With most people searching for products and services online through channels such as Google and Facebook, it’s vital that businesses manage their online reputation correctly. Our post breaks down why reputation is important followed by the best practice for Google, Facebook and review management.
Contents:
From how potential customers view your brand online to understanding how your existing customers value your brand, online reputation is key to any business in a digital world.
Online reviews are often permanent reflections of your brand, therefore it’s vital that businesses are pro-active and aware of their online reputation.
Increased authority improves your chances of ranking and being found within search and social results, this is dictated by audience sizes and your ‘page rank’ with Google or any other search engine.
Building authority on your website and digital channels will add value to your business by driving increased traffic from organic sources (SEO).
We can use ‘Trust Signals’ throughout our online channels to maximise the confidence that potential customers have with our brand. Trust signals include social activity, customer reviews, industry recognition and case studies.
A trust signal is content placed on your website designed to improve conversion
The best converting lead is almost always a referral from an existing customer, friend or family members. A recommendation from a trusted source usually breaks down any initial barriers, social proof aims to replicate this but online.
Feeling confident that someone you respect or admire has bought the product or service.
After looking at the importance of having an awareness of your online reputation, we’ll now look at some best practices to implement to give your business the best chance of performing effectively.
Maximise your Google presences by ensuring your business has the ‘knowledge’ graph for your business name or business name and location.
“Google’s Knowledge Graph is used both behind-the-scenes to help Google improve its search relevancy and also to present Knowledge Graph boxes, at times, within its search results that provide direct answers.”
Google My Business is a free tool that lists your business on Google search, maps and Google plus. This tool from Google also allows you to optimise the search results and knowledge graph for a branded search term.
Take charge of what people see when they do a local search for your business. Google My Business gives you the tools to update your listing and engage with your customers from your phone, tablet and computer. All for free
Schema markup is a search engine friendly way of adding additional information about your products and services to your website. This will allows Google to understand your sites content more clearly and potentially improve your search position.
Schema markup is code (semantic vocabulary) that you put on your website to help the search engines return more informative results for users.
A citation is a reference to the name, address and phone number of your business (NAP) on the world wide web. The more accurate references your business has, the more authority your site will gain. The key sites are shown in the Local Ecosystem graphic from Moz below.
90% of local experts say accurate citations are Critical or Very Important to local search ranking.
Facebook has become one of the largest channels for online marketing over the last few years. It’s vital that your business has a presence that is maintained regularly, with accurate company information on it. Customers often review a business’s social channels prior to purchasing a product or making an enquiry online.
Facebook is one of the most authoritative citations NAP references (mentioned earlier). If you don’t have one – set one up. People will look for your services on Facebook and verify your page if possible to help it’s positioning in searches.
As discussed earlier reputation management is extremely important when marketing any business, online customers are conditioned to look for negative reviews and reasons not to buy. By managing your reputation proactively you have a better chance of beating your competition.
Managing reviews means everything from responding professionally with a clear call to action to flagging fake reviews to website administrators. It only takes one bad review to put a customer off from buying a product from your business.
Third party review platforms can take some of the burdens away from you or your team. Review software can monitor and publish reviews on several major sites, meaning you can have visibility of your online presence under one roof.
Some of the benefits include:
Make asking your happy customers to leave a positive review on either Google or Facebook part of your customer service process.
Finally, enhance your Google search listing by implementing schema markup to aggregate your reviews and show the star ratings in result pages.
Search listing example:
Thanks for reading – If you need some assistance in managing your reviews and reputation online, please feel free to contact ASSISTED for more information.