How To Stop Bad Online Reviews From Ruining Your Business By Derrick Markotter
What is Your Online Identity? Your online identity, or online reputation, is NOT just about your business website. There is much more to it. Google says this: Your online identity is determined not only by what you post, but also by what others post about you whether a mention in a blog post, a photo tag or a reply to a public status update - Google In a nutshell, your online identity is made up of everything about your business that exists online. The range of materials that could potentially impact your business online identity is broader than you might realize at first. Here are just some components of your online identity: 1. Comments made about your business on social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook 2. Images of your business that others publish online 3. Videos about your business on YouTube and elsewhere 4. Posts and articles published online about your business 5. Geo-location information broadcast through services like FourSquare 6. Comments that others make about you in blog posts Even what people say in an email or through instant messaging could potentially be copied and made public. Page 2
In fact, if you re beginning to feel like virtually anything that others do on the Internet could become part of your business online reputation, then you re starting to get the picture. Now throw in the mobile Internet and smart phones, where people can read and write reviews from anywhere. You can see how a bad review about your business will hit harder and spread faster than ever before. Why Online Identity Matters to Local Business Many local businesses have found themselves in the unenviable position of being lied about, falsely accused, slandered, and attacked online. It s a growing problem. The cost is immediate, staggering, and long term. Here are some common Internet search facts you should know about: 95% of Internet users do not search past the first page of search engine results. 80% of people with Internet access research products on the Internet before purchasing. Page 3
Just look at these Google search results for Chinese restaurants in Dallas: If you were looking for a Chinese restaurant, which ones would make it to your shortlist? The restaurants with the most reviews and the highest ratings, of course! So you can see how your business online identity can directly impact your bottom line. Now the question is: How do you grow, improve, and protect it? I ve put together a list of the five most critical things every small business should be doing to protect their online reputation. When it comes to managing your business online identity, you must be proactive. You want to be in control of your own results. Page 4
#1: What Are People Saying About Your Business? The first step is to find out what people are saying about your business online. The best way to do this is simply to Google your business name. Are there any reviews about your company on the first page? How many spots does your business own on the first page? It's possible to get your business listed multiple times on page one with directory listings, videos, reviews and so on - which reduces the space available for your competitors. Do you have positive content and reviews past the first page? If so, getting these items onto the first page of Google would help your online identity. Page 5
Getting Google Love for Your Small Business To get your positive content to the first page of Google, focus on search engine optimization (SEO) for these items. Good SEO strategies, by default, combat negative mentions. SEO typically takes at least three months before your business will see an impact, but the long-term value is unlike any other online marketing effort. Your goal is to own the first page of Google for your business name with allpositive content. Remember, 95% of searchers will never go past the first page. What if there are negative reviews and comments on the first page? Be careful. How you respond to these negative items is critical to your business. The important thing to be proactive about when it comes to your business online identity is to actively seek reviews. There are numerous review sites online, ranging from huge international sites down to tiny local directories. Some review sites are general in scope, and others cater for specific industries. The best way to find review sites which are effective in your local area is by searching for them in the same way as a consumer might do. Go to Google.com (or your local Google site eg. Google.co.uk) and search for your city your industry reviews for example, newcastle hair salon reviews. Page 6
If you ran a hair salon in Newcastle, you would want links to reviews of your salon to appear in these Google results. It would make sense to encourage your customers to leave their reviews on the sites listed on this page Yell.com, Tipped.co.uk, Google+ Local, Yelp.co.uk and FreeIndex.co.uk. Page 7
Most of these sites automatically create a page about a business when someone leaves a review, and allow business owners to create or claim their business page. It is a good idea to do this, at least on the most popular review sites, because every page like this is another place where people can find you online. Creating or claiming your business page lets you ensure that the details on the page are correct. It's important for SEO to make sure that the details are not only correct, but also identical on all your listings. Here is a list of some of the top review sites in various countries: International Google+ Local Yahoo Local TripAdvisor.com (Hotels, Restaurants & Tourist Attractions) epinions.com USA Yelp.com MerchantCircle.com AngiesList.com UK Yell.com Yelp.co.uk Qype.co.uk FreeIndex.co.uk Australia ProductReview.com.au Yelp.com.au TrueLocal.com.au South Africa HelloPeter.com Yowzit.com Cylex.com Page 8
Google+ Local Google+ Local is Google's most recent adaptation of what used to be known as Google Places. It is now integrated with Google+, which is Google's social media network. Only Google+ members can post reviews. Google+ Local is extremely prominent in the search results, so it's important to spend some time on getting your Google+ Local listing right. That mainly means making sure it's complete in every detail. Getting your listing to display on the first page needs some understanding of how Google decides which businesses are most relevant for the search term. Here's what the Google+ Local results look like in the search results: Page 9
