For any business, the need to have a good online reputation is increasing at a rapid rate. More and more people are using the internet to acquire any form of service or when making purchases. If you don’t have a solid online presence, your business is likely to end up behind your competitors. However, it is not enough to simply set up a website and hope for the best. You also need to put a lot of effort into other factors, such as:
Reviews/Comments – Consumer reviews are having a large influence on whether people select a particular business. From where to dine out, to what type of car to buy, people want to know what other people think about the product or service before they commit to buying it; especially when they are luxury purchases.
It is important as a business owner that you are aware of the reviews that are being written in regards to your business, and it is also important to respond to reviews. You should never underestimate the power of positive reputation management practices. If you have a potential customer leave a question on your Facebook page that hasn’t been answered in six months, people might think that you have closed down or that your customer service is poor and you do not care about your customer satisfaction. You need to stay on top of any channels that customers can communicate with you through, and make sure to use comments as a means to enforce your solid reputation.
High-quality content – Having a website is always a good idea, but you must also put good quality content onto the site for you to enhance your online reputation. If your website has disengaging content such as long pages of text, visitors are not going to find it appealing to read. Using a variety of engaging content formats such as video, images and step-by-step guides will help to make your content more attractive. If visitors enjoy reading/listening/watching your content, they are more likely to come back to your website or perhaps, more importantly, share your website with their friends and family through social media channels.
It is not just your website that enhances your online reputation; if you are sending out email marketing campaigns, the content and quality of these will bear a large influence on how people perceive your business. If you produce an all-round, professional looking email template, you can persuade the recipients that your products and/or services are just the thing that they need.
Social Media and LinkedIn – Setting up accounts for LinkedIn and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest is a great way to build up your online presence. Again, the crucial part of this is ensuring that the content that goes on is useful, reachable and professional. If you’re offering IT consultancy services, for example, social media can help you share relevant and up-to-date content quickly. LinkedIn is also an exceptionally powerful platform with great reach potential, so if you can create highly useful content on this platform, you can build up a large network to promote your services.
