Reputation management boosts the online presence of your company
Whenever a person is in need of information on a company, or a topic in particular, they are highly likely to turn the Internet to search for what they need; especially in this day and age. Nowadays, if a company does not have an online presence people may be turned off, as they may find another company that offers similar products/services, and because they might have a strong online presence, and will show up when people search related topics on the Internet. Also, if a person is specifically searching for your company and cannot find it online, or there is not enough information, they may question how reliable and professional your business is if it doesn’t have the time or put in the effort to create an online presence. If you are to invest into reputation management, your online visibility will increase drastically, and you should start to notice an increase in potential customers due to people being able to find you and what you can offer; plus if you remember to continuously create as new content your search results in Google will be constantly optimised to get the most views possible.
Other companies that you might be competing with are most likely already investing in reputation management
As mentioned in the first point, if you are not currently investing in proactive reputation management and your competitors are, they will gain a significant advantage and will most likely steal customers who might be searching for you – only to find that they can’t find your services, and then discover other companies that do have an online presence. This is obviously a problem, as you will be losing out on a lot of potential customers, while your competitors are having an easy time. The most important thing to remember is that customers choose to do business if they like what they see and they are happy with the information they are given.
Reputation management increases traffic to your website
Most reputation management companies use tactics and techniques that help to direct more traffic to your website, so that more and more people can see exactly what you do and so that people searching for you can have access to the information that they desire. This means that potential customers will have access to your online profiles, blog posts and social media activity as well as customer reviews and so on. This in turn increases the overall traffic to your website meaning that you are most likely going to have an increase in customers too.
The increase in visibility and traffic helps your business to grow
With more and more traffic arriving at your websites and social media sites you will most likely see an increase in customers, and also you are more likely to convert some customers of another similar company to yourself if your reputation is good enough. If you aren’t doing too well though, you will need to act fast and maybe invest more into reputation management to ensure that you always come out on top, as if any of your competitors have a more superior reputation you are likely to lose customers to them which in turn means you lose out on the money they would be paying.
Reputation management can protect your business from online risks
One problem you may come across while having an online presence is negative articles, forums, or other negative publicity that appear online about your company which can cause a lot of damage if not dealt with properly. Your existing customers and potential customers may see these articles and reconsider using your services, and might convert to one of your competitors which is obviously a cause for alarm. These negative links could come be about or from anything that may happen within your organisation, and sometimes could even be the result of deliberately malicious actions by a disgruntled ex-employee or a jealous competitor. All of these may cause people to think negatively about your company. Having the backing of a good reputation management company can help to drown out these negatives by placing more positive content above them in the search results so that people see that first, this is known as positive content flooding, and in some cases if there is evidence of false information or defamation it could be removed completely by Google. It also helps to have a strong reputation strategy in place which you can develop with your chosen reputation management company.
A good plan can make bad reviews more manageable and can help to make positive reviews more visible
It is proven that roughly 9/10 people will take the time to read reviews left by other people before actually considering and visiting that business themselves and this has also been proven to help with their decision on whether they will purchase something from that business or not. This means that if bad reviews are the first to appear or there are quite a few when searching for reviews on your company this might negatively impact the way people see your business and may make them reconsider using your services. Even just one negative article on the first page could cause as many as 20% or more of your potential customers to consider turning away and not using your business. This can be avoided by having a good strong reputation management plan in place so that you can respond to negative reviews as quickly as possible and showing other people that you are reading people’s issues and responding to them effectively. This shows that you have good customer service and might help with people who may be deterred by negative comments and may outline the positive reviews on the same page. An important thing to remember is that deleting negative comments can be risky as people may consider you are silencing their free speech, and this may cause a serious backlash and an even larger impact than the original negative comment did. Also, these reviews can be monitored over time, and if you are to take on board what is being said in the negative comments, it can help for you to improve your service over time and decrease the negative reviews that are being left. This will lead to a better online presence overall and eventually increase your star ratings.
Having an investment in reputation management can give you control of many different areas to share content
Online reputation management can help you to be much more active in many different areas, from social media, to video content on platforms like YouTube, meaning that you can be accessed in so many different ways depending on people’s preferences. This also means that if problems arise like false reviews, or other reputation-damaging circumstances occur, you can have plans put in place to manage these accordingly using all of the different platforms available to you.
Reputation management can be used to build trust with your customers
More than half of the people who use search engines to gain information on a business will trust what they find in the top few searches. This means that if you have a good brand reputation management company, and you actively engage with your customers, you can build up trust over time and in turn you will be seen as a more trustworthy source; and you may also become more recognisable and enjoy greater brand / image recognition too. The more interaction you have with customers and potential customers, the more trust and customer loyalty is produced.
Good online reputation can help to ensure that you are attracting the best employees for your organisation
When searching online for a company to work for or to start a career, people tend to research as much as possible on their potential employers to make sure that it is the right place for them. If you have a negative reputation, the more suitable and best people to work for you may choose to go elsewhere as they may not see your organisation as the best fit for them, and you may instead attract lesser talented individuals. This in turn would mean that you aren’t offering your customers the best service, and may mean even more degradation of your company’s name. If you have a solid reputation, you are more likely to attract the best suited people for the job role, and in turn you can offer a better service to your customers and clients. This might also mean that you get a better reputation on social media suited for employees and employers like LinkedIn.
Reputation management can help you to be recognised as a leading company in the industry
If you are seen as a leader in your industry, more and more people will flock to your business and will choose you over the next business that offers similar services and products. This is becoming more and more important as a factor in building personal reputation management and business reputation management, and can really help to increase your overall credibility and trustworthiness. This will obviously make people more likely to choose you over similar businesses that may not have as good reputation as yours.