When you move your mouse over the listings on the left, a condensed information panel about that listing appears on the right: Page 10
Here's an example of a Google+ Local page: Page 11
Here's another example of a Google+ Local page: Once you create or claim your page and complete it, Google shows your pictures in the header. You'll notice that Google+ Local uses a 30-point rating system. This system was developed by Zagat.com. a review site which was bought by Google in 2011. Reviewers score businesses from 0 to 3 on a number of aspects in the examples above, you can see Food/Decor/Service and Atmosphere/Decor/Service. The scores are averaged and multiplied by 10 to give the score out of 30. Some businesses may by evaluated on only one aspect, in which case the score is usually shown on a scale from 0 to 3. Encouraging your customers to leave a review from their mobile phone is one of the best ways to get more reviews. If they're using an iphone, ipad or Android phone, they'll need to install the Google Local app to leave reviews on Google+ Local. Page 12
#2: Get Reviews From Your Customers The best way to get reviews is simply to ask. Seek out your most loyal customers and ask them to leave a review on the sites where you want to appear. Some people offer their customers an incentive to leave a review. This is a bit of an ethical gray area. Google's Places guidelines say this: Reviews are only valuable when they are honest and unbiased. Even if wellintentioned, a biased review can undermine its credibility. For instance, don t offer or accept money or product to write positive reviews about a business, or to write negative reviews about a competitor. A postcard with a review request on one side, and a coupon on the other is an ethical option the coupon is available to anyone, whether they leave a review or not. Yelp.com actively discourages businesses from asking their customers to leave reviews. The problem with this approach is that most people won't leave reviews unless you ask them to. The only people who do leave reviews unasked are those who have had a bad experience and can't wait to let everyone know about it. A great way to manage reviews is by setting up a review portal. This is a website which directs customers to a (private) feedback survey if they've had a negative experience, or to a list of review sites if they've had a positive experience. Video Reviews Another great way to get reviews is to keep a small video camera or just use your smart phone to record video reviews. Then, just upload them to YouTube. Do a little SEO on these videos and they ll show up on the first page of Google. This is a very effective tactic for generating more leads and sales for your business. Page 13
#3: Handle Negative Reviews Why Bad Reviews Are Good For Business According to Reevoo.com, 68% of consumers trust reviews more when they see both good and bad reviews. And what's more, 95% of consumers suspect censorship or faked scores when they don't see any bad reviews. Bad reviews are good for engagement People actively seek out bad reviews, and spend more time reading them. This doesn't mean that they judge your company only on bad reviews it's simply part of their pre-purchase research, to make sure that they make the right choice. Bad reviews help you to improve your business There are two things you can do with bad reviews. You can ignore them, and ignore the damage done to your brand. Or you can pay attention to them, and respond quickly, changing the aspects of your business which cause dissatisfaction. Bad reviews provide invaluable customer feedback, allowing you to improve your business and, at the same time, demonstrate to your customers and prospective customers how responsive and caring you are. Consumers don t always agree on what's bad One person's meat is another's poison, and what seems bad to one reviewer might be irrelevant or even advantageous to another. For example, one customer might dislike a restaurant because there are 'too many' children but someone with a family might be looking for a restaurant where children are welcome. Consumers don t look at reviews in isolation The mere presence of bad reviews isn t enough to put most consumers off: it s the ratio of good to bad that matters. A few bad reviews carry much less weight with readers when they appear alongside dozens or hundreds of good reviews. Everything in moderation But, like all good things, you need bad reviews in moderation, or you risk damaging your brand and your bottom line. If you re getting a higher proportion of negative reviews than you d expect, your collection system may be the problem. If you don't actively solicit reviews from your customers, you are likely to get a disproportionate amount of negative feedback. The only customers who are Page 14
sufficiently motivated to leave reviews will be those who have had an unsatisfactory experience with your business. Although the majority of your customers are undoubtedly happy with your business, they are not motivated enough to take a few minutes to write a review. Consequently, you will get more bad reviews than you deserve, which will give potential customers an inaccurately negative impression, which will result in fewer sales. How To Handle Bad Reviews When you see negative content or reviews about your business online, it s important that you act quickly. There is a saying, Silence is consent. Many sites such as Google+ Local allow the business owner to respond to the reviews. The longer you wait to respond, the more potential customers see the negative review and believe it s a true representation of your business. Your goal in handling an upset customer should be threefold: 1. Turn them from upset to satisfied. 2. Get them to post positive things about you and rebut or remove their negative remarks. 3. Learn something about your business that will improve it and help to avoid future negative reviews. Page 15
