To grow and stay ahead of your competitors, you need to take a hard look at your reputation strategy.
The online reputation of your business hinges on a variety of elements. It’s an ever-evolving digital mix-up of comments, reviews, blogs, and more.
It’s time to take a proactive approach to improve your online reputation. Not sure where to start? Here are 12 tips to make your business shine under any consumer microscope.
1. Upgrade your Trustpilot account
Trustpilot continues to sway consumers, and you probably have built up a few Trustpilot reviews for your business. But are you making the most of your Trustpilot account?
By upgrading your Trustpilot account from free to paid, you get more personalized features to net more ratings and reviews.
Paid Trustpilot features include:
- Personalized email address from sender
- Customizable review invitations to your customers
- Rich snippet star rating in TrustBox
- TrustBox optimization
- Imported product reviews
Trustpilot paid features can make a big impact on your brand reputation. After all, reviews and ratings play a big role in consumer confidence to buy.
2. Get backlinks from high authority sites
A backlink from a high authority publication is a recommendation signal to consumers.
For example, people reading a Forbes article on “Best Health Apps” will assume that the Forbes journalist did his or her due diligence in finding the very best apps. This is a trust signal for consumers.
To get those high authority backlinks you can implement a link building strategy that allows you to be top of mind for journalists. Creating very shareable content on your blog or site is also a powerful way to earn those reputation building backlinks as well.
3. Have a “featured in” logo section
To amplify confidence to buy and boost your brand reputation, you can showcase the high authority publications your products or services have been featured in. This makes a Featured In section on your home page valuable, like this one from Your Doctors Online.
This reputation strategy tip is also a very easy one to implement once you have three or more high authority publications to list.
You can also use the press release strategy to develop a few high authority “Featured In” publications. Using PRNewswire iReach WebReach, you can launch a press release about your brand.
The press release will get picked up by a number of high authority publications, like Yahoo Finance. You can create a press release about a new product or service, new employee position, charity work, and more.
4. Get quoted everywhere!
Having a CEO, director, or manager quote in several publications can be another fantastic reputation strategy. This will compliment your link building strategy as well, since most quotes are accompanied by a link back to the experts business.
How do you get quoted everywhere? Well, it is actually easier than you may think. Using Help A Reporter Out (HARO) can accomplish this.
Simply sign up for a free account as a “Source,” fill in the information, and choose the industries you can add insights for.
This is a great way to boost your reputation as an authority in your industry. You will also get quality backlinks to your website, and use articles on social media to boost awareness and trust among your followers.
5. Facebook video ads
Video ads are trending in a big way for brands, and users want more videos than ever before. In fact, 90 percent of users said that videos are a big part of the decision process. Social media videos net 1,200 percent more shares than the average text social posts.
“It is indeed one of the best tactics to bring more exposure to your brand while helping you achieve your bottom-line,” Mike Templeman of Forbes explained.
Facebook video ads are among the best performers. Why video? Video is great for engagement and can also add that personal touch consumers want.
Like this video from Backlinko’s Facebook page with nearly 3,500 shares:
You can show your social audience that you are indeed real, knowledgeable, and highlight your brand’s value and benefits.
6. YouTube videos
Your social media videos will often come from YouTube, making this is another reputation strategy worth pursuing. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world and you can highlight your authority and expertise via YouTube videos quite easily.
Going back to the previous Backlinko example, Brian Dean uses YouTube videos to showcase his expertise on digital marketing in an engaging and actionable way.
If you want to increase your reputation and become a thought leader in your industry, YouTube can be valuable. You can also build up a subscriber base to remarket to.
7. Collaborate with social media influencers
There is nothing like boosting your reputation through the recommendations of influencers your customers already trust. This makes social media influencers an important asset to add to your reputation strategy.
Did you know that 74 percent of people turn to social media for help with buying decisions? And 40 percent of people have made an online purchase after seeing an influencer use a product on social media.
