It has been said that just about every business has something said about them online these days. That is probably not far from the truth. If you have a business, it is important to manage these online reviews somehow. You obviously want the majority of them to be positive. Remember that this is how many people today will decide whether or not they want to do business with you in the first place. You want their first impression to be a positive one. With that in mind, here are a few things that you can do to help counter those unfair online reviews that seem to follow just about everyone around at one time or another.
You should respond to all the reviews that you find online. This should be done quickly and personally. This includes the negative ones. The tendency is to just ignore those and hope that they will quickly be forgotten. The problem is that people and, more importantly, search engines are not so quick to forgive.
Work Hard to Get Positive Ratings
One way to counter unfair online reviews is to dilute them as much as possible with positive ones. We do not mean asking your family members to write reviews either. What is meant here is to impress your customers to the point that they want to leave you positive reviews online. Encourage your best and most loyal clients to leave their honest opinion about you and your business.
Perfect Your SEO Strategy
A major reason why you want to counter unfair online reviews is that they appear in the search engines. This should be part of your SEO reputation management strategy. You should regularly be scouring the Internet to see what the reviews are saying and then work to minimize their impact as much as possible. It is all about managing your reputation. This is how you will grow your business today.
Try to Move the Conversation Offline
As soon as you respond to unfair comments, try to move the conversation away from a public forum. There are times when the comments are personal and directed only at you. While you may want to be defensive, now is the time to get the thread back focused on your positive attributes.
While you cannot prevent negative ratings, even if they are unfair, you can work hard to minimize their impact. Take time to consider this advice and then begin now to better manage what is being said about you online. You will find that it can make quite a positive impact on your business in the end.
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