Search Engine Reputation Defense
Defending your company against a bad search engine reputation begins with having a good business and reputation strategy. You can help guarantee that you develop both by ensuring that you:
- Have a branding strategy. It is not enough to simply want a good online reputation – you need to define exactly what you want your company to stand for. It is hard for you to develop a great reputation online if you are not sure what your business represents. What would be the best possible positive comment about your business? What image would best allow you to get the business results you want? Think carefully about your answers and put them in writing. Start projecting this image in your marketing materials and online presence. You will notice that you are more easily able to identify potentially damaging comments if you know what your company stands for. Contrary to what most companies believe, not all online comments are completely identifiable as bad or good. If a customer says “This company only wants to promote their product” is that a positive or negative comment? If you know what your company represents, you will know – and you will be able to react appropriately.
- Have a realistic search engine strategy. What do you want – specifically – from search engine results? Of course, you want anyone searching for your company name to be lead to your company website first. Beyond that, however, which keywords do you want to lead to your website? What rankings do you want your site to get for each keyword?
- Have a customer relationship plan. A good customer relationship plan lets you and your team members know how to deal with orders, new customers, and billing. With this type of plan, everyone will know what to do and it will be easier to keep customers happy – which will help reduce complaints and problems.
- Know how to deal with complaints. Even if you are very careful in your business dealings, it is inevitable that some customers will be unhappy. When your company receives a customer compliant, you should know exactly what to do. You should have a plan in place to ensure that the complaint is dealt with fully and quickly. Your plan might include apologizing to the customer, asking what can be done to correct the problem, and following up to make sure the customer is satisfied. Of course, it goes without saying that any complaint should be resolved quickly – make it a top priority. Dealing with problems quickly and effectively will mean that fewer angry customers will be posting negative comments about your company on the Internet.
- Manage your reputation – online and off. Even if you take every precaution against customer dissatisfaction, negative online comments can still occur. Competitors may spread rumors about your company to hurt your business and customers may inadvertently spread false rumors about your company. Knowing what is happening with your reputation allows you to respond quickly and stop problems before they spiral out of control.