By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-03-18 16:45:43 | Word Count: 664
Maintaining a good reputation can be a challenge for some businesses especially with the widespread use of the internet. People used to rely on people they know to give them advice about which company to hire or support. Those days seem so far away. Today, people depend on the advice of strangers even more so than the people they know. Cyberspace is filled with a plethora of sites and communities that are geared towards giving others a firsthand account of how a business operates. Without online reputation monitoring, your company could be at the mercy of anyone.
The internet gives people an outlet that lets their voice be heard on a greater scale. Your business structure must include methods of addressing comments and bad reviews if you intend to preserve your business’ reputation and attract customers. Choosing to disregard bad comments is harmful to your profitability and trustworthiness.
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You may be wondering why anyone would write a negative review about your company. Although you probably think that your company is providing excellent service and high quality products, a customer may happen to disagree with you. This doesn’t necessarily mean that there is anything wrong with your company. This just means that you might have a difference of opinion with that person.
Small disagreements are not terrible when expressed face to face. Little disagreements tend to be blown out of proportion on the internet. Claims become more important when they are published online because this adds legitimacy and a sense of absoluteness that would not be apparent to so many without the internet.
To survive in the jungle of the internet, you need to be aware of what is going on around and about you. Some companies have so much negative attention online and they don’t even know about it. You have to stay in the loop on what is said in regards to your business, good or bad. You should search for your company on search engines like Google and Bing and see what the first two pages of results say. If any of the first twenty or so organic results include a negative comment, this is not good for business.
To lower the chances of a negative comment being ranked highly on a search engine like Google, you need to be proactive. Google and other search engines are more likely to rank syndicated information that is current at a higher spot than information that is stale. A bad comment could be less visible if you create a blog and update it frequently, more than once or twice per week. You can issue press releases and have media outlets publish it. This influx of good news about your company will become more significant in result rankings. Offering the complaining customer an incentive and addressing their concerns will pacify the situation, reestablish trust and let others know where you stand.
Monitoring your online reputation is something that has to be done on a regular basis to ensure that your positive image is maintained. Contact Optimum7 today to get started with building your online reputation. Call us at 1-800-736-9618
