You’ve got a bad reputation on the web, and you’re worried about what others think about you? Not to worry, there are things you can do to fix your online reputation.
Online reputation is becoming increasingly important. How others view you in real life is influenced by how others see you on the web. Whether you are a professional, an entrepreneur, or a well-known public figure, the way others perceive you is reflected in your digital presence. As you build trust and credibility, a positive reputation will be built. However, once you’ve damaged your online reputation due to negative reviews, false claims, or old content, rebuilding trust and fixing your digital presence will not be easy to do.
Fortunately, repairing your online reputation is achievable. Through strategic planning, you can correct the problem, restore trust, and increase your digital presence. The purpose of this guide is to outline the basic steps to take to improve your online image from understanding the value of repairing a damaged reputation to increasing your online exposure.
The Importance of Reputation Repair
Your online reputation includes much more than just reviews and/or social media postings. Your online reputation is the way others, your customers, employers, or partners, see you. Others search for both individuals and companies online. What they find will determine how they choose to interact with you, thus making your online reputation a valuable asset.
Why Does Your Online Reputation Matter
Your reputation serves as your digital first impression. Prior to purchasing a product, interviewing for employment, or having investors fund your company, many people will search for you on the Internet. The search results, reviews, and mentions found will reflect their impression of how trustworthy and professional you are.
Businesses: Negatively reviewed products and/or damaging content can discourage customers to purchase your products; therefore reducing revenue. Positive reputations attract buyers, increase customer loyalty, and increase referrals.
Individuals: Recruiters, employers, or friends will use your online profiles to assess your moral fiber and capability. A poor reputation will prevent your career growth, whereas a good reputation will open the door to new opportunities.
Damaging your reputation can be costly, including lost opportunities and income.
Cost of a Damaged Reputation
A damaged reputation can silently deprive you of both income and opportunities. A single negative review or a negative article on the first page of search results can cause customers to shy away from purchasing your products.
Studies indicate that a single negative review can reduce your potential income by up to 22%. As an individual, a negative online reputation can cause you to miss career opportunities.
Employers and partners alike typically search for your name prior to making hiring, partnering, or investing decisions. If they find outdated or inaccurate information, you could miss out on either an interview or a partnership opportunity.
Trust is damaged once it is broken; it is very difficult to rebuild once it has been broken. The damage caused by a negative reputation will continue to grow the longer it remains available online. Therefore, using online reputation management strategies such as responding to reviews, managing your online reputation, and removing false claims is not only wise, but is absolutely necessary.
Assessing Reputation Damage
To begin repairing your online reputation, you need to assess the extent and origin of the damage to your reputation.
Although the damage to your reputation may develop slowly, the impact to your reputation can be significant. Begin to analyze your situation by answering some basic questions:
Are there negative reviews regarding your business or personal brand that would dissuade potential customers or employers from interacting with you?
Do the search engine results contain unflattering or outdated content about you or your business? As stated above, any negative content located on the first page has a greater negative impact.
Is your star rating low on websites such as Yelp, Trustpilot, or Google My Business?
Sources of Reputation Damage
Most reputation damage originates from one or more of the following:
Reviews: Disgruntled customers or clients who were unhappy with your service or products may write negative reviews about your business or personal brand on review websites, social media or blogs. Negative reviews are available to others, and will help them decide if they want to interact with you.
Misinformation: False or misleading information can easily spread throughout the Internet. A false claim made on a blog or social media site can become a major search result, affecting how others view you.
Social Media Backlash: An ill-worded post or a controversial comment can go viral for the wrong reason. Social media backlash is particularly damaging because it can spread rapidly and is difficult to control.
Once you’ve identified the root causes of your reputation issues, you’re ready to proceed with the strategies to rebuild your trust and credibility.
Removal of Negative Content
Removal of negative content from the Internet is usually the initial step in restoring your online reputation. Although you cannot remove all content, there are several methods to manage its availability.
Contact the Author: Contacting the person who wrote the negative content is the simplest method to remove content. If the negative content was written falsely or inappropriately, contacting the author or administrator of the website that hosted the content may be the most direct method to resolve the issue.
Constructive Communication: When communicating with authors or administrators of the content, being polite and constructive when explaining why the content is negative or false, can lead to surprisingly favorable outcomes. The most effective method of content removal is to demonstrate to the author or administrator that the content violated a platform’s policy, or is factually incorrect.
Legal Action: Content that contains actionable offenses (defamation, etc.) may require legal action to have it removed.
Many laws, such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and defamation statutes allow for content to be removed. Typically, platforms will honor requests to remove unlawful content. However, this process can be lengthy, and requires expertise in law. Approximately 36% of people reported experiencing online harassment or other forms of negative content; thus, obtaining lawful relief can protect your reputation.
If removal of the negative content is not feasible, then optimizing the search results is the second-best option. Often times, negative content appears in search engine results because it gained popularity or was published repeatedly. Creating positive content will assist you in pushing negative content down in search engine results, where it will be less likely to be seen. Studies show that 75% of users never browse past the first page of search results, emphasizing the need to optimize the search engine results.
Management of Online Reviews
Management of online reviews is one of the most important aspects of maintaining your brand. A negative review alone can harm your reputation if not addressed properly. Using review management and reputation repair services can greatly benefit your business.
Responding professionally to reviews demonstrates to your customers that you care about their experience, and are committed to correcting any problems. You should also acknowledge positive reviews, as this will foster trust among customers and enhance your overall reputation score on review platforms and search engines.
