1. Ensure your website or blog is up to date
Neglecting this may make the organisation appear inefficient or out of date. If an organisation is in the middle of a crisis or has to deal with an issue, its website is one of the principal weapons in its armory, providing a tool to ensure relevant facts are known and presenting its interpretation of events. Getting the right message across is vital, particularly in the early stages of a situation.
2. Google and Yahoo! Alerts
The two major search engines can send notifications when specific items appear on the Internet. The alerts can be set up to target particular search terms, such as a name, email address or any other search term. A notification can then be sent either every time the relevant terms appears or less frequently in the form of daily or weekly digests, allowing the organisation to respond quickly when the need arises.
3. Register your Domain
Prevent opportunist individuals or companies from hijacking your businesses name and reputation by registering your domain name in your principal countries of interest. Otherwise, like Richard Branson, you may have to take action against a group registering your name. Fortunately, he was successful against the individuals who registered www.richardbranson.xxx.
4. Publish Positive Information
If negative information or articles about your business is appearing high on search engine results, it can be counteracted by publishing positive entries. Using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques can help to ensure your articles rank higher on results from Google, Yahoo! and the other search engines. As most people tend to rely on the first few search entries, this approach can help to dilute the effect of negative stories.
5. Upload Images
Negative pictures can be very damaging to an organisation because they tend to stay in the memory much more so than words. Businesses can counter negative images by publishing photos, logos or pictures of the organisation with related tags. This makes it more likely that these positive images will appear in search terms and will also help to make the organisation seem more approachable.
6. Social Media
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the other social media are important tools because they are so commonly used and so frequently updated. More than one third of Internet users have a Facebook account and Twitter users post an estimated 290 million tweets per day. Businesses must be part of this information flow if they are to influence it.
7. Become an Authority
If you are recognised as a subject expert, other relevant websites are likely to include backlinks on their sites. This may increase the flow of traffic from these websites to yours when searching for information on a topic and it may also improve your businesses rankings on searches. Ways to become an authority include writing relevant articles and contributing to other blogs, social media and news sites.
8. Contact the Website
If a particular website is carrying information that is inaccurate it may be possible to have it removed by making a direct request. If the website owner is not engaged in a proactive attack on your business, they may respond positively to a clarification of the relevant information.
9. Respond to Criticism
If there is negative commentary on the Internet such as on blog posts, it is worth addressing the situation by correcting any factual errors or presenting the organisation’s point of view. When doing this, make clear that you work for the company and post comments in a reasonable manner, avoiding defensiveness.
10. Review Sites
Encourage your customers to provide feedback to websites relevant to your industry. After a purchase, send a thank you email to all customers and include a link to a relevant website, such as Trip Advisor, Amazon or Yelp, asking the individual to post a review.
Conclusion
There are some elements of online reputation management which can be carried out by companies in-house; however others will require help from reputation management experts such as Reputation 24/7 – who are industry leaders in their sector and work with businesses to turn negative press into positive.