You don’t have to look very far online to find proof that negative information travels fast. When an airline boots a passenger, it’s headline news before the flight gets off the ground. The ensuing damage control is painful reading for any business owner. Imagining oneself faced with a comparable scenario is the stuff of small business owner nightmares.
The cost to a company with the resources of a major airline is one thing, but a damaged image can be fatal to a small business. That’s why online reputation management is an essential part of any business operation and should be your top marketing priority.
An unfortunate truth of human nature is that a customer is more likely to share a negative experience than a positive one. People expect good service from the businesses they patronize. Consequently, they’re less apt to share about it when they get what they expect than they are when they don’t. And when they don’t, they want to tell everyone about it.
Online reputation management has never been more vital than it is now. Search engine optimization and online review sites like Yelp can sink or float a business overnight. As a small business owner, you probably don’t have the luxury of assigning an employee the full-time task of protecting your business. It’s a lot of work just to monitor your website and social media accounts, much less the various search engines and review sites out there. The cost of not doing it, however, is even greater.
Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative
Ninety percent of people surveyed say their purchases are influenced by online reviews. Clearly, it’s important to your business to promote positive reviews and eliminate negative reviews. Someone should respond on your behalf anytime your business is mentioned on the Internet. You should also claim and monitor your business listings on local search engines and media, such as:
- Google My Business
- Bing Places for Business
- Yelp
- Apple Maps
- Manta
- MapQuest
- com
Search engine results pages can be positively or negatively impacted by customer reviews. It is important to minimize the effect of any negative reviews already out there to restore your page ranking and improve your SEO.
The Good News About Bad Reviews
If you own a small business in Cedar Park, we have the expertise you need. You’ve got enough on your plate trying to grow your small business. It’s been your passion for a long time, and you brought it to life. That’s something worth doing all you can to protect.
Cedar Park Local employs state-of-the-art technology in our online reputation management services. We can claim and monitor all your online business listings. We are your public relations department and are dedicated to safeguarding your business reputation.
Let Cedar Park Local free you to focus on your core business, while we protect the reputation you’ve worked so hard to build. That is our passion. We have built our reputation by helping local business owners like you, manage yours. Our online reputation management service will do more than protect your business, we will drive its growth.
