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3 Steps to Managing your Online Reputation
Don Sorensen an online reputation management authority discusses the commonly asked questions about Online Reputation Management.
Listen to the podcast, watch the video, or read the transcript below.
3 Steps to Managing your Online ReputationAdditional videos from Don Sorensen:
How much does online reputation management cost?
How to rate your company's online reputation
Online Reputation Management Services - Forbes
Transcript - 3 Steps to Managing your Online ReputationHi, my name is Don Sorensen and today I want to share 3 steps to managing your online reputation.
First a quote from Sandra Bullock. She said: “So, I Googled myself and read the comments section, thinking I could get some tidbits of what people really think of me. No human being should ever read the comments, or ever Google one’s self at any time.”
Just like Bullock, many CEOs are often taken aback when they Google their own name or the name of their company. What they find isn’t always flattering. It could be hostile and mean. It might not even be true. But there is it for the world to read. What they read could cost you in lost business or damage your brand’s reputation.
However, there are things you can do to manage your online reputation so you’re not at the mercy of your company’s critics. Start by following these three steps:
Step No. 1: Accept the fact of online reviews.
The reality is people can say just about anything they want online. You don’t have much legal recourse to make the negative postings go away. People have a right to complain, and online it’s easy for unhappy customers to vent their frustrations.
When you see a negative review about your company the instinctive reaction is to post a response to set the record straight. While it’s natural to want to respond and defend yourself, under most cases you should resist.
When you post a comment on a website, you are adding new content. And if you get into a back-and-forth discussion with someone about your company it can hurt you.
Google will see the website has a lot of information about the company, so they will rank the website high for searches on your company name. When someone does a search on your company, they are even more likely to see the negative review. Your goal is the opposite—you want websites with negative comments to slip further down the Google rankings so they don’t appear on the first page of a search. The next two steps help you with that.
Step No. 2: Focus on getting positive content.
A major part of online reputation management is trying to push the negative websites off of the first page or two of a Google search. You can do this by posting positive content and getting those pages to rank higher than the negative websites.
Your marketing or PR department needs to make online reputation management part of their job. They should always be looking for, gathering or creating positive content that can be used to continually update your websites. Don’t put everything onto one corporate website. Instead, set up different websites for different purposes. Or, get interviews or articles about your company on highly respected websites.
Step No. 3: Push positive websites higher.
The best way to help a website move higher is with search engine optimization. Carefully review your websites’ content and the title tags to be sure they contain your company name. The magic of ranking higher in Google is relevant content and getting links from other websites that point to your website. While it’s not easy to get all of the positive websites to rank higher than the negative websites, it’s worth the effort.
Online reputation management is not always easy and it can take many months of steady effort to achieve. Still, consider the alternative of letting complaints and negative reviews dominate the search results and destroy your online reputation.
If you choose to hire an agency or consultant, ask them to show you what they’ve achieved with other clients. This can be as simple as a before and after screenshot of Google results showing they have made a positive impact.
Of course, there are more details to managing your online reputation, but the above steps give you the basic outline of what you need to do. Just keep in mind that your company’s online reputation is one of the most important factors in determining its success.
Contact Don Sorensen
917-727-5756
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By Don SorensenDon Sorensen an online reputation management authority discusses the commonly asked questions about Online Reputation Management.
Listen to the podcast, watch the video, or read the transcript below.
3 Steps to Managing your Online ReputationAdditional videos from Don Sorensen:
How much does online reputation management cost?
How to rate your company's online reputation
Online Reputation Management Services - Forbes
Transcript - 3 Steps to Managing your Online ReputationHi, my name is Don Sorensen and today I want to share 3 steps to managing your online reputation.
First a quote from Sandra Bullock. She said: “So, I Googled myself and read the comments section, thinking I could get some tidbits of what people really think of me. No human being should ever read the comments, or ever Google one’s self at any time.”
Just like Bullock, many CEOs are often taken aback when they Google their own name or the name of their company. What they find isn’t always flattering. It could be hostile and mean. It might not even be true. But there is it for the world to read. What they read could cost you in lost business or damage your brand’s reputation.
However, there are things you can do to manage your online reputation so you’re not at the mercy of your company’s critics. Start by following these three steps:
Step No. 1: Accept the fact of online reviews.
The reality is people can say just about anything they want online. You don’t have much legal recourse to make the negative postings go away. People have a right to complain, and online it’s easy for unhappy customers to vent their frustrations.
When you see a negative review about your company the instinctive reaction is to post a response to set the record straight. While it’s natural to want to respond and defend yourself, under most cases you should resist.
When you post a comment on a website, you are adding new content. And if you get into a back-and-forth discussion with someone about your company it can hurt you.
Google will see the website has a lot of information about the company, so they will rank the website high for searches on your company name. When someone does a search on your company, they are even more likely to see the negative review. Your goal is the opposite—you want websites with negative comments to slip further down the Google rankings so they don’t appear on the first page of a search. The next two steps help you with that.
Step No. 2: Focus on getting positive content.
A major part of online reputation management is trying to push the negative websites off of the first page or two of a Google search. You can do this by posting positive content and getting those pages to rank higher than the negative websites.
Your marketing or PR department needs to make online reputation management part of their job. They should always be looking for, gathering or creating positive content that can be used to continually update your websites. Don’t put everything onto one corporate website. Instead, set up different websites for different purposes. Or, get interviews or articles about your company on highly respected websites.
Step No. 3: Push positive websites higher.
The best way to help a website move higher is with search engine optimization. Carefully review your websites’ content and the title tags to be sure they contain your company name. The magic of ranking higher in Google is relevant content and getting links from other websites that point to your website. While it’s not easy to get all of the positive websites to rank higher than the negative websites, it’s worth the effort.
Online reputation management is not always easy and it can take many months of steady effort to achieve. Still, consider the alternative of letting complaints and negative reviews dominate the search results and destroy your online reputation.
If you choose to hire an agency or consultant, ask them to show you what they’ve achieved with other clients. This can be as simple as a before and after screenshot of Google results showing they have made a positive impact.
Of course, there are more details to managing your online reputation, but the above steps give you the basic outline of what you need to do. Just keep in mind that your company’s online reputation is one of the most important factors in determining its success.
Contact Don Sorensen
917-727-5756