How To Fix Online Reputation Of Your Business

In this day and age, what your customers read about your business online is ultimately how they’ll end up perceiving your brand. They generally trust online reviews and ratings as much as they do recommendations from their friends and family.

So, what happens when they look up your business and see a slew of negative reviews? 

They’ll simply choose to work with your competitors instead. 

It’s not all that bad, though. Even if your online reputation is negative, this state isn’t permanent. By implementing a clear strategy, you can quickly turn things around and restore your online standing to where it’s supposed to be. 

In today’s article, we’ll cover why placing a larger emphasis on reputation management is essential for the success of your business and provide you with some ideas on how to fix the online reputation of your brand.

Let’s get started.

Why Manage Your Reputation In The First Place?

Your business is open to a wide array of reputational hazards. Low star ratings and negative reviews aside, you also need to keep a close eye on nasty social media comments.

Without taking proper measures to handle these seemingly minor issues, you pretty much allow them to snowball into a full-on crisis. Before long, the information presented about your business will be primarily unfavorable, which means potential customers will see negative reviews and poor customer experiences front and center.

Sadly, most business owners want to know how to fix online reputation when the worst takes place. This is ironic as a proactive approach to building a strong good name can eliminate such a problem to begin with. 

The simple truth is this: working tirelessly to boost your online presence strengthens the trust in your brand, ultimately attracting more business and increasing your bottom line. 

5 Steps To Repairing Your Online Reputation

By following the next few steps, you’ll minimize the impact of online reputational dangers, while also setting up the stage for growth of your brand’s online renown.

Here are some things you can do:

1. Identify The Underlying Cause

The first step on your quest to heal your reputation should be to identify what’s causing all the racket. 

In most cases, it will be an influx of negative reviews occurring in quick succession. Sometimes, your bad standing may be the result of an insufficient amount of positive content, which causes Google to use negative content to fill its index. 

Whatever the case may be, conduct an audit. Look up the name of your business with a fresh Google account and pay attention to the content visible on the first few pages of search results. 

Moreover, evaluate the discourse on social media and other online blogs where users may chatter about your company. 

With all the information ready, ask yourself whether too many customers are voicing their frustrations online. This is important because it may be a sign of a deeper issue within your ranks, or in the worst-case scenario, it could be a competitor trying to tank your rating. 

If any of the platforms you’re evaluating scream negative sentiment, it may be where the problem originated.

2. Address The Negativity

While Google will never completely remove negative information from search results, you can certainly minimize its impact on your reputation. 

Here’s an example:

If you find a blog post from a local influence that is unfavorable toward your business, you can contact them directly and offer a sincere apology. There is no shame in inquiring if there’s anything you can do to improve their experience or asking them to update or remove the content. 

You may not be able to leverage the same trick when it comes to news sources, but you can find other outlets willing to publish a more positive story. 

When it comes to reviews, the same principle applies. Apologize to the reviewer and try to make amends. If everything goes well, the angry customer may even take down the review and give you another opportunity. Even if that doesn’t happen, potential customers will be able to witness just how much you care about customer feedback. 

3. Attempt To Remove The Negative Content

In select cases, you may be able to use Google’s DMCA form to request the removal of offensive content. While there’s no guarantee Google will do this, it’s worth trying as a precautionary measure against articles and items that go against community guidelines. 

Still, an effective method of battling reputational harm is drowning them out with positive content. 

Invest in SEO-optimized content to organically improve your Google rankings and in a few months, you’ll bury the negative information. In addition, secure other backlinks to further promote your overall visibility, which serves the purpose of slowly increasing the visibility of the positive information surrounding your brand. 

4. Start Managing Your Reviews

We can’t stress this enough: you should consistently encourage positive feedback.

As we briefly mentioned, this slowly shifts the discourse surrounding your brand in the right direction, mitigating the damage from poor reviews. 

Although asking your customers individually is a feasible option if you have the time, you can automate this process and minimize potential friction in collecting feedback. 

Is there an affordable way to do this?

ReviewArm is a reputation management platform that provides an overview of the discourse around your brand. Along with integrating with major review platforms, it provides an intuitive dashboard from where you can manage customer feedback without the need to manually go between different sites.

There is also an alert system that makes certain you stay on top of any reputational hazards your business could experience in the future.

However, the crowning feature of this software is the feature that allows you to automate sourcing new customer reviews. For instance, you can send out new requests via WhatsApp, email, or SMS after closing the sale or in bulk at a later date. 

A free version of ReviewArm provides most of the tools to effectively manage your reputation, with paid versions starting at $49.

Control The Narrative 

Learning how to fix online reputation problems is the best way to ensure the long-term success of your company.

Since you’ll never be able to avoid mentions of your brand, positive and negative, from being posted online, you should leverage a solution that provides you with a consistent method of keeping your reputation in check - which is why ReviewArm was made.

Want to take it for a spin? Start your free trial now.