How many business online meltdowns does it take to make reputation management real for your business? You’ve all read stories about fast-food employees doing horrible things in kitchen sinks and customer service interns making ill-advised tweets.

The fact is that every business online has an online reputation and must protect it. To dig into strategies, tools, and more about how businesses can manage their online reputations, I talk with Todd William, the founder and CEO of Reputation Rhino, a full-service digital agency that offers online reputation management services.

https://soundcloud.com/pagewiz/todd

In this podcast, Todd discusses:

• The distinction between reputation repair and reputation building — where businesses need to be proactive about creating a positive brand presence and how to react when a reputation needs to be repaired.
• The power of the influence your clients and customers have over how your business is perceived. As Todd explains, “The reality is, when a company is doing marketing or advertising of any kind, most people are going to the web to search or learn more about that company before making that decision to buy.” One of the key challenges of reputation management is finding a way back to the “calls you don’t get.”
• The distinction between reputation management and SEO and how “reputation management really turns SEO on its head.” He goes in-depth on how to use digital assets a business owns, like social media profiles and PPC/landing page campaigns, to gain more of that limited real estate on the first page SERP.
• The need for every business, regardless of size, to have someone or department with clear ownership of reputation management. Otherwise, someone always assumes someone else is focusing on it. Proactive reputation management requires a plan and a strategy, which only happens with clear accountability.
• How to convert one-star reviews to five-star reviews. Todd explains that businesses don’t need to let bad reviews hang out there. He goes into how to respond to negative online reviews and close the loop online when there’s been an offline resolution. He also talks about how to decide which reviews need a response and when to ignore the trolls and anonymous posters.
• Why zero negative reviews can be a red flag.
• The impact of Google removing sidebar ads and the growth of Google Place’s My Business section, which Todd says “will make organic search results even more valuable than they are today.” He also this makes it more important than ever for businesses to claim their Google Place’s My Business page.

https://soundcloud.com/pagewiz/todd

Resources:
Find Todd on LinkedIn and the agency on Twitter @reputationrhino
Reputation Rhino’s website
Where you can claim your Google My Business listing

Originally published at Marketing Blog for Conversion Rate Optimization Experts | PageWiz.