What You Need to Know About Your Online Reputation Share: Date Published 9 October 2019 Categories Blog Reading Time 4-Minute Read Online reputation in business refers to everything; your company, product, service. Gaining the trust of customers is an essential part of any business. Online reputation in business refers to everything; your company, product, service, in a word to every single element that is connected to people’s trust in your business. It will take you a long time to build a strong brand reputation. Most often people hire an eCommerce digital agency for improving their brand ranking and increasing credibility with potential clients. Of course, it is a good idea, as everything can impact on your business: bad content, poor user experience or poor eCommerce SEO services. Customers differ. Even the most powerful companies can have bad reviews. There are cases when you cannot avoid them. A bad review is not the end of your business success. It sometimes even can help you to improve your business and make it better. However, your problem is to find out the result of it and cover people’s expectations. For reducing the likelihood of encountering reputational risks, you need to know some essentials about strengthening your online reputation. 1. Monitor Your Online Presence When thinking about your business reputation, you need to work out what your starting point will be. Understanding the level of your online presence is a good first step. It can be everywhere: social media platforms, Google reviews, guest posts, search engines result in pages, and so on. If you fail in establishing a strong online presence, you risk reducing your brand loyalty and potential customers, as more involvement makes easier for your customers to come to you. Monitoring your reputation will give you a real picture of your business and help you to make improvements if it is needed. Due to a number of online tools you can get notified any time your business name is mentioned. 2. Be Responsive to Reviews Being active everywhere: joining conversations in comments, reacting to feedback, reviews – everything that is connected to your business, no matter whether it is positive or negative is essential. A professional and full answer can make a bad review work for you. It shows that you really value your customer’s opinion and that you are thankful for any feedback they give. Besides, it is an alternative way of keeping an active presence, which really matters for your business reputation. People can detect it as a sign of a good customer service, which can bring trust towards your business. Besides, reviews play a great role in SEO ranking and increase brand recognition. 3. Develop Your Social Strategy Building a positive reputation through social media channels is a strategy that all huge brands use. Some businesses manage to have a great presence with eye-catching and trustworthy business profiles. As the number of social media users is growing day by day, you need to have a well-thought plan which can support your reputational goals. You need to: Choose the best platforms Understand the competition Meet your customers’ needs and try to cover them Target your audience through quality content 4. Report Fake Reviews What is a fake review? Unlike real reviews, fake reviews do not impress the real picture of your product or service. It can either be false advertising, or a bad strategy of a competitor to harm your business reputation. When it comes to false advertising, it is worth mentioning that Google is “smart” enough to understand which of your reviews are real. Hence, it is a good idea to avoid it. What refers to the ones that are intended to harm your business it also has a solution. Similar tools like Fakespot can easily find them. Each channel that allows sharing reviews has a guide through which you can report the fake ones. A good reputation is an asset to your business. SEO itself will help to build your brand image and impact reputation. Your website ranking and optimization, mobile-friendliness, relevant content; everything matters. While SEO with great eCommerce SEO services help to improve your web presence, Online Reputation Management helps in monitoring it. It means that both are crucial for a successful business. Author Tigran is a marketing and creative content specialist at Smarketa.com with a primary focus on SEO, PPC and customer satisfaction for eCommerce business. Being a true humanist he draws inspiration from the simple thing as everyday life and the matters one come across on a daily bases doing his best and above to help everyone around.