For any business, reputation is key to survival. As more and more of a business’ operations take place online, so its online reputation becomes central to its failure or to its success. This is why many businesses are taking up the opportunity to employ online reputation management specialists to assist them in promoting their brand online. Even if this is not an option for your business, there are still lots of steps you can take to enhance your online reputation yourself.

Improve Your Site Management and Customer Engagement

Unfortunately, more people are using review websites to post negative comments about companies. If this happens to your business, turn the experience around by responding to the comments as quickly as you can, offering a solution and aiming to resolve the issue. By doing so, you are demonstrating that your company is keen to serve customer needs and to address issues as they arise – a great PR spin! It is important to remember that it would be virtually impossible to eliminate every negative mention. The main thing is to keep the majority of comments and responses high.

Revamp Your Website

Your website is the most valuable tool you have for promoting a positive self image online. Ensure you create interesting and useful content for your customers and include testimonials from satisfied clients. Engaging with customers and prospects through social media in a friendly way and on a regular basis will further enhance your reputation as an approachable brand who is keen to understand the needs of its clientele.

Mobilise Customers

Identify your happiest customers and take steps to proactively engage with them. You could do this by creating a ‘brand army’ or by setting up an online community forum in order to promote your business, services, products and results. Ultimately, establishing a customer reward system for participation could be part of the strategy. Contacting a PR agency in Manchester might be a useful way to go about mobilising your customers.

Consider Your SEO Strategy

What comes up when you type your company name into Google? If you are less than pleased with the results, then it’s time to start engaging in some strategic SEO tactics. Analyse the on and off-page components you are currently using to reach domain authority and consider whether these need to change. Focus on building quality inbound links from high ranking sites and also try to add content to quality sites whenever you can. Some sites to focus on are YouTube, Quora and Slideshare, as these are already viewed by Google as having authority status. Taking these steps will help your site to rank higher in the search results, thus driving traffic towards your website, where you have complete control over the content and thus the image you promote of your business.

It is true that you have no control over what other people say about your company. However, by taking these simple measures, you can take complete control over the information you make available to customers and prospects about your business’ reputation online.