Where can you find social media influencers to help improve your brand reputation? There are a few online platforms like FameBit, TapInfluence, and Traackr. FameBit is a free platform that allows you to connect with influencers in a variety of industries.
Since it is free, it’s a good way to test the social media influencer waters across social channels like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
8. Get more blogger reviews
Social media is not the only place to utilize the power of influencers. If your brand sells products, getting more reviews from bloggers people follow and trust can boost your brand reputation.
To get your products reviewed by influential bloggers, you will need to send them a quick pitch. This can be via a social media message, or through their email or contact form from their website.
Here are a few pitch tips for outreach:
- Keep your pitch short and sweet
- Highlight your product’s benefits
- Explain why the blogger’s audience will like your product
- Let the blogger have your product for free
- Let them know you have an influencer marketing budget
9. Start a podcast
Another great way to improve your reputation strategy is to start a podcast. Podcasts help showcase your knowledge and can cover a lot of trending topics your customers want information about.
“If you’re not already engaging your target market with podcasts, prepare to launch your first piece of audio content,” Tyler Basu explained in an Entrepreneur article.
Podcasts are a great way to feed information to your audience. They can easily listen to your podcast while driving, at the gym, on the bus or subway, and even at work.
Your audience doesn’t need to focus all their attention on written content. Creating a podcast is also easier than spending hours developing a blog post. A few podcast types include:
- Interviews
- Solo podcasts
- Two or more hosts
- Narrative podcasts
- Or a combination of the above
You will also need a separate hosting platform for your podcasts. LibSyn and Blubrry are two hosting platforms that are affordable and easy to use.
10. List your product on Amazon
Getting your product listed on Amazon is an exceptional way to boost your online reputation. Did you know that 80 percent of Amazon users make an average of one purchase per month? Given that there are around 300 million Amazon users in total, that’s a lot of potential customers – and reviewers.
This makes Amazon a big trust builder for consumers and should be part of your reputation strategy. Amazon also has a product review and star rating. This can make a big impact on your brand’s reputation.
Amazon listing guidelines are actually not as difficult as you may think. You will need to follow the step-by-step process and you could have your product on Amazon within a few weeks.
11. Create Quality Content
One tried and true method for improving your reputation strategy is to create quality content. Those 300 word blog posts will simply not do anymore. You want your audience to be engaged and learn something from your articles.
Develop actionable blog posts that show step-by-step ways to solve issues consumers in your industry and niche may be experiencing.
For example, if you are catering content to small businesses, you can have a post about email marketing. In the post you can list the exact steps to set up an email marketing campaign and tips on how to make it successful.
This, of course, will be time-consuming. Your blog post may turn into a 2,000-word masterpiece. But long-form content is good!
Research has shown that 2,000+ word posts get more organic traffic:
Long form content also gets more social shares and linking domains:
This will increase brand reach and awareness, increase authority, and thus improve your reputation strategy.
12. Increase your Google ranking
Many consumers often begin looking for a product or service via Google search. Unfortunately, most searchers don’t go past page one of Google search results.
According to a Chitika report, only 4.8 percent of traffic will land on page two of search results.
Why? Well, one reason may be that Google is satisfying searcher intent better. But many consumers may not trust the content after Google page one. Are all page one listings reputable? Not at all, but the consumer may not know that.
A quick search for “running shoes” will return some questionable results:
Note that Nike and Reebok aren’t even in the above the fold content listed!
This makes getting the best Google rankings possible essential. Luckily, all the above reputation strategy tips will help you achieve better rankings. Page one Google ranking serves up a lot of benefits, including a powerful online reputation.
What’s your reputation strategy?
Your online reputation is essential to the growth and success of your brand. Without a reputable online presence, consumers will turn to your competitors.
The above 12 tips to improve your reputation strategy can make your brand shine when consumers start doing their due diligence before buying from you.
What is your reputation strategy?