Still struggling with your online reputation? Here is the remedy.

Imagine starting a new product, for example “New Age” running shoes, your prospective customers before buying your product will most likely to look for reviews on the internet in order to be well informed. In case, if any of the 10 results on the SERP result in a negative feedback or review, you will most likely to lose a client and many more. Let us find out more about ORM.

What is Online Reputation? Is it really important to have online reputation?

Online Reputation Management is as essential to a company as it is to a Human Being. It is defined as a process of controlling the reviews of the people when one searches your company’s name on the Search Engines. The process deals with the company’s brand in the online market. The community we are talking is the entire web including Search Engines, Blogs, Forums, Social Networking Sites etc.
Online Reputation Management is a way to upgrade your positive feedback, showing it at the top in the SERP and pushing down the negative reviews of the company’s website to maintain the reputation of the company.  

Online Reputation - Online Reputation Management is essential because:
Your prospects are online!
Your competitors are online!
Your customers are online!
including your unhappy customers.
ORM is a way to help your company show its best face forward by protecting against unchecked defamation and by providing market stability.

Talking about why Online Reputation Management is necessary, and why it’s something which can not be missed is because of the trending Digital Age. Internet has emerged as a strong medium to connect to people and also, a medium to share, express views, and opinions about everything. For the consumers and for the company owners, the feedback plays a very major role.
It is wisely said, it takes several years to build good reputation, but only few seconds are enough to ruin it! Same goes with any company; It take years for a brand to build its reputation but only one negative review can ruin the image of the brand.

Before Internet came into existence, Businesses handled their messages via one way communication channel. Since internet has now become so active, the messages are now being handled via Social Media, Customer reviews, Forums and Blogs, etc; hence, making it very essential to have an online reputation record.

Online Reputation is not something which remains for a short time; reputation either makes you or breaks you! If you don’t manage your brand online then there are chances that somebody else might do it for you. Say if your brand is doing well, the competitors would be jealous of you, trying to destroy your reputation by any means. If you are not managing your reputation online, you will hardly get to know what’s your current status. Protecting yourself from a negative comment, video or from a false blog post, etc., you need to have an Online Reputation Management.
People can stoop down to any level to destroy your public image. They can file a complaint against you, may promote your competition or perhaps can create a negative image by writing cheap statements on your behalf by creating fake accounts. Managing your reputation is not about promoting yourself but it’s like protecting your image from getting destroyed.
 

Wondering who cares about your online reputation. Let’s have a look.

Isn’t it often said that reputation is what matters at the end of the day. If you are a business, your reputation directly affects your sales; if you are an employer, your reputation directly affects your status in the company. Reputation Matters! Now-a-days, every other person searches the web either out of need or curiosity before making a decision. It is a common habit to turn to Search Engines if one wants to learn more about something. Hence, your reputation online goes a long way towards creating a person’s opinion about you. The most common groups that are most likely to look you up online are:

• Consumers
• Business partners
• Stock holders
• Marketers
• Journalists
• Prospective employers
• Co-workers
• Personal contacts

Remember, People loves to Google. They are so fond of carrying out searches on Google, even to search for best food place in the town, they will Google it.

Steps for diagnosing your Google Rankings and Online Reputation.

Your first step will be to scrutinise. Analyze and detect what your Google rankings are, and also have a good idea about your online reputation.
You cannot control any situation without first finding out what the problem is and how bad is the it. The first thing to do is to know your Google ranking, as then only you will know where you stand on SERPs when you make a search for your business name. After looking where you rank on SERPs, make the necessary changes to improve your rankings.

Firstly, Google your business name.
Sign-out of your Google account and make a search for your business name. Because since Google personalizes search results based on your location and according to the information Google has about you, through your Google account. This may alter the results you get. Hence, sign-out to get the real picture.

Secondly, Diagnose
Check the category your business falls under as well as your Google rank and your online reputation, once you have the search results in front of you. After this, decide which category best describes your business name on the first page of the search results.
A gentle reminder, focus on the first page of Google search results as 93% of the users never go beyond the first 10 results on SERPs to build an impression.

