by 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.
Through Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM), businesses and websites can be proactive in monitoring and managing their reputations. Strategies can include SEO, Paid Search Marketing, Press Optimization, Blogging, and Social Media, to help ensure damaging activities are swiftly responded to, and positive activities can be amplified to help build or maintain a good reputation. SERM allows firms to be aware of and take control of their reputations, with the power to ensure negative activities are minimized, and positive activities are highlighted.
Why is SERM important?
94% of people are swayed by a negative review they find about your business, so it’s imperative to monitor and manage your online reputation. Your market value is directly connected to your reputation, and people are increasingly relying on reviews when choosing with whom to do business. Online reviews can have a profound influence on modern consumers, which is why it’s necessary to stay on top of your online presence.
Search Engine Reputation Management in Aurora (Illinois)
Our experts are here to help you ensure your online reputation is in top condition. Through monitoring and repair services, we will help you keep the impression of your business looking its best so potential customers will view you favorably. Ignoring your online presence could prove to be disastrous for you business – never leave yourself unknowing. Let us help and take the necessary steps to protect your brand.
How does SERM Work?
Once a brand has faced reputation issues, the next step is restoring their online profile. At our company, we help brands influence a positive view of their brand through online reputation strategies. We use search engine reputation management (SERM) to manipulate the public reputation in a positive direction. SERM combines SEO, social media, and content marketing plus PR to enhance the overall online reputation of the brand. We take the following steps:
- Implement strategic content marketing and promotion on the website and various social media platforms.
- Enhance SEO tactics to encourage visibility of positive content.
- Eliminate any negative posts or content with negative sentiment.
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
SERP Cleansing is the practice of removing negative search engine results from the top pages. To optimize the top ten search results for your business, create new, impactful content such as customer reviews, media coverage, guest posts and other positive content about your company. Aggressively publishing this type of content can have a huge impact on your search engine results.
3.- Improve SEO
Enhance SEO by making sure to:
- Increase relevancy and authority with content that is related to your target audience.
- Improve visibility by promoting the content on social media platforms.
- Boost ranking by creating backlinks from other sites.
- Reduce the impact of negative content by creating and optimizing press releases where you control the message.
To optimize your SEO efforts, aim to:
- Increase relevancy and authority of your website by creating content tailored for your target audience.
- Improve visibility by promoting the content across a variety of social media platforms.
- Boost ranking with backlinks from trusted sites.
- Minimize the impact of negative news by creating and optimizing press releases that share your viewpoint.
4.- Respond to Negative Content
Maintaining a presence on consumer forums and review platforms is key to gaining a better understanding of what people think of your brand. This allows you to respond quickly and appropriately to negative content, showing customers you have heard their thoughts and care about their opinions. If an unhappy customer has already left a negative review, you should reach out to apologize and try to resolve the problem. This provides a great opportunity to correct the issues the customer had and help to turn their opinion around.
5.- Social Media Presence
Social media is a valuable tool to boost your audience, leadership and trust. Not only does it provide a platform to connect with your customers, but it can also substantially improve your presence on SERPs. Generating positive mentions and feedback of your business on social media will have a large-scale impact on search engine rankings. The more engagement you are able to gain through social media, the more trustworthiness search engines can assign to your brand.
6.- Push Positive Content
Social media is an effective mechanism to increase reach, build leadership, and increase trust. It facilitates connecting with customers and carries huge potential for improving SERP rankings. Generating beneficial sentiment and customer reviews for your business through social media contributes to greater trust placed in you by search engines. The more engagement you can earn on social media, the more trustworthiness search engines attribute to you.
Conclusions for SERM
In order to get started with Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM), there are three important steps to consider:
- Monitor your online reputation. This is especially important in order to protect your brand online and offline. Monitoring activities on social media and building a loyal following is key.
- Pay attention to customer feedback. Transparency is important in order to build trust, so attend to all comments, both positive and negative.
- Leverage SERM experts. Our team of reps can guide you through the process and has worked on more than 500 projects across 30+ countries.
