some essential points that business owners should keep in mind while making their business website.
- Get a secure domain
- Optimize site architecture
- Simplify site navigation
- SEO-optimized content pages
- Create a review section
- Boost the website speed
- Adding a sitemap.
Get Your Brand Quoted
It is crucial to create a trust factor among your customers for better brand recognition and reputation. Try to publish quotes about the brand from a CEO or a director in several popular publications. The more your customers read about your brand, the better its impact on the brand reputation.
When your brand is quoted in any popular publications, you will avail quality backlinks to mention on your website. You can use those backlinks on your brand’s social media handles to reach more audiences. It will help your brand’s reputation as well as its search result rankings on the SERPs.
Combining the backlinks with your existing SEO strategy will boost your online reputation. It will allow your business to reach more potential customers. It will also hike the website’s customer engagement.
Hire a Branding Expert
Hiring a branding expert may seem like a hefty investment, but it pays. A professional reputation manager will assess your existing brand reputation in the market. Then they can choose a compatible online reputation strategy based on facts and trends. A brand reputation manager can guide your marketing strategy to improve your brand reputation.
A reputation manager can help your marketing strategy be aligned with your brand reputation strategy. It will allow your business website to attract relevant prospects. It will also enhance site engagement and lead conversion rate.
Integrating brand reputation strategy with content optimization will yield better search result rankings. It will increase the trust among your customer. Hence hiring a reputation manager has value-based benefits for a brand’s reputation.
Assess Your Current Brand Reputation
Know where your brand’s current reputation is in the market. Assess your brand value and image by organizing online surveys among your customers. Safeguarding reputation is about knowing your brand’s perception in the relevant industry. Knowing your brand’s strengths and weaknesses will allow you to work up the gaps.
Keeping track of your current reputation will make you aware of the threats that can impact your ORM strategy. Analyzing current online reputation will help you draw a digital marketing roadmap for your business. A clear strategy will not only yield a better online reputation but also higher customer engagement.
Hence, you can start assessing your current market reputation by:
- Tracking relevant target keywords
- Monitoring social media sites
- Analyzing backlink sites
- Verifying associated vendor reputation
- Addressing customer feedback and negative reviews
Optimize On-site Content
Content optimization plays a significant role in boosting brand reputation for businesses. SEO reputation management focuses on the industry-relevant data on the website. The quality of relevant business data will attract the right and relevant crowd to the website. The lead conversion rate will increase.
Ensure your on-site content provides solutions to your customers upon their queries. A business website should contain information-rich and industry-relevant content. Publishing case studies, blog posts, and event summaries attract potential prospects. Posting client testimonials will enhance the existing brand reputation.
Content optimization will allow your business website to gain confidence among your customers. It will also help you get the necessary edge on reputation over your market competitors. Hence, content optimization will boost brand reputation in the market.
Create an Accessible Review Section on the Website
An accessible review section on the business website will attract relevant customer clusters. A customer-centric business will have a better brand reputation than a profit-centric organization.
When a customer visits a website for a product, they look for the reviews section. Put the reviews under the product description. A genuine review section always impacts customers’ buying decisions. 50% of the customers decide to buy their desired product after going through the review section. Favorable reviews of your products will have a positive impact on your brand reputation. A positive brand reputation in the industry will increase your sales numbers.
Hence, genuine product reviews on the website will have a better impact on your brand’s image. It is vital to have a separate section for customer testimonials and feedback on the business website.
Address Negative Reviews and Customer Feedback
Many businesses make a blunder by removing the negative reviews without addressing them. It may seem like a good solution, but it has a long-term adverse effect on a brand’s reputation. While getting rid of negative customer feedback is good, it is wise first to acknowledge them.
When a product gets a negative review, check for credibility. If the negative review is a genuine experience for your customer, then address them quickly. Compensate the customer with a curated coupon code the next time they visit your website. Follow up on their experience and work upon your product to enhance its inclusivity.
Hence, following up on a customer with a negative review will profit your brand reputation. Solving unfortunate customer experiences can make your brand reliable.
