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What is SEO for Reputation Management?
A Google search can be a great way for consumers to connect with a brand for the first time. When people search your brand name, they will want to see positive vibes and rave reviews about your company. That is what actually reputation management SEO is all about.
To be honest, bad search results are able to hurt other very important things such as customers’ satisfaction and expectations, brand reputation, your conversion rate, etc.
Reputation management in SEO is actually about taking care of your brand’s appearance in search engines and on the first search page of Google (or other search engines).
This can be achieved through different tasks, from auditing a company’s online reputation, and monitoring customer feedback, to using reputation management SEO tactics to fix any problems that have the power to ruin the brand’s online reputation.
How does SEO support online reputation management?
There are five important benefits associated with SEO for reputation management:
Listings can help maintain your online presence
Those people who provide a great experience to their users can be sure they will come back again. Search engines are scanning and checking all the information about your business with its listings on the web in order to be sure that your website is holding trustworthy information.
You will need to be sure that your postal addresses, map pointers, phone number, and email addresses, together with the opening times of the business are similar on all your listings.
Ensure great user-generated content
We are pretty sure that individual reviews are not going to boost your website in the same way as other types of content such as videos or blogs. However, getting great and positive reviews on some of the most trusted sites like Trustpilot or Yelp is going to help your website a lot.
In case you manage to build your profile with high-quality reviews, that means these reviews will help you gain genuine, relevant, and fresh content for your business. This can be done through trustworthy review sites or neutral third parties. This valuable content will give the search engines enough information about your business.
Get New Long-Tail Keywords
Make it a point to familiarize yourself with the language being used by your customers. Doing so can prove to be highly useful in terms of keyword generation.
Customer reviews can also provide you with useful long-tail keywords that will help you optimize your website and will cut the time that you will spend on keyword research.
Acts as social proof
Most of the search engines are ranking (positive search results) the website with great reviews better than the websites that have bad reviews or non-existent ratings online.
For example, Google is usually checking the reviews from the “Google my Business” platform but also from other trusted partners such as Facebook, Yelp, and others to establish the social standing of a certain business.
Boosting the “Local 3-pack” presence of your business
Many users that are searching online for your business are usually coming across “local 3-pack”. These results will appear together with a small map, that indicates the location as well as contact details of the best three results found.
If your business is not registered with “Google My Business”, it is suggested to do so because it will help your business in ranking higher on Google.
What are reputation management strategies?
Reputation management is an aspect of brand building (content marketing strategy), and it’s important to understand that reputation management is more than making sure your company has great reviews. It’s hard to assess or fix an intangible asset, such as a negative online reputation, and many CMOs, publicists, or executives are confused about how to do it.
Reputation management is a combination of known strategies and objective results that enable us to build a strong reputation for a company. Like a house, you need to know your building materials from the beginning if you want to create a strong foundation.
In the field of online reputation management, there are three main building materials: earned content (from sources such as blogs), paid content (such as sponsored posts), and owned content (such as company websites).
Earned media/content:
- Sharing
- Mentions
- Shares
- Reposts
- Reviews
Owned media/content
- Website
- Mobile site
- Blog site
- Social media channels
- Paid media/content
- Pay per click
- Display ads
- Re-targeting
- Paid Influencers
- Paid content promotion
- Social media ads
Earned content
The online information that doesn’t require you to pay for it or to write it yourself is called Earned content. You can feel free to think about it as “Free Publicity”.
In this category are added re-posts of your content, mentions of your brand, and social shares on social media sites. For those who are luckier, their story may be picked by mainstream media organizations like the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times which will bring you a lot of publicity for free!
Owned content
Material that you are creating by yourself with target keywords is called owned content. This is the content that you have total control over it and most commonly that is your website, blog, or social media presence and everything else that appears in organic search results.
These are very important when it comes to managing your positive online reputation, however, they only comprise a small part of your search engine results (search rankings) and essentially your reputation.
The properties that we just mentioned are something standard when it comes to reputation management companies. Beyond those, there are industry-specific types of (owned) media that are different for every industry.
Paid content
The last category is paid content. This paid content comes in form of PPC (pay per click) paid social media promotions, paid search traffic, content syndication, advertising, display ads, paid influencers, and many other forms of content which require to be paid for.
Paid content is also very important just like the other two forms of content and it is essential to spend your time and resources on the first types of content as well.
What are the strategic goals of SEO?
A funnel is a useful metaphor for understanding users who interact with your content and visit your site. Imagine a funnel filled with liquid. At the top, there’s a lot of liquid; in the middle, there’s less; at the bottom, there’s only a thin stream. That is actually your user base.
You’ll have many visitors reading content that contains surface-level information, but only a handful will stay with you all the way to when they make a purchase.
The SEO strategies and goals for how to target users will change depending on where they are in the funnel: Those reading content with surface-level information will require different tactics than those ready to make a purchase.
