- The Karcher Group
- Web Marketing
- Online Reputation Management
- How Online Reputation Management Works
How Online Reputation Management Works
Okay, so here’s a nightmare scenario: a customer has a bad experience with your company. This person chooses to blog about it, and next thing you know, the blog post is ranking on the first page of Google results for your company name. Yikes!
While this may sound far-fetched, it’s actually pretty common given how easy it is for users to generate content on the web. Unhappy customers can just hop on review sites like epinions.com or a even a blog, and post their thoughts for all of the Internet to see. For example, a quick Google search for the term “U-Haul” brings up results like “I hate U-Haul truck rental (and so does everyone else)” and “Don’t Use U-Haul”. Nothing like a couple of negative reviews to drive potential customers straight to the competition!
Here are a few tips to minimize any damage should this happen to you:
-
Monitor your company using Google Alerts. This service notifies you via email anytime there’s an online mention of your company name. There are certainly more sophisticated monitoring tools, but this one is free and a good place to get started.
-
Reach out to any unhappy customers to see if you can make amends. Offers such as a gift certificate and free future service go a long, long way. Who knows, they may be so impressed you took the time to try to fix the situation that they blog about that, too.
-
Call in the SEO experts to try to push negative content farther back in the search engines. You can do this by ensuring you have a well-optimized site (this is where we come in) and implementing some social media strategies (we can help here, too). Dominating the search engine results with your own content helps bury any negative reviews and dilute their effect.
Want to learn more about how to manage your online reputation? Contact TKG using the form on this page or call us at 1.888.485.4932.