But first, is the criticism legitimate or fake? Unfortunately, there is a small subset of people online who think it s fun to leave bad reviews about businesses. If you find this to be the case, resist the urge to respond in anger. Instead, demonstrating concern and wanting to discuss the specifics of their encounter will go a long way towards showing other potential customers that you are interested in their feedback and want to improve the situation. Empathy is a powerful tool, and being sincerely concerned with their bad experience is a trait that every business owner should have. In the case where you re dealing with someone who simply wants to hurt you, be very selective with your response. If the insult is small, a simple apology will do. As the insults escalate, you must be careful with your reply. Page 16
Sometimes, the customer is clearly wrong because they expect too much for too little. Fight the urge to call them unreasonable. Instead, say something like this: We are very sorry you feel that way and will do everything within reason to resolve this. If you will contact us, we would like to work together to find a solution. If the complaint was legitimate, they may contact you. If they are simply being obnoxious, you will probably never hear from them, but at least you were professional in your reply and those who read the review will hopefully see that you were trying to be helpful and were addressing the situation directly. Be Transparent and Honest Under no circumstances write fake reviews or ask your family, or worse, employees to write reviews for you. These tactics are almost always found out and will do your online reputation more harm than good. If a Negative Comment is True Don t ignore it or hide Participate in the discussion and be honest Add your response to your website Issue a statement addressing what has been done If it s serious, get help. Seek out an online reputation management expert. If the Negative Comment is False Post a professional response Politely ask for the comment or review to be removed Post a response on your website Find or create positive content about your business and use search engine optimization to get it on the first page of Google Consult a lawyer Page 17
#4: Use Social Media Social Media is all the rage these days. Facebook and Twitter have given everyone a voice to express their opinion. Good for people, but this can be a challenge for a local business. Especially since Google shows some Facebook updates in its search results. How can local businesses take advantage of this technology to generate more business and help their online reputation? Establish a presence on the 4 major social media sites Create a Facebook business page Create a Google+ business page Create a Twitter account for your business Create a LinkedIn company page for your business Note that Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn do not allow you to create a personal profile in the name of your business each of these networks allows companies to create pages with special features for businesses. Be a part of the conversation Participate in social media. Check your Facebook business page and Google+ page daily and update content regularly. Actively seek out local followers for your social media accounts. Most importantly, when you re commenting on these sites, be yourself. Let your customers know you re a real person and truly interested in helping them to have a great experience with your business. Page 18
#5: Create Positive Content for Your Business Sticking to the number one tenet of being proactive in managing your business online reputation, you can t just wait for others to post positive things about your business. You have to go on the offensive. Here are some of the best ways to do that. Press Releases Writing compelling press releases and distributing them across the Internet is a great way to get positive content out there. Google thinks highly of most of these sites and will more than likely show the press release in its search results. Articles Creating positive articles and distributing them across various directories or getting them posted on blogs relevant to your business is another great way to get positive content out about your business. YouTube Videos Did you know YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world? Creating either informative or funny videos about your business on YouTube can generate great press and if one goes viral, it could put your local business on the map. Also, Google owns YouTube, so they like showing videos in their search results. Other Web Properties Creating a blog or other websites about your business is another great way to own more of that first page of Google. Sites like Tumblr, Wordpress.com and others allow you to create blogs on their sites. Make sure you read the terms of service on these sites, because some of them don t like anything that looks commercial. Page 19
Review Portals A review portal system acts like a review filter for your business. It works like this. First of all, you ask customers to go to your review portal page. Here they are asked about their experience with your business. If they had a good experience, they are directed to a page where they are asked to leave a review on one or more review sites. If they had a bad experience, they are asked to complete an online survey, which is then emailed directly to you. So instead of sending dissatisfied customers directly to a review site, you are first giving them a chance to tell you what was wrong without sharing it with the rest of the world. Of course, there's nothing to stop people from posting about their bad experience on the review sites, but this way there is a good chance that they won't feel the need to do so and you gain valuable insights into how your business is serving your customers. Thank you for taking the time to read through this report. I hope that it's given you an understanding of why it's important to manage your online reviews. If you'd like to find out more about our review portal system, please click on the link below: /review-portal-system Thank you again for reading this report. Yours in business, Derrick Markotter IdealMedia Marketing Page 20