If you are present in the online world, your prospects are judging and investigating you. Therefore, you always must stay on top of your online reputation score. By being aware of your current position, you will know whether your reputation supports or harms your business. From your possible customers, investors, potential employers, and even a romantic date may be Googling your name. Based on the latest reports, 75% of the company will require their HR department to search for the name of a potential candidate online. While this may no longer surprise you, it should give you an idea of how personal branding can impact the quality of your life.
What is an Online Reputation Score?
Reputation Score pertains to the quality of your online presence. It involves a complex calculation of various metrics related to your digital footprint in a more profound term. Some tools will scour the web and collect all the information found in the public domain. They will then categorize the data based on relevance and sentiments. A free online reputation score is more than just a medal of pride that you can showcase to other people. It provides you with critical insights about your business, and it will give you a clear perspective on your weaknesses and strengths. You can gather essential data that will help improve your online presence, boost your SERP ranking, manage your review, etc.
How Do Agencies Calculate Your Reputation Score?
Different companies claim that they can provide you with an accurate calculation on what is your online reputation score. However, you have to make sure that they are adding critical factors to their assessment. For instance, it should not just include the social mentions that the company receives; it should also include your online visibility, the customer’s sentiments, star rating, the volume of reviews that you receive, etc. It will also be best if the company will be transparent on how they are calculating your score. If possible, they must also provide you with the best steps to take after this.
What Are the Common Factors Used to Calculate Your Online Reputation Score?
To better view your online reputation, it should include all the crucial data available to the public. Here are some of the factors that you need to pay attention to.
Authority of the Listing Site
Not all listing sites are created equal. Some of them will have a higher domain rating. Therefore, when calculating your online reputation, the agency should only draw information from sites that come with a verification process. Other review database sites allow auto-generated and fake reviews to populate their site. Therefore, it will not give you an accurate interpretation of your score.
Accuracy of the Information
Automated tools can simultaneously gather information on various sites and determine if the information provided is accurate and consistent. It will be impossible to encourage your prospects to do business with a company that has different information.
SERP
How you are ranking on the critical keywords also matters in your online reputation score. The higher you appear on search engine sites on the related keyword, the better your reputation is.
Review Length
The length of the review can determine how invested your customers are in providing you with a quality review. It shows how much of their time they are willing to spend to leave you a well-crafted review. Most of the time, the length of the review can also include important information that prospects will need. It also separates the organic reviews from the fake ones.
The Freshness of the Review
The freshness of the review can also affect your free online reputation score. It sends a signal that you are staying on top of your customer testimonials and encouraging your customers to leave reviews about your business.
The Number of Links
The number of sites where your reviews can be found should also be included in the computation of your reputation score. The wider your reach is, the better your reputation must be.
The Volume of Reviews
Customers will not even consider doing business with you if you only have a few reviews. The volume of review may be directly linked with how long you have been working in your industry. It also translates how well your customer support and PR teams are.
Ratings
Your score should also incorporate ratings. A high rating means that you are committed to your customer service and dedicated to driving a satisfying experience for your customers.
Why Does Your Online Reputation Score Matter?
It wasn’t too long ago when the internet was a different playing field. The companies don’t necessarily have to interact with their prospects; they put their product on sale and hope that it will attract the attention of their potential target. People do not have the platform to voice out their disappointments or satisfaction about the product. After only a few years, there has been a radical change in the system. The website of your company is not just promoting passively. Also, there has been a considerable significance placed on user-generated content. Companies must also be active on different social platforms and stay in touch with the customers and mentions. Here are more reasons why you need to pay more attention to what is online reputation score.
It Gives You a Sense of Transparency
One of the essential qualities that the consumers are looking for in a business would be transparency. They need to be more open to feedback and criticism. When you are transparent, you give your people and the public a chance to freely talk about your product and company. You are not deliberately hiding criticisms. Instead, you plan to address them effectively. However, achieving that would be more complex. Some companies will not invest too much in their customer relations and reputation management. They are struggling to comprehend these concepts, and most of them will produce undesirable results. Being transparent to your audience could be risky; we agree on that notion. However, a company full of ambiguity that will keep its customers in the dark presents a higher risk.
Online Reputation Score Boosts Your Sales
Before people make any purchasing decision, most consumers will depend upon the information they can find on the internet. People will read user-generated content such as reviews before choosing the company they want to do business with. Agencies that understand what is your online reputation score can help you attract customer testimonials and reviews to help you increase your sales.
