Besides you customers, what one thing would you like to cling to if you were to lose everything on your business? To me, the only other thing I would need to cling to jealously would be my online and offline reputation. The reason is that if you lose your reputation, soon you will start losing your key relationships such as suppliers and customers. The reason is that your reputation is at the heart of the most important pillar of your relationships with all people—trust. If people don’t trust you, they will not buy your goods and use your services. If your suppliers don’t trust you because they heard that you are broke, they will not trust you with credit facilities. Therefore, you need to guard your reputation if you want to survive on the Net. With all this in mind, we welcome you to join our discourse to learn proven strategies that will help you boost your online reputation.
Dangerous Sources of Negative Reputation to Beware of
Before delving into the details of how to improve your website’s online reputation, let us look at some of the sources of negative reputation you need to guard your website against. You should deal with them irrespective of whether you currently are enjoying good or poor online reputation. The reason is that failure to act on time could lead to insurmountable damage that could bring your reputation to its knees. Additionally, such a damaged reputation could lead your business to lose sales since people don’t buy from vendors they don’t trust.
Negative Consumer Feedback: This is one of the most dangerous sources of negative information you need to pay attention to and address. If your customers are complaining genuinely either on your website or an independent review site, swing into actions and address their concerns lest you ruin your reputation.
Negative Media Coverage: Another source of negative information that can ruin your reputation is negative press coverage. Beware of such, especially if it is a mainstream media house with a strong following. Professional Haters and Their Sites: Just as you have them in the physical world, you will also meet them online. Haters are a dangerous source of malicious information that can destroy your online reputation. They can smear you with slender and all forms of damaging allegations just to feel “nice about themselves.”
Boosting Reputation Using an Extended Validation SSL Certificate
Another way of building the reputation of your website is installing an Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificate. But before looking at how it comes into the picture, we shall define it. In brief, an Extended Validation Certificate is known as most trusted SSL certificate on the market and follow the highest level of verification procedures. The primary benefits of Extended Validation Certificates are it enables green padlock icon in the browser and display company name in the padlock bar. The EV SSL Certificate is the best option to improve customer trust and build a strong reputation.
Go social
You should also focus on numerous opportunities that the social media provides to take your website’s reputation to the next level. If you optimize your website for social media networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, you will create a broader platform for sharing your company’s information in positive light. By remaining active there, you allow your followers to spread your reputation using the electronic word-of-mouth. In addition, you get a chance to build a strong profile that can drive traffic to your site where visitors can learn more about you, your offers, and promotions. However, you should keep off the temptation of wanting to be on every network that crops up in town. You can just choose a few leading platforms and build a strong profile and presence there.
Get a Helping Hand
Well, you may wonder how this comes in as a strategy. The law of life, and business demands that every human being needs to learn from others, period. If you believe in the fallacy of this age that you can be a “self-made” success, then you are in for a rude shock. If you tell me you can attain the peak of success alone, my challenge to you is simple: demonstrate it, and if you can’t, then at least show me one human who arrived on this earth on their own. Common sense dictates that it took two people to bring all of us here, and hence, it will take a minimum of two people to facilitate the survival and success of any person. So, be wise, and ask for wise counsel from those who have made it. If you cannot get a mentor, then hire a consultant to assist you.
Keep Your Ear on the Ground
Another strategy to help you in managing and boosting your online reputation is keeping your ear on the ground to know what is going on. The reason is that if you do not know what is happening, it will be very difficult for you to counter it. Instead, you will be like a man living in an ivory castle without knowing that everything below then is burning. Therefore, it is necessary to invest in a reputation monitor. This way, you will be better placed to know why people are avoiding your website even when it appears in search results. For example, a recent research shows that 70 percent of British consumers will avoid clicking on a site if their search results show them that the website has some negative comments about it.
Cultivate good relationships
Since the heart of reputation is how well you can relate to people, you have to make deliberate efforts and build good relationships with them. More interestingly, the power is in the smaller things we ignore most of the time. For example, you can take your time and respond to every positive comment or feedback you find online by thanking the person who gave the feedback. If you learn how to do it genuinely and honestly, you will develop strong relational ties with them, leading them to trust your website even more.
Tackle Fair Legitimate Criticism Diplomatically and Redemptively
This last strategy comes in as a balance to the previous one we have just discussed. If you want people to trust you, don’t just focus on getting it right all the time since you are a human being and you can make mistakes even when you mean well. Therefore, develop the right mental disposition to deal with customer complaints and negative feedback whenever they air it. If they complain to you directly or via the social media, you should be ready to redress their concerns amicably and redemptively so that you can remedy the relationship. Instead of being defensive, be polite and honest.
Parting shot
Maintaining a good reputation is necessary for succeeding online. As a business owner or any noncommercial organization, you ought to keep your reputation intact and manage it well if you want to retain your relationships and keep them in good terms. We believe that utilizing the strategies we have shared in this post will help you to take your online reputation to the next level.