Here’s how to effectively manage reviews:
Claim Listings: Make sure your business is listed on review sites such as Google Business Profile and Yelp, so you can control your listing.
Regular Monitoring: Answer new reviews immediately, and use tools to alert you when someone posts a new review.
Professional Response: Never respond to a review negatively or aggressively; instead, respond politely and focus on solving the problem.
Promoting Positive Reviews
Positive reviews are a great way to promote trust and credibility. Positive reviews will dominate negative reviews and highlight the strengths of your business or personal brand. Promoting positive reviews involves the following:
Create opportunities for happy customers to express their satisfaction.
Ask happy customers to leave reviews after a satisfactory transaction, and make the process simple by giving them a link to leave a review or detailed instructions. Provide incentives for leaving reviews such as discounts or prizes, but ensure compliance with review platforms to remain transparent.
Always thank customers for their efforts to express their gratitude, and encourage them to tell others about your business or personal brand.
By consistently collecting positive reviews, you will establish a strong and reputable reputation over time.
Respond to Negative Feedback
Responding to criticism will protect your reputation as well as the trust you have built with consumers. Negative reviews on apps, bad publicity, and false social media posts can all be addressed through a responsive and honest answer, rather than a defensive one.
A company should respond to criticism with constructive communication such as acknowledgment of the issue at hand, and/or if appropriate; an honest apology. In instances where misinformation or fake news has been posted, a company should seek counsel prior to responding, as they do not want to exacerbate the situation.
If a company responds to criticism in a professional manner and demonstrates empathy and care, it will show that they value their customers’ opinions, as well as improve their overall presence in search engines. The same principle applies to customer service calls: being transparent and empathetic, while providing an honest response to a complaint, may allow companies to grow from their mistakes.
Use Tools to Track Sentiment
Sentiment tracking provides data to support your assessment of your online reputation. Digital tools designed to track mentions and sentiment include:
- Your Name or Brand – Google Alerts sends notifications of new content anytime your name or brand is mentioned online.
- Reviews – Reputation management software such as TrustPilot provides insights into online reviews, analyzing trends to determine whether your reputation is increasing or decreasing.
- Social Media Engagement – Facebook Insights or Twitter Analytics allow you to gather metrics on user engagement and feedback to gauge your audience’s sentiment toward your brand.
Boost Your Online Visibility
Visibility online affects how others view you. An effective online reputation strategy includes increasing your online presence. Developing a content strategy that creates and publishes consistent branded content while using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to create content that ranks higher in searches related to your name or brand can help build a stronger online reputation.
Creating media mentions through your public relations strategy, creating press releases, and utilizing sentiment analysis and conversation intelligence can all contribute to a better understanding of how you are viewed online.
Additionally, establishing a regular reputation checkup process can help identify potential reputation issues before they become major problems. A social media engagement strategy and a crisis communication plan can help protect your reputation when faced with challenging situations.
Here’s How to Build a Stronger Online Reputation:
Create Content Through Blogs: Use your blog to publish valuable content that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise.
Consistent Content Through Social Media: Create and post content through social media platforms where your audience spends their time.
Collaborate with Influencers: Partner with influencers to tell your story and increase awareness.
Optimize With SEO: Use SEO strategies to create content that ranks high in search results. Positive articles, videos, and social media content can help move negative content lower in search results.
Engage with Influencers
The primary objective of engaging with an influencer who has publicly spoken about your brand in a negative light is to defend the perceived reputation of your brand and to rebuild trust.
The first step to do this is to review the negative content thoroughly, determine if the criticism is consistent with your brands values, or if it brings to light an issue that needs to be addressed.
Next, respond professionally and empathetically as outlined in your prepared Crisis Communication Plan, ensuring your feedback response demonstrates your organization’s commitment to transparency. When at all possible, reach out privately to initiate a dialog, correct any misinformation regarding your organization, and provide the influencer with information that is consistent with your organizations’ brand story.
Building stronger media relations and turning negative influencers into potential positive brand advocates will create a movement of positive public perception and influence consumer opinion. Each and every interaction should continue to reinforce the authenticity, respect for others, and listening skills of your brand; key qualities that can convert criticism into opportunity.
Online Reputation Repair Takes Time
It will take time to repair your online reputation. Begin by identifying what has caused harm to your online reputation and then work to fix the issue one step at a time.
Carefully manage your reviews and attempt to generate positive reviews.
Address each piece of negative feedback, regardless of the source of the complaint. By responding to feedback with honesty and authenticity, you demonstrate your commitment to your customers and your products/services. The more you have available on the web, the more likely it is that people will find positive information instead of negative information.
In time, your hard work will restore trust and credibility in your brand. Treat your reputation as an investment.
When properly cared for, it will benefit you in the long term. The Internet does not forget easily. What you do today could affect your reputation for years to come. Be mindful of this fact and make sure to take care of your online reputation.
Take advantage of social media to communicate positively and proactively to your customers and the general public. Do not ignore negative comments. Take action to correct the situation and show that you value your customers. By doing so, you will establish a positive online reputation and protect yourself from future damage.
It may seem difficult, but taking proactive steps now will save you stress and money in the long run. When you treat your online reputation seriously, it will ultimately serve you in the long run. Ultimately, your online reputation is the result of everything you put out there. Therefore, it is crucial that you create a solid reputation and maintain it over time.