Listen to your Customers and Their Preferences
Serve your customers well, and they will serve you the profits. A brand’s reputation depends upon its customers’ perception. A better user experience on the business website will increase customer engagement. It will have a positive impact on the brand reputation of your business website.
Listening to your customers will help you improve your branding and marketing. Positive feedback will enhance your customer trust. Whereas owning up to a negative customer experience will boost trust among your customers. It will increase your brand loyalty. Brand reliability enhances your brand reputation in the market.
In this digital marketing age, a brand’s reputation depends on its transparency while doing business. Listening to the customer and their preferences will improve your brand’s image. Being customer-centric will likely boost the online reputation of a business.
Use Social Media to Create Buzz
Brand delivery is vital to improve brand reputation in the market. Social media is one of the most dynamic places for brand delivery. You can almost triple the audience reach with social media. Conventional marketing strategies yield marginal results.
Every day more people are joining social sites. As per a global survey, the average online time of 3 out of 5 social media users is 18 minutes per hour. Make sure your social sites deliver the necessary information in these 28 minutes to create a brand reputation. Using social media, you can interact with potential prospects. You can market your brand better for your target audience.
Creating a positive buzz around the brand and its products will have a positive brand image in the market. It will help improve the brand’s social media image.
Use Bloggers and Social Media Influencers
Pay-per-click ad marketing on social media sites gets you better brand exposure. Publishing on high-authority sites will yield better results as well. Collaborating with internet personalities will boost your reputation to the next level. It will complement your existing marketing and customer engagement strategy.
Bloggers and influencers can take your brand reputation up a notch with their customer engagement. Many social media personalities have a loyal fan base. Choose your industry-relevant influencers to market your brand and its products. Gain more crowd drive to your business website with an increase in site engagement.
Bloggers with a positive social reputation will enhance your brand image in the market. It is a marketing strategy worth investing in for a better brand reputation.
Use Compatible SEO Strategies
Integrating SEO with online reputation is no stranger to digital marketers. If compatible, it will yield better performance and brand image for a business. Finding the right SEO technique for an online reputation management strategy is crucial.
A compatible SEO strategy will help your online brand reputation strategy. It works on your brand image, customer engagement, and sales. A suitable SEO strategy will work towards enhancing local search result rankings. A better ranking on the SERPs will boost the online reputation of the concerned brand.
It is the marketing team’s job to curate a compatible SEO strategy to integrate with the ORM strategy. Together SEO and ORM will benefit the brand’s reputation in one way than many.
Employ Visual Content
Visual content such as texts, videos, and images have more impact on your brand reputation among the users. Buying behavior of customers changes after they visit a visually appealing business website. Visual content can increase customer engagement and brand popularity among your customers. The website will drive potential prospects towards it due to its positive reputation.
Facebook ads, YouTube video links, and Animations will have a positive impact on your customers. Review videos and client testimonials with their images will drive potential customers. It will make your business and the products credible. Strategically employing visual content will engage the right and relevant customers.
Textual and visual animations of your products and reviews will enhance the brand’s popularity. Better brand popularity will enhance brand reputation in the market. It will create a huge difference and a positive impact on your customer perception.
Organize Customer Interaction Sessions
Keep in touch with your customers for better brand engagement. It will have a direct positive impact on your brand reputation in the market. Create interactive groups on your social sites such as Facebook and Instagram to connect with your customer base.
Conducting QnA sessions will engage more customers and potential prospects to your brand. Organizing live sessions on social media has a higher impact on the brand reputation. Interacting with your customers live will create a sense of trust among them. It will reassure your potential prospect to choose your brand for their desired products.
The customer interaction shows the human side of your business. It will create a perception that your business is not all about the money. It will assure your customers that you care about them and their experiences with you. It will help your online brand reputation.
Keep a Negative SEO Strategy
Reverse SEO or negative SEO works to push down negative reviews and search results related to your brand. The efficient way to implement a negative SEO strategy is to create engaging content and optimize the business website.
Negative SEO will keep your brand image in the public domains positive and clean. You can ask other relevant websites to take down fake reviews after checking their credibility. It will boost your local search result rankings on the SERPs. Negative SEO helps you solve conflicts right away and enhances your online reputation in the market.
