The Importance
We’ve written in the past about the importance of SEO management, social media and inbound marketing strategies for making sure your prospective customers will find your website.
Online reputation management spans the entirety of your company’s presence online.
Here at Deckard and Company, we partner with BirdEye, an international specialist in establishing, improving and managing the online reputations for companies of all sizes, including BMW, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Remax.
Online Reputation & Your Website
In short, when it comes to online reputation, a well-made website is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. When people get there, they need to see in an instant the incredible value of your business. They need to know they’ve found the treasure and this is what they want, end of story.
But on top of all of the ins and outs involved in a quality website—from reliable hosting to responsive, intuitive design—you have to understand that your customers’ treasure hunt begins long before they find your site. And your online reputation is the map they need to follow to get to X.
SEO is Incredibly Important
SEO is incredibly important to make sure that your website appears at the top of the list when someone searches for the services you offer. Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even LinkedIn help people to find your company via their online connections in the form of people and businesses they like, know and trust, both socially and professionally.
But search engines, social media and targeting advertising aren’t the only online tools for managing your business’s reputation.
Local Directories
One of the most under-utilized aspects affecting the quality of your company’s online reputation is your presence in online directories. As more and more of everyone’s behavior is happening online, people have become more and more reliant on websites that aggregate and sort various websites, as well as those websites that crowd-source opinions and reviews.
Rather than simply searching for services on a search engine like Google, people will go to one of these directories—for instances, Yelp—to see how various companies have been sorted based on variables like specific services offered and location. Many of these directories also include information on how other customers have rated each business.
So, whereas SEO allows us to get you to the top of a list based simply on the informed use of keywords and up-to-date website management, online directories accumulate even more information, allowing customers to feel more informed about their options. People trust the information on these directories, so you can see why it’s so important to manage your company’s presence on them. And if your company’s listing information is incorrect, then there’s a whole segment of the population you’re not connecting with.
Obviously, there are countless company directories out there, and trying to manage each one individually would be impossible, even if that’s the only thing you were doing 24/7. And you’ve got more important thing to do—like running your business.
What is Birdeye
A service like BirdEye allows us to take all of your company’s information and disseminate it across the four major data providers who provide listing information for a massive number of directories across the internet. Not only will your company appear on these trusted lists, but you can rest assured that the information will be accurate.
On top of that, BirdEye helps you manage reviews and customer feedback, amplifying the positive reviews for everyone to see, while allowing you to collect constructive feedback in order to find out what’s important to your customers and what you could do better (without broadcasting that learning process to everyone).
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