10 SEO Reputation Management Tips to Help Your Brand

By: Frank DePino | May 18, 2023

When customers search for your business online, what happens if negative stories appear among the first results? You must protect your online reputation to gain and hold your target audience’s trust, and SEO online reputation management (ORM) is the key. 

SEO reputation management is the collection of tactics and strategies used to influence the public conversation regarding your brand on search engine results pages (SERPs). ORM allows businesses to manage the perception of their company and brand by monitoring the online reputation and constructively addressing negative feedback. 

Read on to learn more about SEO reputation management, including ten tips to protect your brand and the tools to do it.

• What is online reputation management?
• What is SEO?
• Benefits of ORM for your business
• How reputation management affects SEO
• Get better SEO reputation management with these tips
• Local SEO reputation management
• SEO reputation management tools
• Hire a professional reputation management agency

What is online reputation management?

Essentially, online reputation management, or ORM for short, is the digital marketing strategy of managing the public’s perception of a company on SERPs. With as much as 90 percent of consumers checking online reviews before making a purchase, you certainly don’t want potential clients finding negative stories on the first page of results when they look for your business. 

Protect your brand’s image online with SEO reputation management by addressing negative feedback and giving positive content more weight with optimized strategies. If your content is properly SEO-focused, it will carry more weight with search engines like Google. 

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) combines digital marketing strategies intended to boost your website’s rank on internet search engines. Using keywords related to your industry, business niche, and geographical region, optimize your content to help Google understand what your site does and build a digital reputation as an authority in your industry. The stronger your SEO efforts, the higher your website will rank on SERPs.

SEO includes content from social media posts and blogs to press releases and your website using targeted keywords, technical optimization, and building a network of trusted backlinks. 

Benefits of ORM for your business

You may ask why ORM offers your business benefits, questioning whether it is truly worth the effort. According to Forbes, 97 percent of business owners said ORM was vital to their digital marketing strategies. 

How reputation management affects SEO

Gossip and negative news tend to spread far faster than any positive message ever will. If something less than flattering about your brand goes viral, reputation management will help mitigate the damage, preventing further sales and search traffic loss. A bad online reputation can decimate your brand’s value and profitability if left unchecked.

A negative online reputation can impact:

• Organic search traffic

If the first thing customers see when they search for your company is a negative story, they are far less likely to click through and give you their business. Less search traffic means fewer sales.

• Paid search traffic

Negative articles and reviews will make paid digital advertisements for your brand give a lower return on investment. If you don’t want to keep increasing your advertising budget without results, look toward SEO reputation management for solutions.

• Brand Equity

Negative press can directly impact your brand equity, resulting in greater difficulties in drawing in customers and establishing working relationships with other businesses. 

• Profitability

When your business suffers from a negative reputation, profitability is one of the impacts you’ll feel most keenly. Losing too much profitability can cause you to lose stockholders or force you to let employees go to stay in business. 

Get better SEO reputation management with these tips

1. Start with an intense evaluation of your online reputation

Discover what potential customers find when they do a Google search for your business. You know where to start if they find anything other than a clean, updated list of blog posts and SEO content leading back to your website. According to recent research, 93 percent of internet experiences begin with a search. Once you’ve identified your problem areas, use SEO reputation management to move closer to your business goals. 

2. Respond to all online reviews and showcase your brand’s customer service

ReviewTrackers reported that 88 percent of all online reviews are published on just four websites — Google, Yelp, Facebook, and TripAdvisor. The same report said 94 percent of consumers said they were convinced to avoid a business due to a bad review and 53 percent of consumers expect a company’s response to negative reviews within a week. However, the faster the response, the more favorable an impact it has. 

Set up Google alerts for your brand, so you don’t miss any reviews, good or bad. Make it quick and straightforward for customers to leave reviews for your company by using a consistent approach across platforms so the reviewing process is fast, easy, and accessible. Minimize the number of clicks someone must make to leave a review, and keep your questions short. 

Don’t forget about employee-facing review platforms, either. If you plan to grow your business, you will eventually need to recruit talented workers. Ensure you provide an excellent experience for both customers and employees and encourage both to leave reviews telling others how you treated them.

3. Publish useful, engaging content customers find valuable

One of the most essential SEO reputation management tactics is regularly publishing useful, engaging content that customers will find valuable. Google constantly strives to deliver practical, relevant results for internet searches. Content is ranked by its usefulness and relevancy to the user’s search, so yours needs to offer some benefit to the reader to have SEO value. 

Suppose a potential client is torn between you and a competitor and browses both websites to determine which company is the best fit. You are more likely to win the client’s business with a robust library of helpful content to educate consumers about your industry. According to Forbes, self-focused content marketing isn’t the most effective way to catch your audience’s attention; they want value.