Following strategies are the top considerations for efficient brand reputation management:
- Improving review ratings to at least 9/10
- Acquiring top page spot on local searches
- Flagging and resolving fake and negative reviews.
- Addressing the negative customer feedback
- Keeping an eye on the offline brand reputation.
Create a Customer Loyalty Program
As a brand, it is crucial to retain your loyal customer base. It is an effective way to increase your brand recognition in the market. Successful businesses create an exclusive customer loyalty program to reward their long-term customers.
Customer loyalty pays more than customer satisfaction. Reward your loyal customers with weekly and monthly coupons to your business website. It will allow your business website to have an engaging customer base. An engaging customer base will create a positive buzz around your business and its products.
The customer loyalty program will attract new customers due to added benefits. It will scale up your sales and profit. Hence, a customer loyalty program will boost your online brand reputation in the market.
Importance of Reputation Management for SEO
Increase in Public Trust and Profits
It is vital to acknowledge consumer sentiments to enhance public trust around your business and its products. Most of the SEO strategies are customer-centric. Companies implement SEO strategies to drive the relevant organic crowd to their business. An increase in the organic crowd will reflect on the business’s sales number. Hence, SEO is a digital marketing strategy to yield profit.
An efficient reputation management strategy can go beyond enhancing public trust. It can help SEO strategy drive relevant and loyal crowds to the business website.
More than 75% of consumers look for online reviews before going for any product or service. Online reviews can make or break sales numbers for a business now. A positive reputation around a brand will attract the right customers.
Important for The Brand and The Owners
The profitability and sales success of any business hinges on its brand reputation. The positive buzz around the brand and its owner/s will increase the longevity of the company. An efficient reputation management SEO will filter out negative reviews. It will mitigate those fake narratives around the brand and keep genuine customer feedback.
SEO and ORM are interdependent for business growth. You can not only focus on SEO optimization despite getting negative customer feedback. It is wise to have a compatible SEO strategy for your online reputation management strategy. It will yield better leads as well as reviews to your website.
An effective ORM will connect your business with the right set of prospects in the market. It has a long-term effect on the brand’s growth.
Online Reputation Management and SEO Content Optimization
Online reputation management impacts a business’s content optimization. It is wise to identify high-authority websites to publish your content. It is applicable for both visual and text-based content. Ensure your site content is optimized and have monthly updates for the plug-ins.
Both SEO and reputation management strategy can also produce marginal results. Make sure the users are not redirected to an unresponsive site with your blog post. High-authority site blog posts will attract a relevant and suitable set of audiences to your business website. It is wise to update your site and optimize your on-site content regularly. It will help your website rank higher on local SERPs.
Hence, brands need to identify their peak engagement time to optimize their on-site content. It will enhance the brand image and yield better performance.
Local SEO Boost
Business owners always try to boost their business rankings on local search results. Boosting local SEO gets easier if a business has a positive brand reputation and recognition. Search engines rank content as per its relevance to a user’s search query. The primary part of the ranking algorithm is based on the local feedback, listing accuracy, and NAP.
Better brand recognition and reputation mean better online reviews under your business listings. Positive customer reviews have a positive impact on the business’s local rankings. Positive reviews and feedback legitimize the brand image. SEO ensures that your business listings are consistent across all online platforms.
Authenticity enhances brand reputation. It can boost your existing marketing strategies, such as SEO and content marketing. Hence, a positive brand reputation enhances local SEO results.
Better Communication with Customers and New Prospects
As per Haitna.com, better online reputation management SEO strategy should convey the best story about your brand and its products. With the proper reputation management, a business can control its online exposure. You can track the mentions and reviews in real-time.
An efficient ORM can create a positive narrative of your brand among your customer. It will also influence and drive new prospects to your website. Better dialogue between a business and its customers will improve credibility. While ORM will highlight the positive reviews for your brand, SEO will take care of the fake negative reviews and feedback online.
Websites and social media accounts for your business serve as vital means of connecting with your customers. Hence an efficient ORM strategy will help your business get the necessary customer attention.