Talking about Online Reputation - here we go with 3 Different types:

In this 21st century, Your Reputation Speaks everything!   

There are three types of online reputation which affect your business:

1. Irrelevant Reputation: In this type of reputation, the results which come on the SERP are about you, but they hardly make any difference to you or your brand. They neither help you nor do they hurt you. The chances could be that the information is either outdated or irrelevant. For example: ‘X’ person searches for your company name ‘YMedia’ but the results shown on the SERP are not relevant to the needed query typed by the searcher. The result is irrelevant to the search query. Hence, it is known as irrelevant reputation.
2. Positive and Relevant Reputation: In this type of reputation, the results you get on SERP talks about your praises, how well are you doing, how well are you serving to your customers, the positive feedback. This means that either you have a good hold on your customers or you are managing your online reputation quite well.

Impact Of Positive and Relevant Reputation

• Retention of customers: Generating new clients or leads is always difficult than maintaining or getting the business from the existing one. Retaining an existing client will involve less time and resources and the feeling attained in priceless. So, with good reputation, it’s easier to retain the customer. Why lose the easiest earning which you can bring by maintaining positive reputation.
• Attract new customers:In today’s world, people are technology freak. People are wisely checking online about the products they want to buy and also looking at what others have to say about the product before purchasing them. If your company or the brand has a good reputation online, you will definitely attract more customers; thereby, bringing new business in.
• Positive Reputation brings in new business and investors:Positive Reputation helps you bring new business and investors, too. When your business is doing well, you become noticeable. There are chances that you might be offered great deals by some other companies which are willing to work with you and there can be investors who want to invest their money in your business.Creating an online positive reputation for your business is not easy.It is not everyone’s cup of tea, not everyone is willing to put in that hard work which is required.However, to sustain in this competitive world, it is essential to build your positive reputation and maintain till the end.
  
  Negative Reputation: This type of reputation is the most undesirable one. The results shown on the SERP are negative which brings a negative impact to your brand or the company name. It is very easy to tarnish anyone’s reputation by simply posting a picture, by sharing a status update or simply by a blog post from a non-satisfied consumer or a present employee or may-be a competitor. Google catches it all. The image can be tarnished within seconds. For example-: A local news titled “XYZ Company ranking last for Customer satisfaction”.
  
  Impact Of Negative Reputation
   
• Negative reviews lead to negative image:Negative reviews about you, or your brand can blow up your image in public. This shows that you have done something which is not right for the world. Negative review can be anything personal; it can be from an unsatisfied client or may-be from a former employee who just wants to ruin your reputation or may-be from a jealous competitor. One negative review about you will spread like a fire over the internet. Even if the review is false, one negative review or feedback can destroy your public and private image completely.
• Loss of Existing Clients:The internet is a place where random people discuss random topics. There are forums and discussion panels, where people discuss about their problems. People share their opinion and learn from others, too. One negative review from your existing client or from an existing unsatisfied client can lead to loss of your other existing clients. The word of mouth on internet plays a very effective role to create or break your business.
• No new business:Negative reviews about you or your company will fetch you no new business. Every person who will invest money on you will definitely look out for your reputation in the market. One negative review will make his decision dicey to do business with you. Thereby, creating problems to get new business.
• Unsavory Records:You indulging in some inappropriate activities or your single night in jail or you going bankrupt ages back will be a history for you, but for internet it is not. Internet remembers everything. If your name is searched and you are linked with any of the ill activities, your name will show all the financial troubles and legal allegations you have gone through.

 
A way to success - Online Reputation Management!