Build trust with your target audience and improve brand development by offering informative content that comprehensively answers their questions and concerns. Imagine every conceivable question potential customers could ask about your business, then make sure those answers are easily accessible on your website. 

Don’t be afraid to branch out across platforms for your SEO reputation management. Video marketing is an incredibly popular medium accessible to everyone with a smartphone. Lean into your multimedia options, sharing different aspects of your company to maximize efforts while sharing a consistent brand message. 

4. Use social media to your advantage

When used properly, social media offers your brand unprecedented potential for customer exposure. Control the message the public receives about your brand while growing your audience by providing instant access to the information newcomers want most. Social media should function as a window offering a peek at your company.

Your social media profiles are opportunities to show the platform’s users who you are and what you do at a glimpse. Your social media strategies can’t be an afterthought if you want effective ORM. If social media is a window to your company, let it be open and attractive rather than shuttered and inactive. Social media is one of the first places potential customers will search for you; be there for them to find. A positive reputation and active social media will make lead nurturing easier and more effective. 

5. Highlight the people behind the brand

From the CEO to the custodian, people increasingly want to know about the people behind the brand. According to Washington State University, 44 percent of a company’s market value is intricately entwined with the CEO’s reputation. Your potential clients, employees, and investors are all people who are likely to care about the people supporting your brand. Cultivate a clean, positive image for your company’s CEO and keep it steady with SEO reputation management.

6. Accept that there will be discomfort and commit to working past it

Progress rarely comes without difficulty. If you accept there will be troubles from the start, you’re far more likely to commit to working past the complex parts to achieve your goals. Negative reviews may be unfair or outright lies — you still need to deal with them. With so much beyond your control, SEO reputation management is more critical than ever. 

7. Put your energy into boosting positive search rankings

Use SEO techniques to help positive content dilute the power of anything negative someone may publish online. Ask satisfied customers to leave reviews, which builds a steady stream of positive messages about your brand and services. As a bonus, frequent favorable customer experiences will drown out the effect of negative reviews you may receive and build trust among your target audience.

8. Ensure your “About Us” page is engaging 

Take the time to ensure your website’s “About Us” page is engaging and shares valuable information about your company. This landing page is vital for sharing your company’s values, mission, and methods. Let current and potential customers know who you are, what you stand for, and how you plan to accomplish your goals. 

9. Feature testimonials from satisfied customers

Featuring testimonials from satisfied customers on your website will have more effect than most other reputation management strategies. Customers trust online reviews and often use them to influence their purchasing decisions. Client testimonials tell prospective customers what to expect when they work with your business and go a long way toward building your online reputation. 

10. Maintain SEO efforts for content and on the technical side

Google Business Profile (GBP) is a vital tool. Establish your profile, and ensure it is constantly updated with your contact information, hours, location, and other critical data. Your company’s reviews connect to your GBP profile.

Technical SEO is your website’s speed and efficiency. Ensure your site works correctly, is optimized for mobile use across various devices, has updated Schema markup, and remember to monitor your Core Web Values. 

Local SEO reputation management 

Local SEO reputation management focuses on your company’s immediate area, seeking feedback and endorsements from locals in your industry, both customers and associates. Focus on keywords related to your specific business niche and geographical location.

SEO reputation management tools

• Google Alerts

Google offers various useful free tools for SEO professionals and digital marketers. Google Alerts sends email notifications based on your keywords as they occur. 

• ReviewPush

Monitor online review sites like Facebook, Yelp, Google, Yellowpages, and Foursquare with ReviewPush. Set up email alerts that allow your media manager to respond directly to reviews. 

• Email marketing for automated review encouragement

Use email marketing tools to establish an automated review encouragement program, building a steady stream of positive content to improve your ORM.

• SocialMention

This tool monitors over 80 social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for mentions of your brand, sending alerts so you can monitor what people say about your brand’s reputation. 

Hire a professional reputation management agency

The process of SEO reputation management can be daunting if you’re not well-versed in digital marketing, but don’t worry because help is available. When you don’t have the appropriate skill set to optimize your ORM on your own, hire a professional reputation management agency to handle it all for you. 

Find a digital marketing agency with the right skills to accomplish your goals and let them take care of everything. At the same time, you enjoy the rewards of a strong, positive reputation with the public and your target audience. ORM is a crucial SEO strategy that sets your business up for success by ensuring the public finds positive information when searching for your brand.

Conclusion

SEO reputation management can have a massive impact on a company’s authority and trust with the public. The prevalence and importance of online reviews aren’t likely to fade anytime soon, but with a team of experts supporting your brand, your reputation is in good hands. Contact us at Mediaboom to learn about how our team of experts can help you manage your company’s online reputation.

By: Frank DePino

Frank DePino is Principal and Founder of Mediaboom. Since 2002, Frank has led Mediaboom’s award-winning staff of creative and technical professionals, building the most effective marketing and advertising solutions for its clients.