Three goals for every level of the funnel.
Top-of-funnel SEO
Top-of-funnel (TOFU) searchers are the people who know nothing about your company, brand, or business. TOFU searchers are not going to search for very complicated results like “how to run a malware check on your portable hard drive” – they will just look for information on what a portable hard drive is, or something similar to that.
We have three main goals that you should focus on when creating TOFU SEO content:
Increase your ranking to raise awareness about your business
The main goal of this strategy is to inform people that your business exists by boosting ranking for the important keywords that are related to your business listing. This needs to be done simply because no one is going to buy from you if they don’t know that your company exists or has negative reviews.
Informational Keywords – Use them!
In the second stage, you will have to target information branded keywords that have answers which people are searching for on daily basis and will help them learn more about your services and products.
For example, you can write an article that is explaining “What are portable Hard Drives” which will answer searchers’ questions but at the same time will make them familiar with your brand and company.
Add Value for Searchers
You shouldn’t worry about making your TOFU SEO content a bit more aggressive or “overly salesy” because you are just introducing your services and products.
You will need to be sure that you create informative content, valuable content, and explain everything in simple terms that anyone can understand.
Middle-of-funnel SEO
Middle-of-funnel or MOFU searchers are those people who probably already know something about your business but they are not yet all committed to you and the services you offer. Those people are still not sure if they need or want your services or products because they are researchers.
They are usually searching for information that will tell them if they want to make a purchase, and what to look for in case they are purchasing something. This is where they need to see great content that is informative, and honest, and suggest to them that you are offering the right things they want to buy.
The three most important goals to look for when making MOFU SEO content are:
Establishing authority in search results
At this point, your potential customer already knows who you are. The next step should be to convince them that you are professional in your industry by persistent sharing of valuable content and maintaining your presence in search results.
Producing in-depth, helpful SEO content
In this stage, you are probably moving closer to getting your users to make a purchase. You will need to start making content with more in-depth information that matches searches for MOFU phrases and keywords like, “durable hard drive for long-term storage”
Motivate your users to make a purchase
Try to make a great-looking site with unique selling points into MOFU SEO content that will show your readers why your service is the best option for them.
Great idea is to use creative calls to action (CTAs) buttons so you can point your users to the next step and make them buy your products.
Bottom-of-funnel SEO
The most valuable searchers are those Bottom-of-funnel (BOFU). In this category you will be able to find the users who are already informed about your business, they already made their research, and are probably pretty sure they want to look and buy your products or services.
Some of the BOFU SEO content include:
Targeting transactional keywords
As we already mentioned, the TOFU content focuses on basic questions about certain industry and avoid sales topics. On the opposite, the BOFU content is targeting sales keywords for the people who are ready to buy.
Promoting your business
Your BOFU content should be your direct advertisement. You will need to publish a lot of SEO-optimized content about your products, services, and special promotions (if you have any).
Bring purchases
The biggest goal of BOFU content is for qualified leads to be converted into customers. You will need to make people take the final step and purchase your services or products. BOFU SEO is specially made to make your potential customers become your real customers.
How Does SEO support Online Reputation Management?
An integral part of online success is reputation management SEO. When they are put together, SEO online reputation management will give you a lot of chances to improve your rankings with great content while pushing down the negative search results.
Reputation Management SEO Creates Strong Brand Recognition
The Internet is filled with information that can be helpful or harmful to your business. Reputation management SEO involves taking immediate action to ensure only positive content will be associated with your brand.
Reputation management SEO is not limited to ranking for industry-related keywords but also focuses on protecting your brand name from negative content.
Boosts local SEO
Ranking content is the primary goal of search engines. A large part of their formula is based on local reviews, listing accuracy, and consistent NAP listings.
Local search reputation management is one of the best ways to acquire positive reviews, as well as enhance your local SEO rankings on search engine results pages. The more positive reviews a brand acquires, the more legitimate it appears to search engines. At the same time, local search ensures that listings are consistent across online platforms.
Builds a better communication
Your website and social media pages are important customer touchpoints, which you can use to your advantage.
You can maximize your website’s potential, provide immediate review responses, and gather actionable insights to improve your products and services by maintaining an active online presence on social media platforms.
Understanding your consumer sentiment is another way that you can use to turn customers into loyal brand advocates.
Drives high-profit
Your great brand reputation will increase the brand’s success and profitability. A great brand image will get the attention of ideal customers and it will make it easier for you to move them to the bottom of the sales funnel.
It is obvious that reputation management SEO is making a great impact on your brand’s image growth. In case you start to ignore SEO online reputation management practices, you are going to waste a great potential to make meaningful connections with the right customers.
Do not make this mistake!
What are SEO and ORM?
