Having an online presence is an essential asset to the stable growth and the success of any company. Nevertheless, running a successful business is not just about being present online, but also managing that presence to maintain a strong online reputation. As simple as this might sound, it is actually a challenging task. For marketers and PR professionals, here are the best techniques for creating and improving a solid online reputation for companies. You can also discover the top mistakes that you must avoid.

Online Reputation Techniques:

1. Evaluate your position:

Before deciding on which strategies they need to enhance their businesses, companies must first identify and assess their position. In other words, assess their online reputation and how people feel and write about them. Companies can achieve that, either by:

• Googling themselves and reading the most viewed and shared content. That will also help them detect the top links in Google’s first-page search results.
• Or: sign up for platforms, like: Google Alerts and Notify, which will send them alarms when their brands are mentioned.

3. Practice SEO:

Search Engine Optimization helps companies get their content to the top of Google’s results. So, it makes it easily-accessible by their readers and target audience. It’s also becoming important in maintaining positive online reputation, when companies do the following steps:

• Have an official website:

Having a company's name on the website header tells Google’s robots that this online page is specifically for it. They can also detect that, as they crawl the tags, menus and sub-menus, etc. As a result, it guides them to put it as a trusted source on the top of the search results.

• Sign up for social media networks:

Having more than one account that relates to the same company, push its order to the top of Google’s results. It also strengthens its online reputation, as it shares positive content about the company, join conversations and communicate with people.

• Run a blog:

Just like for the official website and the social networks, blogs can create and build great online communities. Writing and sharing what interests people and promoting positive content, connects people and brands together. Furthermore, blogs help in responding to negative feedback and clarifying misunderstandings and unsatisfactory situations. That will provide a solid immunity system for the company against any potential PR crisis.

3. Start Social Listening:

Social listening helps companies maintain a positive online reputation. That's because they monitor what people write and share, and how they talk about their brands, products and services. On the other hand, they will know people’s feedback on their content. Thus, they can choose the best forms and styles to reach their target audience. In the end, this all helps in building a strongly-connected online community.

4. Take care of positive reviews:

Good reviews are exceptionally powerful, because they work as word of mouth advertising strategy, which strengthen the company’s online reputation. More importantly, people trust others writing about their experience using a product or service, more than companies promoting for themselves. That persuades new people then to become customers instead of going to the competitors' brands. Moreover, when googling the company’s name, reviews usually have a unique position on the top of the search results. This makes them easy to find and can attract not only new customers, but also business partners.

5. Monitor negative content; fix it or bury it:

Whether using a monitoring software or googling themselves; to maintain a positive online reputation, companies must always monitor what people write about them online, especially negative content. People like to read what others write about their experiences, sometimes they even share them. So, if not monitored properly, negative feedback can spread fast. Then, companies might find themselves facing online anger and a huge PR crisis. It's always recommended to engage with customers on social media, and to fix their problems or respond to their concerns. In one way, companies will be showing their clients how much they care about them. However, more importantly, they will support their strategy to enhance their online reputation.

Positive Online Reputation

Sometimes, talking to unsatisfied customers is not an option, and therefore, it’s hard for marketers to control the online rage. Sometimes also, people are posting negative comments, which might be not true, just for the sake of being read. There is a legal way to delete such posts, by contacting Google. However, sometimes it is not that easy, which requires companies to create more positive content with to burry the negative. In other words, use their website, and social networks to share links and add positive content. It must all be SEO-optimized, to stay at the top of search results, leaving the negative at the bottom.

Online reputation is an essential key to the success of companies, and is definitely essential for startups. Its techniques are all built on simple principles, which requires communicating with customers and providing great services and products. Nevertheless, these techniques evolve as technology advances everyday.

Featured image by: Freepik