What is Search Engine Reputation Management?
SERM, short for Search Engine Reputation Management, is an online marketing strategy that encompasses a range of activities. These activities include Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Paid Search Marketing, Press Optimization, Blogging and Social Media. Through SERM, businesses can increase their visibility in search engine results, while managing their online presence to ensure they are portrayed in a positive light.
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?
Data from ReviewTrackers reveals that 94% of consumers have changed their minds about a business after reading a bad review. It’s important to be aware of this and monitor online reviews, as the reputation of your company has a direct impact on its market value. Plus, people increasingly turn to reviews from fellow users when searching for someone to work with. These sites have become extremely popular in the online community, as potential buyers examine reviews before even connecting with a brand.
Search Engine Reputation Management in Moncton (New Brunswick)
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 loses reputation, steps must be taken to restore its standing. People ask if they can alter their Google reputation and the answer is “yes”. Our firm helps brands rebuild their image through online reputation management strategies. Through search engine reputation management, we aim to influence a positive perception of the brand. SERM is multi-faceted and involves SEO, social media, content marketing, and PR. Here are some of the steps we take to achieve this:
- Optimizing website content
- Creating positive content about the brand
- Spreading the content through influencers
- Using SEO tools to reach the right audience
- Building relationships with customers
- Disputing negative feedback with facts
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
Cleansing SERPs is a process of removing negative results from the first page of the search engine results page (SERP), for the name of your business. It’s essential to optimize the top 10 search results. To do this, you should publish new content related to your organization, such as reviews, testimonials, media coverage, guest posts and other content.
3.- Improve SEO
To improve SEO, it is important to:
- Analyse the existing website backlinks and work on improving their quality
- Detect and fix any broken links within the website
- Develop a content strategy and generate high-quality content
- Use relevant keywords which better target the target audience
- Optimize page and images for mobile and desktop search
- Improve page loading and response speed
In order to improve your website’s SEO, it is essential to analyze the current backlinks and work on improving their quality. Additionally, detecting and addressing any broken links within the website is important to ensure that users have an optimal experience. Furthermore, a content strategy should be developed to create and publish high-quality content on a regular basis and using relevant keywords to better target the desired audience. Moreover, pages and images should be optimized for both mobile and desktop users while improving page loading and response speed.
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 powerful platform for building and sustaining your audience, building trust, and gaining influence. It’s a chance to connect with customers and boost your SERP positions. The higher the engagement levels on your social media, the more trustworthy your brand and website will be in the eyes of search engines. Through positive feedback and mentions of your company or brand, your ranking and online presence will be reinforced.
6.- Push Positive Content
Social media can significantly expand your audience, build your leadership profile and increase trust. It provides a direct line to customers and a great opportunity to showcase your business. Through positive user feedback and interactions, you can significantly boost your presence in search engine rankings. Generating interest and engaging with followers on social media allows search engines to put more trust in your brand. All of this adds up to make your business more visible, reach more people and be sure of the authority of your message.
Conclusions for SERM
Supervising your online reputation is the first step to getting started with SERM and it is an important action to protect your online reputation. This means to regularly monitor your social media pages and the activities online and offline that relate to your business. Additionally, to enhance your online reputation you must be active on social media. This helps to build a strong, loyal audience. Moreover, it is critical to pay attention to the feedback and comments from your customers. You should respond to both the negative and the positive comments to show transparency and to importantly gain your customers’ trust. If you desire, our SERM experts can help you to get the best results. Our international network of agencies has worked on more than 500 projects in over 30 countries.