When you first meet someone, you consciously or unconsciously create a first impression of that person. That impression may be different from who that person is, but it will affect how we deal with them until we know them better. The same is true with your business — how people perceive your business will occur very quickly when they reach your website. If that opinion is poor, you may lose a customer. If they don’t believe your business is trustworthy, your business reputation is being affected.
Managing your business reputation not only involves getting your company on the first page of search engine results, but it also means working to establish a trusted brand that grows due to customer loyalty, referrals, good reviews, and a positive reputation. If you find your business reputation is not up to par, here are some actions you should take repair it before it seriously impacts your business.
Remove the negative
If your business reputation is suffering because of an issue as simple as poor spelling or grammar on your website, or perhaps a negative review, fix the issue rather than simply ignoring it. A poor review can be reversed or at least negated by either responding to the reviewer with a positive statement or a request to contact them and resolve the problem. Also, be careful that your personal life does not bleed over into your business reputation. If you have unflattering personal photos that may link to your business, remove them.
Suppress the negative
Google creates answers from search inquiries. If search inquiries for your type of business are not resulting in you being high on the search result, then SEO is your problem. Search words on Google and other sites are using keywords that match those found on relevant sites. If you haven’t been optimizing your website for keywords that best describe your business, then now is the time to fix that. To minimize bad search results, you need to tell Google how to find your business by:
- Matching your website to your best keywords
- Blogging regularly to create relevant content
- Optimize video and images for your business
- Use social media to highlight your business
- Network with sites like LinkedIn and others
The point is to create “healthy” content that suppresses the bad search results previously found for your business. This will improve your search rankings over time.
Use professionals who specialize in SEO and business reputation
This is where DigiSphere Marketing can help. We are specialists in SEO, business reputation building, and optimized website design. We can create a program to give you a proper website, match keywords to your business, create regular blogging to keep your site active, engage your customers on social media, and work to improve your business reputation. You don’t have to do all this alone, because DigiSphere Marketing is ready and waiting to serve you. For more information call us at 1-800-807-3031.
