Online reputation management by Search Suggestions
Now that almost everyone is online, reputation management on the internet has become of the utmost importance to businesses all over the globe; with just a few taps of a keyboard, potential customers will be bombarded with search results about a company, including reviews, as well as content on forums, blogs and social networking sites. If left unresolved, just one unflattering statement could be enough to spell the end for a company.
However with Google, one of the most popular search engines on the internet, offering suggestions as people type their query in, it’s not just the results that companies need to worry about. Search suggestions provided by Google are based on relevant keywords which have ranked highly, so whilst a customer might have no intention of seeking out something negative about a company, the search engine may offer a suggestion including, for example, ‘company name + scam’ when they type in the company title. This suggestion might only be included as a result of a single disgruntled customer (every business has a few of these) making their unhappiness a public matter on a forum or blog, but if it is viewed enough times and becomes a frequently read post, it will rank high enough to earn itself a place in the Google search suggestion feature.
And the fact of the matter is, if a potential customer sees this as a search suggestion, they will of course click on it before they decide whether or not to do business with that company, and will most likely be put off, even if said company are completely legitimate. Even a whisper of a suspicion is enough to deter customers online.
So what can be done about this? Controlling the most popular results in a search engine for a keyword can be achieved with the production of positive online content about a company; however controlling the search suggestions will be a little trickier. This is where the services of an online reputation management company come in; they not only target the company name, but also the relevant search suggestion keywords when they create positive content on blogs, forums and social networking sites and ensure that they rank highly enough to have their positive keywords replace the negative ones included in the search suggestions.
