Poor or zero reputation is bad for you or your business. Unfortunately, not a lot of people will pay attention to this. They will have little to no control over this matter. When you have a less satisfied customer, it will be relatively simple to resolve the issue in person. However, once the conversation moves to the online world, it will be difficult for you to manage it. A negative review can have a massive impact on your digital reputation. Nonetheless, you should also not continuously pour your resources into reputation management. This article will give you some pointers that will help you understand if you have a decent online reputation.
Signs that Your Digital Reputation Management Needs Some Work
You could be missing many opportunities if you don’t know the answer to the question ‘what is your digital reputation.’ Learn how you can identify if your reputation needs to be fixed and protect your brand.
High Bounce Rate
When we visit a website, it will not always have something that we want. Therefore, we will return to the search engine to find what we are looking for. It will be recorded as the website’s bounce rate. When this is high, your audience is not finding the information they need from your site. Issue related to bounce rate can be problematic since it affects your reputation. While different factors may cause this, one reason behind a high bounce rate would be low-quality content. There should also be technical factors related to the website formatting. If you want to know how to protect your digital reputation, make sure that you have a lower bounce rate
Reasons Behind a High Bounce Rate
- Unresponsive Web Design- A website that is not mobile-friendly and unresponsive will have a higher bounce rate and exit rate. Users accessing your website using a mobile device will find it challenging to navigate through your website.
- Site Design and Structure- Be sure that you will also pay attention to the structure and design of your website. The interface should be simple and offers an organized navigation menu. The text must be clear and located on the prominent section.
- Low-Quality Content- Create informative, relevant, engaging, and helpful content if you want to enhance your site’s engagement rate. Perhaps the easiest way to address this problem is to hire an agency that will improve your digital reputation.
Increasing Negative Reviews
You can’t possibly please all your customers. Some people will find all the reasons to be disappointed. However, having a stream of negative reviews will be detrimental to your digital reputation management. Once the negative testimonial appears, you need to address this concern immediately. You should accept your lapses and treat this as an opportunity to improve your operation and prevent similar disappointment in the future.
How Do You Address Negative Review?
We’ve already created one giant article on how you will respond to online defamation. However, for a negative review, make sure to keep the conversation brief and try to move the conversation away from the public to minimize the damage. Avoid starting an argument, acknowledge that you made a mistake, and say sorry to appease the customer. Give them an email address where they can reach out to you privately.
You will be surprised that most people will be open to resolution and understanding as long as you accept your mistake and give them a favorable response. Remember to be prudent when answering them, even by email. They can still screen capture or copy your message and post it on their social media page. Your best solution is still prevention. However, if you can’t handle this personally, you can ask a reputation management agency to deal with it. They have a team who can answer the question ‘what is your digital reputation‘ and fix your problem.
Low Social Media Engagement
SMM (Social Media Marketing) is a cost-effective and efficient method to reach out to your audience. It is also ideal in developing your brand awareness. If you have an inactive Facebook page or a mismanaged page, you are missing loads of opportunities. Excessive promotion of your page is not ideal, especially if your post will not offer any value to your audience. Knowing how to protect your digital reputation means that you need to know how to keep your followers engaged. Any low number of messages, comments, likes, and reactions means you have a poor online reputation.
How to Use Social Media to Enhance Your Digital Reputation?
Rather than shamelessly promoting your business or product on your social media account, it would be better if you could share or post other types of valuable content. Share posts that can provide them with information. Anything relevant such as updates and news, can also help you improve your digital reputation. Do not be afraid to include occasional posts purely for entertainment, like a meme or a cute animal. Nonetheless, be sure that it will be appropriate for your business.
Low Website Authority
A website with high authority will rank higher on the search engine result. Understand that this will take some time. Perhaps one of the most reliable methods to do this is through link building. When high authority websites are linking to your webpage, it means that your website is trustworthy. Years ago, you could easily accomplish this by leaving comments on blogs and spreading your link just about anywhere online. However, the crawlers are more intelligent now and can easily separate the authentic method from the inorganic. Building your digital reputation takes more than that.
How to Improve Your Web Authority
If you want to improve your website authority, you should spend some time creating well-written and informative content. You can quickly accelerate the process by finding ways on how magazines and news sites will mention your website. Resources, trade journals, of sites that have already established their authority will also be a good option. Find websites with .edu and .gov domains; they are known for having high-quality pages. Growing your website authority is an excellent digital reputation management practice.
