If you have noticed that there is a sudden drop in people coming to your website, or in purchases being made, there is a chance that you have fallen victim to negative reviews. The correlation between negative reviews and drops in traffic and sales has been well documented. Unfortunately, even a single negative review has the potential to seriously affect you, particularly considering so many people now trust online reviews. And this is why you need an online reputation management company to fight your corner.
The Effects of Negative Reviews
If you receive negative reviews, you will be in serious trouble, particularly if that negative review is easy to find (i.e. on the first page of Google). The latest online customer review survey demonstrated that 84% of people trust online reviews. Plus, 90% of people need to read less than ten reviews in order to have their opinion ready. This shows just how quickly something can spiral out of control!
How an Online Reputation Management Company Will Help You
Online reputation management companies do a lot of different things. Their starting point, however, is to engage in an aggressive white hat SET campaign. They will write blogs, post articles, and attract positive reviews about your company and make sure those appear on the first page of Google. In so doing, the negative reviews already start to drop down the search engine results, making them less noticeable. Next, they will make sure that your website is very easy to find, very easy to access, and really interesting. Then, they will create an online buzz, creating press releases and more about your company, your services, and your products.
All of this is a lot of work. A full time job, in fact. Yes, these are all things that you can do yourself if you know what you are doing. But it would mean that you have no time left to engage in your regular business. Do you know which platforms are popular right now, how to write a blog, where to print your press releases, and where people go to find information about you? And do you know how to find out when people write new information? Even figuring all of that out would take a great deal of time, let alone actually addressing them as well.
When you work together with an online reputation company, they will do all of that for you. You can trust them to monitor what is said about you and to control the narrative, making sure that the positive things take precedence over the negative. This means you finally have a weapon against those who leave negative reviews about you: the power of positivity. While it is certainly true that you have to pay reputation management companies for the work that they do, choosing not to work with them could cost you a whole lot more. And since reputation management companies also engage in SEO, they will attract more customers your way so you could even see a return on investment.