SERM or Search Engine Reputation Management aims to help businesses maintain their reputation by having a solid online presence. Managing your business can be a lot like managing a small town. Any company can brag about how effective their product or solution is and make some efforts to capture the interest of the consumers. It will also be easy for the others to besmirch your reputation and drag your company to the mud.
How Important is SERM or Search Engine Reputation Management?
For those who are managing their business, it is essential for you to have a website. This will serve as the fundamental of your branding and marketing campaign. Most of your customers will search for information about your company online before adding you to their list of considerations. They could visit your website, read online reviews, or check your social media activities. You don’t want negative feedback as the first thing they will encounter. It is usual for a business to receive some negative feedback. Perhaps you really deserve those poor reviews, or you might be a victim of the attack of your competitors. Regardless, you will need a search engine reputation management strategy to fix that.
You want to make sure that you will regularly monitor and fix your search engine reputation to ensure that you will appear endearing and desirable in the eye of your target audience. The recent reports show that the company’s value is directly linked to its online reputation. Most online audiences will also base their decision on how they interact with the company. They also highly trust the reviews posted by verified customers like it is the recommendation of people they trust. Being unaware of your online reputation is simply being irresponsible. You won’t be able to prevent a social media crisis that will affect the viability of your business.
How to Perform Search Engine Reputation Treatment
When managing your reputation, perhaps the best way to do this is to reach out to the audience, address their concern and ask them to update or delete their negative feedback. However, that will not always happen. There are instances when both parties cannot reach an amicable term. Therefore, you will have to perform search engine reputation management. SERM is all about pushing down the negative articles that will appear on the search engine and replacing them with positive content. It will be a long and demanding process, and it will require a constant effort on your part. Know that the realm of SERM is constantly evolving. Google continues to update its algorithm, and you need to match your SERM with this.
What Are Some Actions that We Must Consider?
You should use all the available resources that you have to bury these negative articles to the last page of the Google search result. This will include your blog site, website, social media channels, press release, and online listing sites. These are all powerful platforms that will help in cleansing your search engine reputation. Another good thing about this is that you completely control the process. Here are more things you should consider.
- Monitor the SERP- You should pay attention to the publication that appears high on the search engine result. Focus on the queries that are associated with your business. These are the articles that your target audience will often pick up. If you could reach out to these websites and ask them to add your name to this article, it would be a faster way for you to address your reputation issue.
- Understanding Negative Reviews- Understand that negative reviews will not solely be found in the listing sites. It can come as a video and be uploaded on video-sharing sites such as YouTube. It could be a podcast or an image shared online. Therefore, you need to monitor them and fix them accordingly.
- The Keyword- You can’t monitor all the keywords related to your business. Therefore, you should be aware of some critical keywords you must observe, such as ‘brand name’ plus keywords like comparison, pros and cons, reviews, branded keywords, and product and service names. Know that you will be required to monitor more keywords as your business expands.
How to do a Proper Search Engine Reputation Management
Marketers who have profound knowledge of how the search engine algorithm works are perfectly capable of handling search engine reputation treatment. Here are some of the management strategies that experts often use.
Appropriately Respond to all Kinds of Reviews
For all business owners, expect that you will receive negative reviews. You can’t please everyone, and it will be difficult for us not to take things personally. This is especially true if we think we are the target of our competitor’s black propaganda. Nonetheless, keeping yourself calm is always essential when dealing with Search Engine Reputation Management strategy. Responding correctly to a negative review is a powerful way to transform a negative remark into something neutral or positive. We’ve talked about before how you should respond to negative reviews. Start by admitting the lapses of your company and assure them that you are looking closely at their complaint. You should then try to move the conversation to private. Make sure that your response to them will be helpful and kind. Do not waste their time, be direct and honest.
Cleansing the SERP
In Search Engine reputation repair, the first page of the search result will play a critical role. You have to make sure that no negative article is shown in front. If you have been appearing on the critical search term on Google, you don’t want your business to be associated with something negative. Suppose the negative reviews appear on the front page. Therefore, you will have to perform some cleansing to purge the results that may affect your reputation. Here are some things you should do to ensure that only positive articles appear on the first page.
- Posting high-quality content consistently and at regular intervals
- Actively gathering positive reviews
- Getting positive media releases and coverage
- Creating guest posts on websites that have high authority and rating
Improving SEO Efforts
SEO or Search Engine Optimization involves strategies to help you manipulate the search engines. This includes awareness of the algorithms and the signal that will affect the SERP. SEO can significantly help alleviate the severe impact of having a poor reputation. Here are some strategies you need to include in your Search Engine Reputation Treatment.
- Monitoring Your Website- if your official website is not appearing on top of your desired keywords, you have a problem. Ensure that the keywords are added on the important pages of your website and in desired keyword density. You should also check the loading speed of your website. Study shows that people will leave the site if it loads for more than three seconds. You also need to ensure that it is responsive. Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites. Various tools will help you monitor the mistakes that could affect your SERP.
- Content- Posting content regularly is a must if you want your website to have high online authority and appear on top of the search result. Know that most people will not go beyond page 1. You have to ensure that all positive content are found on page 1. If you post a blog article, the average length of the blog article that appears on the first page of a search result is 1,200. You should also perform keyword research and include them in your content. Add images and alt properties.
- Backlink- Backlinks are the links that you will leave on another website. This will send a juice that tells the crawlers that you are a reputable site. Thus, helping you achieve a higher search result on Google. You can do this through content syndication, guest posting, press release, etc.
Boosting Your Social Media Presence
Social media can be a powerful tool for your Search Engine Reputation Management. It aims to keep your audiences engaged and informed about your company. With this, they will not easily be influenced by what they read online. Having a social media account allows you to connect to the audience and improve your SERP. The higher the engagement in this platform, the better your reputation will be. Positive feedback and mentions you will receive will also contribute to your trustworthiness.
Nonetheless, it will be difficult for you to join all the social media channels when dealing with your search engine reputation treatment. You should start with some of the most popular such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. You need to be active; use a tool to help you schedule your post. You can also auto-share the content that you will post on your website. Respond to those who will try to reach out to you. It is also best to learn about hashtag marketing to appear on some hashtags people will often use and search.
Push Up the Positive Content
Content that talks positively about your business will not appear magically online. You will have to compose it. Try to create content that will rank well to push the negative content down to the last page of the search result. You must always check if the search engine result is associating your product and brand with something positive. These kinds of content will significantly boost your reputation and improve your brand awareness.
Online presence is not just for business owners. Search engine reputation management can also be used by professionals who became victims of cyber libel. It is a strategy that builds the consumer’s trust and improves your relationship with the audience.
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