Building up a good online reputation is not easy. Yes, it can be done using several online marketing methods, but it is hard work and it takes time. Online reputation management is a term that refers to both companies and individuals. Bad reputation travels million miles per minute. Even with a good online reputation management strategy implemented in your marketing campaign, you can end up with negative publicity with only one negative comment. Fighting negative publicity is a hard job and it takes a lot of time to heal. During this period, you will surely lose traffic and/or sales on your website. Think of it from the customer’s point of view. Most people, before engaging in any kind of shopping, check the information and seek advice from the people who had some experience with those specific products. If you see negative reviews, you will most certainly not buy that product, especially if those negative reviews are located on the first pages of Google search. So, how do you defend yourself from negative advertising and bad reputation?
There are two basic strategies in building up and guarding your reputation online:
- Proactive reputation management strategy
- Reactive reputation management strategy
Both are crucial for your online reputation management and marketing strategy.
Proactive reputation management strategy
A well-executed proactive reputation consists out of several steps and it starts from point blank. I’m going to present you with vital factors in executing a proactive defense mechanism that will defend you from bad reputation.
Web Design
Having a professional design of your website will attract your customers/readers to visit and spend time on your website. Web design plays a crucial role in raising traffic on your website. For example, you cannot display flowers, fairies and leprechauns on your website if you are in the law business. With the uprising of the new CMSs (Content Management Systems) like Joomla and WordPress, the creation of a website became far easier. Instead of hiring a professional designer, you can easily go to Themeforest.net and choose the theme that represents your business the most. Look for themes that are responsive and SEO friendly – this will boost your website to the higher ranks in search engines and will also attract more visitors to engage.
Website Content
The content you are presenting to your visitors must be of high quality, fresh and original. If you are having troubles in writing content for your website, hire a professional to do it for you. The implementation of a blog can max out your potential in SEO and push your website to higher ranks. Keep your content relevant. Engage in discussions with your visitors, comment and send feedback. Ghost writing, guest posting and copy editing are crucial for your content’s success.
Gaining authority
Seek out big players in your field of expertise and communicate with them. Being in good relations with famous names in your branch will most certainly give you a great boost of your own reputation. This way, you will secure your authority in circles and communities and will minimize the danger of negative comments and bad reputation.
Reactive reputation management strategy
This is a late response strategy and should be engaged immediately after the first negative comment appears. Think of it as a reverse SEO marketing method. There are the methods for a quick response:
- Monitoring – this is the most important step. Monitor the visibility of your website. You can do this now by using Google Analytics to watch real time conversions on your website. You can see which posts have the longest comment threads, are there any activity spikes on some, as well as the geographical whereabouts of the visitors converting. This way, you will always know what is happening on your website and ensure a quick response
- Verification – check if the negative commentaries are true. Maybe you really made a mistake. If so, try to fix it and apologize to your visitors. Make sure you act fast and reassure your visitor that you will eliminate the mistake in a short time period. However, if you didn’t make a mistake and the accusations are false, move on to the next step.
- Identify the source – verify the identity of the person spreading the bad word and ban him from your website. Competitive websites will sometimes try to pull you down to lower ranks in search engines, just by lowering your reputation. If this is so, you can easily make that plan backfire by connecting that person to competitive website.
- Remove negative comments – by doing this, you will minimize the possibility of the comment being seen by the users. This way, the word will not be spread as fast and you will have more time to react. If you don’t see another option, you can easily remove the whole post – better safe than sorry.
- Spread positive publicity – act positive in your posts and forums. Spreading positive publicity can and will minimize the dangers of bad reputation picking up its pace. If you are just fighting, blaming and accusing others, you will allow bad reputation to grow and bring destruction to your authority and ranks in search engines.
Fighting bad reputation is hard work. Many website empires built over the years have crashed and burned over a week of bad publicity. These wounds are hard to mend and it literally pushes you down to the point where you have to start all over again. By implementing both strategies, you can set up an early warning defense mechanism which will help you fight negative publicity and reassure your website’s priority in various search engines. To be honest, no one goes after the second page of search lists. Keep positive and maintain your authority. Keep the big players in your close circles and co-operate with them. Establish a solid subscriber base and engage them in spreading the word about you by sharing content and links via social networks. This way, you will assure your website growth and you will always have support in fighting negative publicity.