Nothing is more important to a company than how people perceive it, which is why reputation management is one of the fastest growing areas in brand maintenance and awareness. It isn’t a new concept, as businesses have long strived to interact with their customers in a positive way and generate positive feedback. Until recently, though, such feedback was delivered through newspapers, radio, television, and other slow moving media. Today, the internet dominates the conversation, and if a company does not monitor their reputation online, public opinion may get out of hand before a business even has a chance to respond.
What are the benefits of allowing an SEO firm to handle reputation management?
The importance of maintaining excellent public opinion is obvious. More than ever, people are rushed for time and don’t have the ability to carefully consider which business to patronize. The rise of online reviewing and blogging has given these hurried people a powerful tool in consumer protection. In fact, 90 percent of Yelp users state that they look for positive reviews when making purchasing decisions.
But again, that’s obvious. What isn’t so obvious is the SEO power that such feedback can provide, and how SEO can help the positive messages stand out.
Establishing public opinion online is often a long-fought battle. The goal is to ensure that when a potential customer inputs the company’s name into a search engine, the results that come back are positive and help support the brand. If a business does not pay attention to online feedback and does not produce its own positive content, they are taking a major gamble. If negative results float to the top of Google and other prominent search engines, rest assured that this will damage the company’s ability to do business.
However, few businesses have the means and ability to oversee and direct their message online. Doing so takes technical expertise, an eye for public relations, and a lot of time. Understandably, this is something a lot of small companies are not naturally equipped to handle.
How can an SEO firm help with reputation management?
There are a number of tactics available to an SEO firm, and together they can support the message a company wants to establish and promote. Some of these tools include:
- Improving the SEO quality and tagging of the business’s own produced materials. This may include case studies and customer testimonies.
- Developing and designing an original website that houses positive content related to the company.
- Maintaining an active and friendly social medial presence.
- Producing press releases for respected review sites, and blogs to generate positive awareness.
- Filing take-down demands against people suspected of libeling the company.
- Encouraging mentions of the company on respected third-party sites that rank highly in search engines.
- Responding to public feedback and criticism quickly and in a proactive way.
In a way, many SEO firms can now provide some of the same services that public relations firms used to, and the effort can mean immediate returns for the company. After all, a business cannot stand on its own – it must be propped up by customer loyalty, and that starts with cementing a positive online presence