What is Search Engine Reputation Management?
Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) is an essential component of online business success. It involves monitoring and actively influencing the public perception of a company on the internet. Its ultimate goal is to effectively handle negative search results and feedback concerning the business. By monitoring the company’s presence online and undertaking appropriate measures, SERM can drastically improve an organization’s reputation and attract potential customers. In this way, it could become a fundamental component of success for businesses operating in the digital age.
Search engine reputation management (SERM) provides an invaluable opportunity for businesses and websites to monitor the activities that influence their reputation – both favorably and unfavorably. Through SERM, companies can take advantage of a range of strategic techniques such as Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search Marketing, Press Optimization, Blogging, and Social Media to boost their reputation.
Why is SERM important?
Data from ReviewTrackers reveals that 94% of consumers have changed their minds about a business after reading a bad review. It’s important to be aware of this and monitor online reviews, as the reputation of your company has a direct impact on its market value. Plus, people increasingly turn to reviews from fellow users when searching for someone to work with. These sites have become extremely popular in the online community, as potential buyers examine reviews before even connecting with a brand.
Search Engine Reputation Management in London (Ontario)
Our expert team is dedicated to monitoring and repairing your online reputation, so that potential customers view you in the best possible light. To stay oblivious to your online presence is not only unwise, but it also poses a grave risk to your business. Ensure that you remain aware of your online footprint, and take necessary steps to maintain it.
How does SERM Work?
Once a brand loses reputation, steps must be taken to restore its standing. People ask if they can alter their Google reputation and the answer is “yes”. Our firm helps brands rebuild their image through online reputation management strategies. Through search engine reputation management, we aim to influence a positive perception of the brand. SERM is multi-faceted and involves SEO, social media, content marketing, and PR. Here are some of the steps we take to achieve this:
- Optimizing website content
- Creating positive content about the brand
- Spreading the content through influencers
- Using SEO tools to reach the right audience
- Building relationships with customers
- Disputing negative feedback with facts
1.- Proactive Monitoring
To maintain and improve your online reputation, you need to keep an eye on it. Utilize search engines, blogs, and reviews platforms among sources to monitor the landscape. Additionally, your company should have a presence on online platforms such as social media or forums where your customers are engaging. You should be able to answer queries and concerns before they lead to negative feedback.
2.- SERP Cleansing
For SERP Cleansing, the aim is to clean the top pages of the search engine results of any negative results. It’s essential to ensure that the top ten search results for your company are optimized. To make this possible, you need to actively produce content related to your business, such as reviews, testimonials, media coverage, guest posts, and other relevant pieces.
3.- Improve SEO
To improve SEO, you need to:
- Assess your website content, identifying weak points and opportunities to improve;
- Monitor your competition, track what strategies they are using and figure out how to beat them;
- Research the most relevant keywords for your industry, including long-tail phrases;
- Optimize content so that it’s seen as relevant to the search engine algorithms;
- Utilize backlinks, making sure they come from reliable sources;
- Periodically review and analyze your website performance to see if your efforts are paying off.
To enhance SEO, you should assess the content of your website, monitor your competition, research keywords relevant to your industry, optimize your content to appear more relevant to search engine algorithms, build up backlinks from credible sources, and analyze & review website performance regularly. Doing so will allow you to identify weak points, explore opportunities to improve, gain insights into competitors’ strategies, and track the efficacy of your efforts.
4.- Respond to Negative Content
Monitor consumer forums and review platforms in order to stay informed of public opinion. It’s essential to take action to reply to and try to diffuse negative content as soon as it’s found. Reach out to the customer to apologize for poor experience and rectify the situation. This will show that your company is willing to work to meet customers’ satisfaction and that their opinion has been heard. Moreover, demonstrating that your brand is true to its promise may endear potential customers and build positive relationships.
5.- Social Media Presence
Social media is a powerful tool to help build credibility, authority, and trust with your customers. By consistently engaging and connecting with your audience, you can significantly enhance your SERP positions. All of the positive comments and feedback that occur on your social media channels provide Search Engines with an indication of your trustworthiness and authority, resulting in improved rankings.
It’s an excellent way to continually connect with your customers and promote your brand. By actively participating on social channels, you’ll create more opportunities to engage with your target audience and gain a more positive online presence. Ultimately, this will lead to improved SERP positions.
6.- Push Positive Content
Social media has the potential to be a powerful tool to increase your audience, strengthen your leadership and boost your trust. With social media, you have the capability to connect with your customers while simultaneously significantly elevating your visibility on SERPs. Receiving good feedback and references for your business across social media channels will have a significantly positive effect on your search engine rankings. The more engagement you are able to acquire and amplify through social media, the more trustworthiness search engines will give to your brand.
Conclusions for SERM
Supervising your online reputation is the first step to getting started with SERM and it is an important action to protect your online reputation. This means to regularly monitor your social media pages and the activities online and offline that relate to your business. Additionally, to enhance your online reputation you must be active on social media. This helps to build a strong, loyal audience. Moreover, it is critical to pay attention to the feedback and comments from your customers. You should respond to both the negative and the positive comments to show transparency and to importantly gain your customers’ trust. If you desire, our SERM experts can help you to get the best results. Our international network of agencies has worked on more than 500 projects in over 30 countries.
