I’m not sure how you got into this situation, but your online reputation has taken a hit. Maybe it was an unhappy customer, a bad customer experience – or just a troublemaker trying to ruin your day. You now may have some rather unflattering reviews online about you and your business.
You may try to discount the reviews – initially. You may have even tried to make peace with the customer. You might have even gone as far as answering the review with your side of the story. Unfortunately, nothing has helped much.
Incredibly, just a couple bad reviews can be hurting your online reputation. What can you do?
I may be able to help you.
I do have some strategies that work, strategies that I’ve used with other business whose reputations have been overtaken by an event or series of events. I have even helped businesses with no reputation.
By and large, my successes with other businesses’ online reputation repair have helped to allow those businesses to remain in business and prosper. I didn’t do it alone, but my targeted reputation rebuilding was key on their road to recovery.
Fortunately, I do have some good news for you.
It appears that your professional standing is in excellent shape. That alone is reason to believe you can put the unflattering & derogatory information about you behind and continue to rebuild your business using your good professional standing & years in practice as the basis for renewal.
The primary strategy is extremely simple and effective.
You need to carefully flood the internet with good, relevant and timely information about you, your business, your experience and the benefits to your clients and customers, and what you can do for people in need of your services. Done right, this information will eventually displace the old & derogatory information to lower and lower rankings on search engines where it is of little relevance.
Of course, you need to remember that the less than flattering information about you or your business will always be out there. But you have a good business, you treat your customers well, you provide exceptional value – – why let a few disgruntled customers ruin your entire business?
The tools you need to help restore your good name are few, and are simple and straightforward:
A good, solid website.
This is literally the “hub” of your online efforts. Everything else you do will link back to your website. You get to control this content and it is crucial to rebuilding your reputation. There is no excuse for a poor website these days.
Cost: $1,250 – $5,000 depending on your tastes & requirements.
I would guess around $2,000 will be enough to get a nice, professional turnkey website with enough positive content & links and all the other necessities needed to counter the unflattering stuff – and help you start ranking for keywords and get traffic & clients. Think of this as an offensive strategy, rather than pure defense.
Claim, optimize & populate 10 – 15 “citation” websites.
Websites. angieslist.com,ratemds.com, wellness.com, merchantcircle.com, yelp.com, yahoo.com, Google Business. etc. are great places to start. Often, there are industry-specific review sites such as avvo.com for lawyers.
These third-party review websites get searched like any other internet property – maybe more so because they have the ability to rate businesses and provide potential clients with relevant information about whether or not to hire them.
The citation website can be a great resource for local businesses and their online reputation, and if done correctly, can displace a LOT of other pages for the business in question. Plus, you open the possibility of happy clients giving you positive reviews. Good review are EXTREMELY helpful to your business and your good reputation.
Cost: $995 for 15 – 25 sites to claim, optimize & populate with your information, images and videos, depending on what’s out there.
Be active with Social Media – it works!
Finally, social media, used regularly, can be a GREAT way to promote your business and help move other pages down the rankings when you are searched. Google +, Google Places for business and Facebook are all great resources, and are very searchable for information that you author and control.
Cost: (please contact us – each case is different and costs range greatly) per month, depending on frequency of posting and level of content & development.
Given possible professional restrictions, this may or may not be an option, but I think it should at least be discussed.
If, after my initial my investigation, I find almost nothing on the internet that you control to counter the unflattering information already available, then you have a BIG problem.
Better get started ACTIVELY adding good content about YOU before something less flattering comes along!
FYI – if your Better Business Bureau page is non-accredited. Click HERE to see my BBB page.A good BBB ranking can be PURE GOLD for your reputation enhancement. Getting good with the BBB may be the best money you can spend to promote your business.
I suspect that, given current conditions, you may likely be inundated with sales calls and emails from “reputation experts” who guarantee to restore your reputation with special software and other tactics – maybe they claim “special relationships” with Google and others like that. Couldn’t be farther from the truth – no one has special “relationships” with Google or Facebook or whatever – they just want your money. Say “NO!”
After helping clients for over 5 years, I believe I’ve heard just about every pitch or angle for a quick sale. Most have no experience and can actually do more damage with poor tactics. I can explain in greater detail in person.
But the reality is there is no software or magic bullet that will quickly repair the damage done to your good name. Only repeated & focused quality effort over time will make a difference.
Please let me know if you’d like to discuss this further. As always, I respect my clients’ privacy and dignity.
By: Dan Morton
p.s. – Need some help getting started – or have questions? Give us a call at (719) 761-4862 or contact us HERE for friendly answers and internet advice – no charge or obligation!