The internet has nearly 5 billion users, which accounts for more than 60% of the entire population of the world, and that number is only going to continue to increase. With more people having access to the internet, and everyday life becoming more centered around digital spaces, how one presents themselves online has a big impact on one’s reputation. Whether that’s a young professional looking for a new job, a growing influencer, or a business leader, the way individuals are presented in Google’s search results acts as a sort of resume or business card. The same thing is true for companies, with most consumers looking up online information about the companies and solutions they are interested in. This means the way a company shows up in search engine results pages has a significant impact on its reputation, reach, retention, and ultimately, bottom line. How a company shows up in search results boils down to how it shows up in both general and branded search results. Those are the two main ways that potential consumers can find a business online- either by knowing that business and specifically looking it up, or by looking for something related to the business and finding it that way.
Business Audit
The first step that companies need to take in terms of reputation management s learn what kind of information is available about them online. That means looking up the company’s name and going through its search results pages. Then, businesses should determine which search results are negative, neutral, and positive, and figure out which things can be improved or elevated.
Digital Presence
Every domain name or social media profile with a company’s name can help protect that business against any potentially negative results or situations. That’s because if a company has complete ownership of its name across most of the internet, any potentially negative results that show up in search engines are likely not going to show up on the first page of results, and very few people tend to go past that first page of search results. To get ownership , companies need to have a digital presence across every relevant social media platform, as well as on professional networking websites and review platforms. There’s no need to have a profile on all those platforms immediately, but it’s smart for companies to have control over them because once a company decides it needs to become more active on a specific platform, the odds are that the name of the business won’t be available for long. This strategy also helps companies prevent bad actors from harming their reputation, if those bad actors register to a platform using a company’s name and start sharing false or negative information on those platforms. The same thing goes for domain names that are associated with a company’s business, as companies should secure any domain that they don’t want someone else to have control over.