Search engine optimization is an essential tool that helps us maintain the online reputation of a business. Nowadays, people have different opinions about brands based on what they see digitally, especially on SERPs. So, maintaining a business is important to build a positive image of the brand. This is where SEO plays an important role in online reputation management (ORM).
It helps businesses control content by pushing down negative and irrelevant content and boosting positive one. It saves your sales, leads, and website from being damaged due to negative content.
In this blog, I will discuss the role of SEO in online reputation management, its importance, and effective strategies.
Why is SEO Important to Online Reputation Management?
SEO is one of the best tools for online reputation management because search engines are a home of information about a brand. When people search for a specific product, page, or service, they usually go to the first page in SERPs.
As most people just visit the first page of SERPs without switching to the second, it means if you provide irrelevant or negative content about your brand, it will affect your online reputation.
SEO ensures that positive, well-researched, and optimized content ranks high in SERPs. It can target customers, job seekers, and investors at a time.
Moreover, a smart SEO strategy can help a brand or company highlight its strengths, potential, achievements, and positive reviews from customers. In contrast, it can also help in burying irrelevant and mismatched information.
SEO Vs Negative Content
One of the difficult challenges as a brand or business — is facing negative comments, bad reviews, and news articles. The purpose of SEO is to rank positive and high-quality content at the top of SERPs. Also, SEOs will push negative and misleading content to the third or fourth page, where it’ll be hidden from most users.
How SEO Builds Trust?
A strong SEO boost not only helps in online reputation management but also in building trust and credibility. When people search for a business and they find well-researched and SEO-optimized content — it is a plus point for you.
Also, content creation, content optimization, and building backlinks from relevant sites can help you build trust, credibility, and visibility. It’ll also make the user experience (UX) smooth which is also an important aspect of SEO.
According to research, “92% of people trust organic and user-generated content (UGC) over traditional marketing.” Positive reviews by customers, testimonials, and quality social media posts can make a brand trustworthy. In contrast, having negative content can affect the brand’s reputation.
You may also like to read our guide on How to Create Google Alerts for Brand Monitoring.
Boost Local SEO for Online Reputation Management
Local SEO focuses on targeting location-based audiences. It is for small and medium businesses that rely on just local traffic and want to rank in specific geographic searches.
For example, “SEO agency near me” or “best digital marketing course in Sydney”
When consumers search for a local business, they probably see the reviews and ratings before making a purchase. In that case, it is essential to list your business on multiple platforms like Google My Business and Moz Local.
Make sure to provide accurate information about your business in every listing — it will tell search engines about the authenticity of your business. Additionally, responding to customer reviews including positive and negative is important for improvements.
Negative Reviews and Online Reputation Management
Negative reviews can be challenging for a local business. If these reviews start to appear on top, it may affect your leads and sales. Using a strong SEO strategy can help you boost your local SEO. It can be creating quality business profiles that can convince satisfied customers to leave some positive words. Conversely, you can chat with negative reviews to resolve their issue to prevent damage caused by bad feedback.
Content Creation and Optimization for ORM
Content is the heart of any SEO strategy, and its role in online reputation management is also similar. A complete guide to content marketing can help you understand that SERPs are filled with original and branded content. This branded quality content can be blog posts, articles, infographics, or videos.
Create Quality Content
By creating quality content under branded terms, a business or brand can grow even faster. For example, if a brand receives a bad review on their product, they can create unique content that can oppose this narrative. So, use case studies to showcase successful projects that will help you promote a positive brand image.
Optimize Existing Content
Optimizing existing content can help you rank higher than irrelevant and negative content. Moreover, it is an important part of SEO. This can include optimizing and updating old content.
You can also use the latest information in your old articles and related keywords. Make sure to look at the technical aspects — such as page load time and mobile-friendliness — are optimized. The more quality and optimized content that ranks, the more difficult for a user to approach negative content.
Building Authority with Backlinks
Backlinks or links from other relevant sites can help you in boosting your visibility and in online reputation management. Google algorithms consider quality backlinks taken from high-authority sites. Because it is a signal that the content is linked to a trustworthy site. For online reputation management, building a proper backlink profile is important to enhance online reputation.
Final Thoughts
SEO is a key component of online reputation management because it allows businesses to showcase their positive image by promoting valuable content. By burying negative content and implementing effective SEO strategies, you can build the trust and credibility of your brand. Also, you can improve visibility and your brand’s reputation.