SEO – Search Engine Optimization
There are many similarities between SEO and ORM. SEO is usually concerned with getting a website to rank better for a product or service-related search terms. ORM uses SEO, and other different techniques in order to improve the overall image of a brand. Both are subsets of online marketing.
ORM evolved from SEO, which has been used for two decades by companies and individuals to improve their search engine page rankings.
For more than 20 years individuals have been using SEO techniques in order to improve their results on search engines. In the ’90s, it became clear that the optimal place for your website to rank and appear was on the first page of search engines.
This “war” is still going (now more than ever) and is having an effect on offline and online businesses.
Online Reputation Management – ORM
Search engine reputation management is used to boost your brand’s online appearance and brand search. This method will improve your ratings, search profiles, rankings, social media, and websites by getting your brand more online mentions. Something worth noticing is that Reputation management is usually called SEO reputation management.
Online reputation management companies are using many different techniques so they can do their job properly. One of the best and most common techniques used is SEO (search engine optimization).
How Do You Manage Online Reputation Management?
Individuals who want to manage their brand’s online reputation have to take a couple of steps to connect to their audience and give a great impression to the people making a branded search on the internet.
Monitoring your social footprint
One of the most popular social media platforms are Twitter and Facebook but they are not the only platforms on the internet. You will need to make searches on your products and brand name often and on many different platforms so you can see what people are saying about your brand.
With this, you will understand any problems that you may have with your service or products and sort them out right away.
Respond to the comments on social media platforms
People expect you to be sociable in case you have a social media presence. Whenever any of your customers reach you on social media platforms, be sure that you reply to them.
Even if there is something that you cannot sort out immediately you will need to inform them and that is something that will bring confidence to your audience about your service or products.
Google and Yelp reviews
You need to know that online reviews are very important, especially for those who are selling stuff on the internet. If your products and services are making your customers happy, be sure that you ask them to post reviews about your service.
If they write about the great experience they had doing business with you, it will definitely bring a positive image of your business to your potential customers and will make your business more visible on the internet.
Be transparent
Transparency is something that builds trust around your business. If you have enough experience online you will know that hiding the truth will have a serious backlash potential.
Try to have honest communication with your customers because if you try to cover any problems they will be found sooner or later and it will have a negative effect on your business.
Setting Goals
Setting goals about your online presence is something that should be done before you start using your social media accounts. You shouldn’t make your social media profiles just because everyone else has them.
You will need to look at them as something that will improve awareness of your brand and will bring you, new customers.
Knowing your audience
Understanding and knowing better your online audience is very important for those who want to manage their social media presence. Once you understand your audience better you will know which platforms work best for you and how to speak with your audience on any different platform.
What is a reputation management tool?
Reputation management software is designed to promote brands, capture negative customer experiences, and monitor social media conversations. Monitoring tools capture posts and discussions on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit.
As more people learn about a company that has positive reviews that story creates new customers for businesses. In fact, Ambassador reported that 71% of social media users are likely to recommend a company with whom they have had a positive experience.
Reputation management tools use the information to increase sales by providing businesses with insights into how consumers view them. In the event a negative review is captured by the software, the company can contact the reviewer and offer assistance in getting a richer experience, which could alter what he/she thinks of the organization.
The software helps both customers and companies by helping them improve. For example, 94 percent of Google search results are organic and not paid advertisements; 42 percent of adults have been found to have searched for businesses on the Internet before doing business with them; 45 percent of these adults changed their minds because of something they discovered about the business through online research. This is why online reputation management is so important to businesses—it could make or break a sale.
What are the key elements of reputation management?
Reputation monitoring
Reputation Management Consultants approach each business or individual’s reputation strategy based on their needs, but they all use the same steps. They start by evaluating your current online presence. They create a customized plan using the results of this type of assessment.
They will research websites, social media platforms, review sites, and press connections to get a clear picture of what’s being said about you and your brand. Skilled digital marketers know how to use this information to proactively build a positive image across all networks, thereby managing the narrative around you and your business.
Reputation repairing
Reputation management is a process by which you can limit what information about you appears online. If a reputation management firm implements a strategy to repair your reputation, any internet search should yield only positive results on the first two pages of Google results.
Reputation management involves removing any harmful content that is removable, such as untagging Facebook images or deleting out-of-date profiles or posts. Unremovable content (that is, content that can’t be removed) can be suppressed by creating new positive content and activity with reputation building.
Reputation building
Reputation management consists of both reputation building and reputation repair. In order to effectively manage reputation, it is necessary to create positive content, optimize that content, and market it.
Reputation builders develop new content that reflects the brand they are creating. Optimizing this new content is key. Reputation builders market the type of material that best describes a client’s predetermined goals.
If you keep on creating great content that is going well with your brand, you can prevent those negative assets from rising to the top of search results. When creating content that reflects your business you can think about it as creating a line of defense that will protect you from any new negative information that may pop up on the internet.
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