Follow the simple process to maintain your business reputation:

1. Monitoring: As a webmaster, you need to know about everything that is being talked about your website. What is the platform your website is being cited at? Will that mention affect you positively or have a negative impact on your reputation? Who is talking about you or any of your products? What are they talking?You need to have an answer to all of the above questions.This is the time where all the tools come in handy. Some of these tools that could help you in finding answers to the above questions are Google Alerts, Yahoo Alerts, Twitter Search, etc.
2. Preventing: Online Reputation Management is concerned with managing your company’s name, your brand name, your name, names of high level executives associated with your company, your product’s name, etc.Even if one of these things is damaged, it will spread like an epidemic to all other things as well. For this, you first need to get a hold on social media platforms and get registered there. Another effective way of preventing the damage to your websites is by writing a blog.
3. Fixing the damage: If the damage has already been done, you need to immediately mend it. Hiring an ORM expert may help you. You can even go up to the site and request them humbly to put it down.
   Alternatively, you can also start making use of the powerful social media accounts,create a network of links and then link it to your main website.

Reputation Management made easy with these tips!
 

• Keep a strict vigilance on your online content. As soon as you find something negative, deal with it in the appropriate way.
• Google is the mantra. Google your company’s name and see what shows up in the search results.
• You could also try Google Chrome’s ‘incognito’ mode to make a search. This mode removes some of the personalized results that Google serves to its recognized users and presents you with more generic search results. These results will be similar to what others might see online.
• Check the first 3, 4 or 5 pages of search results for any negative mentions about your business online. Such mentions don’t take time to travel to the first page. You can also make a spreadsheet and not down which results were positive, negative or neutral. Which results you can control and influence and which ones you can’t.
• Be active online. Give immediate responses to unhappy customers on social media or directory sites. Respond in a way that covers up for the negative mention.
• Everybody love freebies. Respond to positive mentions with discount coupons or freebies as a way of saying thank you.
• Reviews! Get as many positive online reviews as possible. Encourage your happy customers to post reviews. Positive reviews help in getting higher search rankings online.
• Respond to tweets and Facebook comments. Customers usually expect quick responses to their requests.
• Post videos with your company’s name on YouTube. YouTube is a search engine itself. Google gives importance to YouTube content and at times ranks YouTube videos higher than websites, for search results.
• Be very cautious of your personal activities. Don’t let them tarnish the reputation of your business.
• Content is king and quality content is the key to having a good reputation. Good content on your blogs and elsewhere on the site provides more authority to your brand’s name. It also helps in pushing down search results of any negative review your business may have gathered.
• Develop good relations with the media. Media can help you to develop a positive image. It is an effective medium for getting the right exposure. Hence, make it a priority on your marketing and reputation management plan.
• Monitoring your online reputation can be a lengthy task. The bigger the business, the bigger the task. So, prioritize which online portals are more important for you to monitor. Pay more attention to them.

Reputation leaves an Impression!

To make sure that impression creates a positive impact here are some tools to manage your Online Reputation:

• Google Alerts: This should be your first choice when it comes to managing your online reputation management. This is a free service provided by Google which has as an automated process wherein you are given E-mail alerts whenever your business name, any of your products name or names of high level executive officers associated with your business are cited.
  
  

• Social Mention: This tool can be used to keep a watch on your reputation over social media. This is a free tool to keep a track of any mentions of your website’s name or any of its products. By using this tool, you get to know who has been talking about your brand and, most importantly, what have they been talking about. This tool covers 100+ social media properties, including Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg etc.

• Reputation.com: It is a one-in-all platform that facilitates online review management, local search visibility, and social media. It gives you a reputation score as well so that you can measure your business performance against your competitors. Its actionable insights enable you to improve your online ratings effectively.

• Trackur : This tool is used for monitoring social media which give instant notifications whenever your brand is mentioned. This helps you respond quickly and appropriately, even if you are offline from facebook for quite a while. It has built in analytic capabilities which help you track and analyse trends of most positive responses.
  

Conclusion
 

Well, Reputation management is an essential element of every business. It should be a part of regular brand maintenance, instead of applying it when the reputation is almost destroyed.
It is better to be prepared for the situation rather than to suffer afterwards. Being proactive not only helps creating a solid stand but also helps in creating a cushion of positive reputation. Negative reputation should be taken as opportunities to make the user’s  experience better.
A good online reputation management (ORM) team is visible through their company’s reputation, but are invisible in life as they are so busy working hard to protect the reputation.