Increase Your Brand’s Visibility
An outstanding online reputation score would be necessary to advance the visibility of your brand. As the customers share their views about your company on various platforms, you can guarantee that more people will be aware of your brand. Moreover, it will be easy for you to improve your awareness. Simply reshare the positive reviews of your previous customers in different channels. User-generated content has become a crucial part of the consumer’s shopping experience. Study shows that more than 90% of them will read reviews.
It Provides You with Important Business Insights
If you are managing a small business, your free online reputation score can help you find out which provides you with the highest profit among your services or product. Listening to the input of the customers will help you understand the weaknesses and strengths of your company. You will understand which part you should improve and the feature you need to showcase in your promotional strategies. It allows you to measure your company’s credibility and make the necessary changes to improve the success rate of your business.
What Are the Possible Causes of Low Online Reputation Score?
There are different reasons why a business will suffer from a low score. The common cause would be their lack of knowledge on what is reputation score. They do not understand how it affects their company. Therefore, they will also execute inconsistent and improper practices when managing their online reputation. Here are more possible reasons.
Low Number of Reviews
By now, you understand how important it is to have a significant volume of reviews. Most consumers will trust a company with a higher collection of reviews. According to a study, there should be at least ten reviews before a customer even considers purchasing your product. The more reviews, the better your chance of closing that deal. Unfortunately, not a lot of businesses will pay attention to their online reviews. They will not do the necessary methods to collect reviews. Start by reminding your customers that they can leave a review on specific platforms. Most customers will be willing to leave a testimonial about your company; you simply have to ask for it. You can also offer small incentives to your audience in exchange for the review. Nonetheless, avoid resorting to paid reviews and fake reviews since it will hurt your online reputation score.
Not Responding Properly to the Reviews
It is a must for you to respond to all types of reviews that you are receiving. Reacting to the positive reviews shows that you are grateful to your customers. Responding to the negative reviews means that you are committed to providing your clients with a satisfying experience. Sadly, not many business owners will respond to their customer testimonials, unaware that it is affecting their online reputation score. Moreover, most of them will ignore the negative reviews believing that the review could gain attention.
Remember that customers who are leaving a negative review are still hoping to reach a favorable resolution. If you ignore this, they can voice their opinion on their social media account for everyone to see. You may think it is just a single negative review, but that review will remain on the listing site. If you don’t respond to it, people who will see the review may think that you don’t value your customers’ opinions.
Low Social Media Visibility
Another possible reason for a low free online reputation score would be your low visibility on social media, databases, and listing sites. Perhaps people are not talking about your company. To address this, find people who can help you improve your presence on different platforms. Post engaging and relevant content. We’ve already mentioned before how you can use social media to advance your online reputation management. It is not necessary to respond to all comments that you receive but be sure to address the comments that require immediate attention.
Poor Online Presence
Your online presence can also help you advance your online reputation score. If you are not receiving any love from search engine sites, there has to be a reason. You should try to implement the latest SEO methodologies. You should also find out how your company name appears on the search results. Try to search for your company name on major search engine sites. If you have damaging content on the first page of the search result, you have a lot of work to do. You can talk to a professional Online reputation management agency that will help you push the harmful content down to the bottom page of the search result.
How Can You Protect Your Online Reputation Score?
Once you reach a desirable score, you want to make sure that it will remain that way. Therefore, you need to know the best practices to protect your reputation and your brand. One way to achieve this is to remain a respected and authorized figure in your industry. You can do this by providing your customers with top-notch and consistent results. Here are more things you can do.
- Monitor- You need to stay on top of your mentions. You can’t protect your reputation if you are unaware of what other people say about your brand.
- React Properly- Always keep a polite and rational mind when responding to all kinds of reviews. We understand that this is easier said than done, and it won’t be easy not to take things personally. If you can’t do this, tell your customers that you will get back to them and that you are working on it. Take a step back and take a deep breath to calm yourself before responding to reviews.
- Learn- Your reviews are allowing you to look at your business from the customers’ perspective. You will learn new things if you keep an open mind to their suggestion. Also, you should pay attention to the way they craft their reviews. You will understand how to personalize your message by reading their reviews.
- Attack the Attackers- If the attacks on your business are already defamatory, you need to defend your business from them. Most of the time, detractors will do things again if you will not sue them.
Your online reputation score starts from actively listening to your customers and providing them with the things they want to hear. Moreover, it can also help you advance your SEO efforts. If you find things overwhelming, do not hesitate to ask for the help of professionals.