Inconsistent Branding Affects Your Digital Reputation
Having an inconsistent brand may not be that obvious at a glance. Some companies will go through a rebranding process but will maintain their website. You must eliminate the appearance that will reflect your old brand. Some businesses will sometimes use an abbreviation or a shortened version of their name. It can be tempting to do the same on your website since it creates hospitable and friendly content. However, search engine sites will not appreciate a business that uses a different name since it creates inconsistency. Proofread before publishing your content and make sure that the information you will submit on directory sites will be the same. Consistency helps you improve your digital reputation.
What Are Some Ways to Find out How Healthy is Your Digital Reputation?
Creating an online community and building your reputation that comes with it is a slow, time-consuming, and arduous process. You should know what is your digital reputation and identify your target market. You have to make sure that your audience will have a fantastic experience and encourage them to recommend your service or product. Here we have listed some essential keys on how you will better control your online reputation.
Create a Google Alert
Google Alert was initially created for individuals who want to keep up with the latest news and update. However, businesses can also take advantage of this feature. They can set up an alert that will notify them whenever someone posts fresh content related to their business. It helps them be aware of almost anything, regardless if it is positive or negative. For instance, if you are running a restaurant, setting up a Google Alert with the name of your restaurant business will prompt you to receive a notification when there’s new content about your industry. If this is negative, you can immediately address the potential issue before it becomes out of control and harm your digital reputation.
Monitoring Review Sites to Improve Digital Reputation
Another way to check the health of your online reputation is through review sites. Some people may think that it is not a big deal if they receive less than satisfactory reviews from these anonymous users. However, the recent study proved otherwise. More than 91% of the consumer will read online reviews before purchasing the product. If you want to improve your digital reputation, you will have to monitor review sites.
Moreover, you will be surprised how prominent these reviews will appear on the search engine results. You should never take this risk and keep closer attention to different review sites. Reputation agencies have tools that will automate this process. There are also programs online that you can use to streamline the procedure. With this, there is absolutely no reason why you can’t respond immediately to all types of reviews. Knowing how to protect your digital reputation requires a proper response to these customer reviews.
Social Media Numbers
The analytic data from social media platforms can also help you identify how healthy your online reputation is. To start, you should look at the number of likes, comments, and shares. It is a sign that your target audience finds your social media account engaging. You also need to be alert to the mentions. Saying thank you to positive mentions and addressing the negative ones will make you look more professional to those who read it. Be sure not to use any automated or robotic tone. Knowing where your target market is should also be included in your digital reputation management plan. You cannot be present on all these platforms, so be sure to find where most of your loyal customers are.
Ways to Maintain Your Digital Reputation
Now that you have built a solid and healthy online authority, your online reputationstrategy should now focus on how you can maintain it. It can be pretty frustrating how a reputation you have developed for years can easily be tarnished in ten seconds. Here’s how to protect your digital reputation.
Being Transparent
It would be difficult for a business owner to show a sign of weakness to their audience. However, your weakness could always be the cause of your poor review. Perhaps you are not shipping your product as fast as they’ve expected, or maybe you have a different return policy that the consumers are not aware of. Business owners believe that by hiding their weaknesses, they can encourage people to avail their service or product. The initial result could show a slight increase in sales, but it will be tough for you to save your digital reputation when there is an onslaught of negative reviews.
It would be better to have a transparent policy. Being honest about what you can do and what you can’t do will help you manage the expectation of the customers and avoid disappointment. It would be best if you informed them in advance that there will be delays in the shipment. With this in mind, the customers will be pleasantly surprised if they receive their orders in advance of your promised date.
Create Your Online Review Profile
With proper preparation, you can minimize or perhaps avoid the negative impact of poor reviews. Instead of just waiting for the bad review and trying to fix it before that happens, you need to have a solid profile. Curate a unique business story, fill up all the necessary information and upload high-quality images. Having a well-developed profile will help you generate business and improve your digital reputation.
Avoid Paying for Things that You Can Get for Free
Claiming these business profiles are free. Avoid sites that will charge you depending on the number of reviews that they will submit. Most of these are inorganic. You can end up getting penalized by the listing sites. Moreover, it may not be aligned with your company’s vision. You should pay for the management of your online reputation, such as suppressing the harmful content on search engine sites.
It will require a tremendous amount of work to build, manage, and maintain your healthy digital reputation. You can make it easier by looking for an expert to handle heavy lifting and complex procedures.