Businesses who really start delving into all of the marketing tools online are always surprised to see how much negativity there is around their brand, especially when they were not very present online! The reality is, even if you are rarely using your website, emails, online review sites, blogs, and social as a marketing vehicle, your audience is and will broadcast whatever they think about your brand. To see if you have a bad brand reputation online, use our checklist to find out and discover how to correct it.
When you search your business, what page is it on?
Doing a simple search of your business will reveal a lot about how your brand is perceived online. Google thrusts high quality content with proper SEO to the top of the search engine list. If you are on the second page (or even further!) then Google does not view your brand as being high quality enough to appear near the top. Since 95% of web traffic goes to links on the first page of search results, this is bad news.
There could be many causes for your low website placement. To rectify it, invest in an SEO firm or expert. They will be able to help boost your website rankings. You should also consider creating a detailed content plan for your brand.
Do you have negative reviews?
Search for your business with the word “reviews” in the search engine bar. This will allow you to find every review website your business is listed under as well as any reviews that have been posted. Even one negative review outweighs ten positive ones.
When you see a negative review, register your business as a user on that site and respond to them. Apologize for any issues they experienced with you and offer ways to rectify their situation. This can include kindly defending your brand for those who search for reviews of your business.
Do you have unanswered questions or comments?
Look at every review site as well as all of the social networks you are a part of. If there are any unanswered questions or comments on your brand on social, you need to answer them! Direct communication with a brand that goes unanswered casts you as uncaring toward your customers. Any negative comments are also allowed to fester and become monsters on social, broadcasted for all the world to see. You can lose current and potential customers by ignoring any inquiries.
Share positive comments to improve brand reputation. Answer any questions to provide a customer service tool for those online. You also need to answer negative comments or complaints on social.
What are your gaps between posts on social?
Look at your social media posts and see how far apart each message is spaced. Posts that are too infrequent do nothing to help promote your brand and also cast your brand as behind the times. Posts that are too frequent overwhelm and annoy your audience, casting you as a spam-brand.
Each platform has their own preferred posting frequencies, decided by the activity of the users. You can learn about best posting times and frequency on Buffer.
Our last point – use your analytics! By integrating your website with Google Analytics, you can learn a lot about your reputation online. If your website is showing low website hits or a terrible bounce rate, you know your brand is not being successful and creating a bad reputation. Using your analytics with the other points on our checklist will help you improve your brand reputation and see more business.