Here are your trends in online reputation management.
I am Matt Jones, co-founder of WebPunch. I’d like to talk to you today about some of the tips, some of the points, some of the trends that we’re seeing in the ever-changing world of reputation management. One of the first things that we’re seeing is that our world, the world of online reputation management is ever more mingling and intertwining with local search engine optimization. If you’re not sure what local search engine optimization is, we’re talking about the map section of the Google search results. We’re seeing more and more that the review signals this year are up 21%. Now, what that means is that Google is placing even more emphasis and ranking companies that have reviews higher than they have in previous years, so that’s really important, not only for your reputation but if you want to rank on that local area. If you wanna get on that map section and get in front of potential customers, you need to have reviews.
Another thing that we’re seeing is that there’s more of an emphasis on the velocity of reviews. Now, what does velocity of reviews mean? That means how frequently you get reviews. So one thing, by our studies, that we know, is that consumers discount reviews and companies that are older than three months. So part of the idea of that, part of the psychology behind that, is that a lot of us have been to a restaurant that was wonderful a year ago, only to return recently and have not the same experience, and that could be because the chef changed, the management changed, they had a different waiter. Consumers wanna see and Google also wants to see that you have a history of doing high-quality work. So the consumer who came to you yesterday was the person who came a year ago. So having velocity and having a lot of reviews coming in is really important for you in order to break on that local search.
Another thing is that there’s more of an emphasis on variability. Now, some of you may be thinking, “Hey, I’ve got great reviews on Facebook. I don’t need to worry about having them on Google or Yelp or Yellowpages or an industry-specific site.” You wanna make sure that you have reviews across the web because Google’s gonna rank you higher. They wanna see that you have user-generated content in the form of reviews on various websites, and when you have that, they’re gonna say, “Hey, there’s a lot of buzz about this company, let’s rank them on our local search.” So, again, that’s really important.
Another thing that we’re seeing is that when we search for businesses, a lot of times, we’re seeing employment sites pop up on that first page of search results. So if you want to have a fabulous online reputation, you need to have great reviews from your customers, but also from your employees. And so we’re talking about sites like Indeed and Glassdoor. Again, you wanna make sure that your reputation extends to both your customers, people you’re doing business with, but also the people internally so that people can see that you’re a force for good, whether that be the people you touch in the community or people you touch via employment, that you do great work and you also treat people well.
So those are some of the things that we’re seeing lately. Make sure you have programs in place and systems that can help you rank and improve your online reputation, and get reviews across various websites, and have a lot of them on a frequent basis. And if you do those things, you’ll be one step closer to knocking out your competition one review at a time. I’m Matt Jones of WebPunch, and we’ll see you next time.
