Even if your offline reputation is perfect, it is particularly vulnerable on the Internet. It is much harder to control it online, since just a few negative comments on the first lines of search engine results can lead to a worsening of consumers' perception of your brand. According to the experience of Reputation House agency, reviews in a negative tone can be left not only by dissatisfied customers. This tool is often used by dishonest competitors who want to create an unattractive image of you so that customers will avoid your brand.
More and more modern consumers are doing their research online before placing an order. They form their own opinion about the brand, its products, and its services. This is confirmed by statistics:
97% of customers search for information about local businesses online, and 12% do so every day.
They need to read at least 7 reviews to make a purchase decision.
For 60% of consumers, negative opinions were the reason for not cooperating with a brand.
For 85% of customers, the level of trust in online reviews is the same as personal recommendations from their closest circle.
1. How to strengthen your position online: opinion of Reputation House
Now imagine if they see something online that is not what you want them to see? Reputation House emphasizes that there is no magic way to "erase" all negative information from the Internet. But it's not as dire as it may seem. There are tools that allow you to control your brand's online reputation - it's Search Engine Reputation Marketing (SERM). Reputation House was one of the first companies to use such tools to build, strengthen, and restore brand image.
Founded in 2010, the agency quickly became one of the leaders in reputation management for major brands, mass media, and individuals on the international market. Its specialists developed their own monitoring system, IQBuzz, and created a unique mobile application for reputation management that has no counterparts in the entire world.
Using SERM tools, Reputation House builds a positive company image in the top 10 search results. Technologies allow to push unwanted results to the last pages of search results, which means that potential clients will simply not see them. Reputation House removes negative reviews only in extreme cases: the agency's employees make motivated demands to the websites in order to solve the issue in a pre-trial order.
2. Why is it important to push negative information out of the first page of the search result: experience of Reputation House
According to statistics, only 5% of customers go to the second page. In other words, 95% of consumers only care about what they see in the search engine right away.
As part of SERM, Reputation House collects semantics, especially for branded queries, promotes existing content, and increases the number of comments and likes. The effectiveness of the team's work is evaluated by comparing the reputational background before and after the measures taken. High results will be evidenced by a decrease in negativity in the search results, up to its complete removal from the top 10.
3. How does an online reputation affect a brand?
A positive online image helps to:
- Build the trust of potential customers. Customers are more likely to cooperate with a company that has high ratings and many positive comments online.
- Increase brand awareness. In addition to SERM tools, Reputation House uses other technologies as well. One of them is guerrilla marketing - employees of the agency leave positive information about the brand on various resources. It is presented in its native form, that is, without aggressive or obvious advertising. They also work on filling the issue with positive content about the company: reviews, comments, testimonials, and articles. This increases brand recognition, which leads to an increase in the number of followers on social media, website traffic - and an increase in the number of clients.
- Improve search engine rankings. Reputation House explains that image is an important factor in search ranking. The better your brand's reputation is, the more often it will appear at the top of search results.
- Managing reputation in a crisis. A positive image is a kind of credit of trust that helps a company survive an information attack by competitors or another unfavorable situation.
- Form a stable HR brand. Qualified and experienced specialists want to become part of a team with a good reputation. Once again, the statistics are relentless: 69% of job seekers will refuse an offer from a company with a bad image. The refusal will apply even if they are currently unemployed. And SERM from Reputation House is exactly what you need to form a positive image of yourself as an employer.
- Increase trust on the part of partners. Before cooperating, business partners, banks, and other counterparties are sure to conduct their research on the Internet. And Reputation House emphasizes that a positive image has an incredible power of persuasion. It increases the level of trust, thereby influencing the decision to cooperate.
The difficulty of working with reviews and images is that people are more inclined to share negative opinions than good ones. Even if they like the service or product in general, they simply may not recognize the positives. Trying to improve the situation on your own rarely leads to success, so it is better to contact a professional agency.
SERM specialists of Reputation House will develop a customized strategy and select the optimal tools to bring verified information about your brand to the top 10. The team will monitor, respond, and encourage positive feedback, as well as find and level the negativity. The agency follows the main rule of a good online reputation - monitoring it every day, which allows it to control it and achieve the desired results.