With more people carrying mobile devices in their pockets, your brand's reputation is more important now than it ever has been. All it takes is a few bad reviews for your online ranking to drop. You might notice a lack of new customers or a change in current customers' number of orders.
A bad online reputation can affect your business for years and even put you out of business. Becoming a proactive reputation guru with help from Spin Markket + Digital in Fort Dodge, Iowa, is the best way to ensure that you have complete control over your brand and what others think and say about it.
Use Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization or SEO is a strategy that helps you increase your online ranking and tell more people about your business. Google uses SEO to determine where your official website ranks, along with articles about your business and blogs you run.
It's easy to incorporate tags too. #MakeSmallBig is a popular hashtag used by small business owners who want to reach more people.
The idea is that when shoppers buy from small businesses, they help those companies grow. You should identify the key phrases and words related to your brand and get the word out about your business. If you use too many keywords or phrases or use words that don't link to your page, your ranking will likely drop.
Monitor the Internet
A common mistake that other business owners make is assuming they don't need to keep a close eye on what people say about them online. It's almost impossible to watch the web yourself.
You should invest in the right Spin Markket + Digital tools and services that monitor the web for any mentions of your brand name. Two more can spring up as soon as you find one negative review and comment on it.
The right tools can scan dozens of websites in seconds and give you free time to work on other tasks.
Create a Review Section on Your Site
If you go to Google and look up a competitor's name, you'll likely find that the company has an official page or section where customers can write reviews. They may have a review page that lists all reviews or allow customers to leave reviews on specific product pages.
Having a review page will enable you to control what the general public sees. It's easy to use a tool that finds all negative reviews to let you respond or delete them. Those reviews will also help customers find your brand and appear before any other reviews on Google.
Decide How to Respond
Have you ever written a bad review and received a generic copied and pasted message back from the company? There are few things that customers hate more than feeling as if a business does not care about them.
Though you can write a generic response, it's better to customize your answer for each review or message you get. Many tools allow you to write several responses and determine when to send them to customers.
For example, you might have one response that you send when someone loves a particular product that includes the product name and another that gives the customer an email address or phone number they can use to reach you.
Design a Recovery Plan
A recovery plan is a plan that you use when your brand's online reputation drops. Please don't assume that you can wait until the last minute to create one because it may be too late. Happy and satisfied customers are customers who stick around and buy from you again.
Unhappy customers are the ones who will tell others about their experiences and turn others away from your brand. Look for ways to turn unhappy customers into happy ones, whether it's giving them their money back or sending them a free product.
Entice Happy Customers
Customers today have access to tools that help them spot fake online reviews. Whether you use bots to write positive reviews or write them yoursel—those fake reviews are a definite turn-off for customers. When you entice customers and give them a reason to write about your brand, you'll get good reviews that improve your reputation.
Many brands use loyalty programs that reward customers with coupons when they write a positive review. Whether you sell on your site or use other sites, you can treat happy customers to gift cards too.
Use Social Media
With the number of people using social media today, you do your brand a disservice when you skip those sites. Facebook is one of the largest social media sites. It allows you to set up an official brand page to share videos and photos as you connect to your customer base.
One of the primary reasons to use social media is that it allows you to interact with your customers. You can respond directly to them when they leave a negative review or register a complaint.
Social media also includes sites such as Twitter and Instagram. With Twitter, you can talk about your brand and release short snippets when you host a sale or release a new product. Customers can easily tag your brand on the site.
Instagram is another popular social media site because it allows you to share photos and videos. You can host contests to reward happy customers by tagging your brand in their pictures and videos. Instagram also allows your customers to share video reviews. Always tag your posts with something such as #MakeSmallBig to grab the attention of others too.
Become a Brand Guru
Making your brand become one of the tops on the web and improving your reputation doesn't take as long as you might think. At Spin Markket + Digital, you'll find talented professionals ready to help you every step of the way.
Get help learning what to do when customers post negative reviews online or your page ranking drops. Contact us today in Fort Dodge, IA, to see how we can turn you into the ultimate proactive brand reputation guru and appeal to more customers.