Reputation Management is the process of influencing or controlling the online narrative of a consumer, company, or brand. It consists of reputation protection, monitoring, crisis management, and reputation recovery. Your Online business reputation ultimately determines your future opportunities. That is because 88% of consumers perform online research before making a purchase. Meaning a consumer’s perception of your business is established long before they even contact you.
When it comes to Online Presence, little is more important than having a good reputation. Your top priority should be to control what people see when they search for your brand. Your Online media can affect your reputation in a positive or negative manner, simply because your site visitors read what you say! Be aware that 98% of browsers will not look past the first page of Google. If an experience went well, the prospect is going to hold this in their memory and use it to make purchasing decisions and doing future business with you. Having a respected Online Presence builds trust with customers, employees, and investors. With a good reputation, you can grow and deliver better ROI (return on investment). And the best way to maintain a good reputation is to have informative blogs and monitor your Public Sites daily.
The importance of Online Reputation Management is that it boosts sales, helps build a brand image, improves visibility, builds trust, credibility, and generates good business insights. One of the best reputation strategies is to encourage prospects to leave reviews on your Public Sites. Reputation Management has become acute to Small Business owners with the emergence of Yelp.com. Yelp is a local Business Directory where customers can leave Reviews. For a local business, the quality of the reviews on sites like Yelp.com and Google My Business can mean the difference between having visiting consumers or not. We want Small Business Owners to understand the importance of having a good Online Reputation, and desire to assist them in the management of their Public Profiles.