A good reputation is one of the many important factors that ensure your online business’s success. Building this positive reputation can take a long time and a lot of effort. On average, more than 25% of a company’s market value is directly attributable to its reputation.

However, the reputation you build for a long time can be ruined almost instantly due to wrong decisions and mismanagement. Therefore, it is crucial for businesses to understand the strategies it takes to maintain a positive perception from the public.

To help you with this task, let’s take a look at seven ways to protect your company’s online reputation.

1. Maintain Website Quality

Your business website acts as the centre for most of your company’s online presence and activities. Therefore, maintaining your website’s quality directly influences your business’s good online reputation. Your website quality covers several aspects including, performance, design, and user interface.

There are many ways to sustain your website performance, such as enabling caching, using a content delivery network (CDN), and choosing the right hosting provider. You have numerous options when it comes to hosting services. One of the best ones you should consider is Hostinger.

Using a good website design and a well-crafted user interface can also improve your website’s quality. These aspects make your website more attractive and let visitors navigate through pages and use features smoothly.

2. Dedicate Resources for PR

To have and maintain a good business reputation both online and offline, it might be best to invest in a dedicated public relations department. Your business will be able to handle and respond to any customer support tasks more quickly by appointing staff or a team to focus on various PR matters.

If hiring additional staff is out of the question, numerous third-party agencies offer services to manage online reputation for companies. Just make sure their price fits your budget, and don’t forget to communicate your preferences to them before signing any contracts.

3. Listen and Respond to Reviews

Reviews and comments are the main way to identify how customers perceive your products or services. It is in your best interest to respond to all reviews, positive or negative, to show that you care about their opinions and feedback.

Instead of deliberately removing bad reviews, it might be better to try and make the situation better. Provide a dedicated channel, such as an email address, where you can receive and handle complaints from dissatisfied customers privately.

Take time to thank every reviewer regardless of how they score your product or service. This can encourage them to leave more positive feedback in the future.

4. Make A Communication Standard

One of the most important aspects of online reputation management is consistency. According to studies, a consistent brand presentation can boost revenue by as much as 23%. Thus, all of your PR initiatives should follow a clear online communication rule that reflects the company’s core values.

Take a look and understand your target audience’s preferences and use this information to create content and online response. Ensure your PR staff understands and uses the same tone and language every time they reply to comments or reviews online.

5. Be Transparent

A proper amount of transparency can make people perceive your brand as an authentic and trustworthy business. This can be the key to building a positive relationship with your target audience, as around 94% of customers relate most to brands that emphasize transparency.

Some businesses might think it is better to hide their mistakes and shortcomings with various marketing jargons and complicated fine print. However, this can alienate potential customers and make them perceive your business as misleading.

It might be better to make your weaknesses clear upfront while explaining and trying to overcome them. Remember that using an appropriate transparency policy is important to avoid being too open online when using this strategy.

6. Create Engaging Content

Content marketing plays an essential role in establishing your online presence and reputation. With around 93% of B2B marketers using content marketing, it is proven to be a popular and effective method to drive attention to your brand.

There are various types of content to produce, depending on your target audience’s demographics and background. Some of the most popular are blog posts, videos, infographics, and podcasts.

Aside from being a great way to promote your business, providing helpful and relevant content for your audience can help establish your brand as a reliable and trustworthy source of information.

7. Utilize Management Tools

Depending on your company’s size, maintaining its online presence and reputation can be a difficult task. But, there are various tools and services available to help you manage your online PR tasks, including:

  • Google Alert. A free tool that allows you to set email notifications for keywords you want to track, such as your brand, product, competitors’ names, or phrases specific to your industry.
  • Reputology. This tool can help you manage and monitor online reviews for your business on multiple platforms like Facebook, Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor.
  • SimilarWeb. This integrated web-ranking management service can help you monitor your performance on the search engine result page. It also allows you to track and analyze competitor’s website performance.
  • Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a social media management software that integrates multiple social media accounts on a single dashboard. This allows you to conduct various social media-related activities more efficiently.

Consider the price and features offered when choosing which tools to use. Some of these software and services are available for free. Therefore, there is no need to spend any money if the free version already fulfils your needs.

Conclusion

Online reputation management is important for every venture that strives to grow in the digital business ecosystem. Without a proper reputation management strategy, your company may have difficulty gaining new customers and growing.

In this article, we have looked at seven essential steps to maintaining your company’s online reputation, including:

  • Maintain website quality
  • Dedicate resources for PR
  • Listen and respond to reviews
  • Make a communication standard
  • Be transparent
  • Create engaging content
  • Utilize management tools

Follow the tips presented in this article, and hopefully you can maintain your company’s positive reputation and continue growing your business.