Online Reputation Repair

Reputation Management

Restore Your Brand’s Good Reputation Online

Negative online reviews and bad press can be frustrating for business owners, but it is possible to reduce the impact of bad reviews and start seeing a more positive online reputation for your business. Salem Surround offers full-service reputation management, including online reputation repair, to help your business bounce back from any negative publicity - from bad customer reviews to PR crises.

Understanding Your Online Reputation

There’s a lot more to your business’s web presence than your website. There are many places that your business may be mentioned online, from review sites to news publications to directory listings. It may feel like some elements of your online reputation are out of your control, but you can actually guide the conversation about your brand with the following steps:

1. Monitor and Analyze Your Digital Presence – In order to manage your online reputation, you need to assess where you stand. Monitoring your digital presence will let you analyze brand mentions and understand how your brand is perceived online.
2. Claim Your Online Listings – There are many sites where you can claim business listings, including Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business), Facebook, and Better Business Bureau. There may be even more industry-specific sites, depending on your business. Claiming and managing these listings will help you ensure that you’re presenting the right brand image everywhere your business is mentioned online.
3. Devise a Brand Reputation Plan – If assessing your digital presence has revealed a negative brand image for your business, the next step is building a brand reputation plan with a skilled digital agency like Salem Media Group.
4. Get More Positive Reviews – A major component of online reputation repair is soliciting positive reviews from new customers. Having a steady stream of 4- and 5-star reviews will provide a significant boost to your business.
5. Engage With Your Audience – It’s not enough to simply ask customers to leave reviews. You need to engage with those customers by responding to their reviews and sharing them on your website and social media sites.

Benefits of Investing in Your Online Reputation

Online reputation management is important for many reasons. When customers find your business online, they’ll be paying close attention to reviews from previous customers. Here’s a closer look at some of the other reasons online reputation management matters for your business:

• Reduce false information about your business online.
• See a better performance with your local SEO.
• See more conversions.
• Boost your brand authority and authenticity.
• Foster more brand loyalty.

How Your Online Reputation May Become Damaged

An online reputation crisis can have several causes, but no matter what the root cause is, it’s important to take quick action. A negative online reputation can have lasting consequences for your business, so it’s important to monitor for:

• Negative Reviews – One or two negative reviews won’t usually be detrimental to your business, but having a significant number of bad reviews will drive down your average star rating and leave customers questioning whether they can trust your business. Customers don’t put much stock in businesses with an average rating under 4 stars.
• Volatile Review Responses – It’s hard not to take bad reviews personally, but having an overly defensive response to negative reviews can do even more damage than the initial review. When business owners become combative and defensive in their review response, potential customers will take notice—and quickly turn to your competition.
• Bad Publicity – Businesses make mistakes. Unfortunately, in the digital age, those mistakes may be broadcast over a variety of channels on the web. From marketing flubs to data breaches to employee scandals, there are many potential sources of bad publicity that may tarnish your online reputation.
• Unsolicited Brand Mentions – Influencer marketing can be incredibly effective, but only if the influencer is someone you want to align your business with. Unsolicited brand mentions from people who don’t have excellent reputations can have people questioning your company’s values.
• Unclaimed Online Listings – There are many places your business’s name may come up online. You want to ensure that you manage as many of those mentions as possible with directory listing management to keep information about your business accurate and up to date.

How Salem Surround Can Help

At Salem Surround, we take a proactive approach to online reputation repair with full-scale reputation management for businesses of all sizes. We’re here to help you:

• Get new reviews from satisfied customers.
• Remove spam reviews from major review sites and perform damage control for legitimate negative reviews.
• Boost your star ratings with a steady stream of new reviews.
• Continually monitor your performance and keep you up-to-date on your progress.

Don’t let your reputation suffer and drive down your business. Contact Salem Surround today for a reputation scorecard to get your business on the right track.