If you’re running a business, one of the most essential things you MUST focus on is maintaining your online reputation. No entrepreneur would prefer a situation where their prospects and customers develop a negative feeling about the business based on the brand’s poor online presence.
Did you know that 25% of an organization’s market value is directly associated with its online reputation? More so because everyone has a voice of their own and the internet is a great platform to express one’s opinions.
If you’re not conscious about your online reputation, it is only a matter of time that you may end up creating a negative brand image.
Here are a few steps to manage your Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM):
1. Keep Tracking your SERM
Before you protect your search engine reputation, you need to learn how to monitor it. Here monitoring is all about knowing what people think of your business or what they’re saying about your business. There’re several tools like If This Then That (IFTTT), Me on the Web, etc. to track your SERM.
This tool can help you with the following:
- Scan all your internet mentions and generate a detailed report on the same
- Track if your company name was mentioned in any email
- Search all the social media platforms to find out what people are posting about your business
2. Make the most of Social Media
Keeping a track of your social media footprint is very essential. Social media is the most important element of your SERM. Many organizations make the mistake of not utilizing their social media accounts to interact with their audiences.
Make sure you actually use your social media accounts to build relationships and engage with your audiences. If you can successfully build trust with your audiences, they are least likely to post poor reviews about you. Also, the higher your social media engagement, the better are your chances of improving SERP rankings.
3. Listen to your Customers’ Response
If you ignore the negative comments, that’s a terrible mistake. Negative comments are an opportunity to fix your relationship with the customers and improve your SERM. So, if customers are complaining, you need to listen and address the challenges they’re facing.
Sometimes customers shed light on valuable aspects that you’re probably missing out on. If you listen to their feedback and take appropriate actions, that can be a great way to build a reputation.
4. Check First Page of Google Search Results and Make Sure Everything is Okay
Most of your prospects and customers will make decisions by referring to the first page of Google. So, you need to make sure that whenever somebody searches your brand’s name, only good things appear on the first page of Google.
Below are some tricks to ensure this:
- Make sure all your active social media accounts are displayed on the first page
- Link all these social accounts to your official website
- Ensure that the third-party websites that are coming on the first page are associated with your official website
5. Try to Stay as much Transparent as Possible
Finally, stay as much transparent as possible. Practice honest communications to build the trust of your audiences. Admit your mistakes and show your audiences that you’re taking proactive actions to resolve them. Don’t forget that millions of people are watching your every step. One wrong move online could cost you big time.
Final Words
Hopefully, these 5 steps will help you manage your Search Engine Reputation Management. Is your company looking for an ORM company that can do all the above and more? Please drop us a line,
