No matter the size of your business, online reputation management is essential to boosting your brand. Now more than ever, people are using online searches to learn about a company before purchasing from them, going into their store, or using their service.
If your brand is suffering online, it may be time to look into hiring an online reputation management company like BRANDefenders or others.
Here at BRANDefenders, we have SEO experts that can help you clean up your company’s search results, remove negative reviews, and ultimately defend the brand that you have built.
Online reputation management helps control how others perceive your business online and how they interact and engage with your brand. Focusing on online reputation helps your company get all the positive attention it deserves.
It helps to build trust with your customer base, encourages customer loyalty, strengthens relationships, boosts sales, and generates business growth, among many other things.
If you want your business to grow, defending your brand is more critical than ever online. People have easier access to share their opinion about your products and services. If your start generating negative news and reviews on your search results, it may be detrimental to your business.
If you don’t invest time in managing your brand’s online reputation, it may manage you. However, there are many ways to use online reputation management to boost your brand and strengthen your online presence.
Why Is Online Reputation Management Important?
We’ve already discussed some fundamental reasons online reputation management is vital. But, let’s take a deeper look at why reputation management is essential to the health of your business.
Builds Trust and Customer Loyalty
Over the last few years, gathering customer data has been more accessible. In a recent report about brand loyalty, researchers discovered that 77% of customers have been loyal to at least one brand for over ten years. Imagine if that was your brand that customers were loyal to.
It would be much easier to retain customers if they already have your trust and know they can rely on your brand. Online reputation management can help to maintain that trust and loyalty.
Recently apple reached an all-time high in customer loyalty at 92% of customers continuing to buy their products. Not every business will have this great success with loyalty. However, by ridding negative and creating positive content on the internet, customers are more likely to continue buying from your brand.
Another astounding statistic is that nearly 90% of consumers would switch to a brand if the company shared the same values and outlooks on life as the customer. Online reputation management can help you and your brand share those values with customers, retain old customers, and generate new ones.
Grows Your Business
Growing your business goes hand in hand with building trust and customer loyalty to your brand. Without customers or clients, you don’t have a business.
The more well-known your business is online, the more customers you can attract and the faster your business will grow. Even if one negative article or review lurks in your search results, it could significantly affect sales and turn away potential customers.
The better your online presence, the better it is for your business. Although it is possible to manage your brand’s reputation online by yourself, hiring experts could help you exponentially grow your business, strengthen your online presence, and free up your time as the owner for more important things.
Boost Sales and Increase Conversations About Your Brand
It’s no secret that people constantly read reviews before purchasing a product online. Nearly nine times out of ten, this is happening to today’s consumers.
That’s why it’s more important than ever to ensure that your reviews are positive and accurate. More people are willing to share their negative experiences and opinions online than positive ones, making it essential to monitor your company’s reviews on various sites like YELP, Google My Business, Trustpilot, Glass Door, and others.
Also, the more reviews your business has, the more likely it is for others to trust your brand and purchase from your company.
Aside from online reviews, posting to social media accounts and creating meaningful conversations and ways to engage with your brand will help boost sales and boost your brand. Ensuring positive online conversations is essential to help your online reputation.
Online Reputation Management Helps Reach New Audiences
As your online brand reputation increases, more people will be talking about your brand. Whether this happens in face-to-face conversations or online, it will help boost your brand and generate more sales.
Acquiring new customers and reaching new audiences is something marketers are constantly strategizing. Without new customers, it’s hard for your brand to continue growing.
However, when you hire BRANDefenders to help monitor your online reputation, you’re getting strategists, SEO experts, and brand management experts all in one. Online reputation management experts can help you reach new audiences, allowing your marketing team to focus on other efforts to help grow your brand.
Other Ways To Build Your Brand’s Reputation Online
Provide Excellent Customer Support
Focusing on your customers and supporting them through every part of the purchasing process can help you maintain positive search results and an excellent online reputation.
Even if your business is only open from 9 am-5 pm, offering 24/7 customer service will help customers know that they are a top priority and that you care about them. This will help you develop a relationship of care and trust with your customers, which customers may share online.
By showing customers support, you will be rewarded with an excellent online reputation and the many benefits that come with it, like boosting your brand.
Build Relationships Within Your Industry
Building a business is hard to do alone. You may have your team and others internally supporting you and your brand. But often, creating industry relationships can help strengthen your reputation.
As a business owner, building relationships with other business owners in the industry is essential. Although you may be competitors, if your customers and others see that you are making efforts to build relationships, it will likely draw them to your brand.
Relationship building is also key to long-term business success. It can give you significant social media leverage as you engage and share posts of other companies in your industry. When others see how supportive you are of other businesses, it can create and boost your reputation, which in turn boosts your brand.
Authority Management
Creating authority in your industry for others to turn to is pivotal in creating an excellent online reputation. If you can establish credibility as a trusted brand and expert in your industry, others will turn to you first for advice and help.
You want to develop your business to become well-known so that others will turn to you, your team, and your websites for answers. One of the best ways to do this is to create a web of backlinks to your business.
A strong backlink profile enables others and popular search engines to see your business as a trusted, credible source for information.
Backlinking takes a lot of time, effort, and investment, so experts at BRANDefenders are worth hiring who know Google, SEO strategizes, and how to create an excellent backlink profile for your brand. Hiring an online reputation management company is worth the cost and will save you many headaches.
Get Involved In Your Community and Charity Events
Corporate social responsibility is fundamental to today’s consumers. Many want to buy from brands with solid charity and giving back initiatives.
Finding a cause to commit money or time to will help you develop a reputation for caring for your community. Many businesses donate a certain percentage of their profits to various organizations. Others focus a whole line of products on charities and causes, while others may plan and sponsor community events.
Whatever it is that works with your brand and allows you to give back to the community will ultimately help your online reputation.
Have a Voice and Get Active on Social Media
People who follow a brand on social media increase their purchasing by 75% for that brand. Social media is a powerful tool for driving sales and creating a positive online reputation.
Creating social media profiles for your business allows you to interact more naturally with your customers, reach a wider audience, and show your brand’s personality. It’s also a great way to share news going on with your products and inside your company.
Showing how your company runs on social media and making customers feel like they know you and are a brand insider will help you maintain an outstanding online presence. Being active on social media and carving a space out for your brand on the internet will help you grow your business.
Overall, reputation management is a big task and can be very time-consuming. There are many moving parts and responsibilities for keeping up with all the information on the internet about your business.
Hiring brand defending experts will help you manage your brand, grow your business, and boost your online reputation while simultaneously allowing you to focus on other parts of your business.