What is Search Engine Reputation Management?
SERM is a strategy focused on monitoring and managing the reputation of a company or individual on the web. It involves tracking and analyzing what people say about a business online, such as on search engines, social media sites, and other websites. This is done to help organizations to reduce or remove negative content and create a positive online presence, so that their customers don’t encounter any unwanted content. SERM is a way to actively manage what people view when they search for a business or individual in order to preserve a positive impression.
Search engine reputation management (SERM) provides businesses and websites with the tools to track activities that could potentially affect their reputations, as well as techniques to promote a positive image. To achieve these objectives, SERM encompasses Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search Marketing, Press Optimization, Blogging and Social Media.
Why is SERM important?
Data from ReviewTrackers reveals that 94% of consumers have changed their minds about a business after reading a bad review. It’s important to be aware of this and monitor online reviews, as the reputation of your company has a direct impact on its market value. Plus, people increasingly turn to reviews from fellow users when searching for someone to work with. These sites have become extremely popular in the online community, as potential buyers examine reviews before even connecting with a brand.
Search Engine Reputation Management in Milwaukee (Wisconsin)
Our team of professionals possess the expertise to analyze and maintain your digital reputation. It is essential for your business to be mindful of your online presence, as neglecting it could prove detrimental. Therefore, create a strategy to ensure that you are always in command.
How does SERM Work?
Once a brand loses reputation, steps must be taken to restore its standing. People ask if they can alter their Google reputation and the answer is “yes”. Our firm helps brands rebuild their image through online reputation management strategies. Through search engine reputation management, we aim to influence a positive perception of the brand. SERM is multi-faceted and involves SEO, social media, content marketing, and PR. Here are some of the steps we take to achieve this:
- Optimizing website content
- Creating positive content about the brand
- Spreading the content through influencers
- Using SEO tools to reach the right audience
- Building relationships with customers
- Disputing negative feedback with facts
1.- Proactive Monitoring
For effective online reputation management, it is crucial to first monitor it. Leverage search engines and different online resources such as blogs, review platforms, and more, and be actively present in the places your customers frequent. This way, you can address their queries and grievances in advance, and prevent negative criticism from accumulating. Ultimately, by staying alert and monitoring your presence you will safeguard and promote your reputation on the Web.
2.- SERP Cleansing
For SERP Cleansing, the aim is to clean the top pages of the search engine results of any negative results. It’s essential to ensure that the top ten search results for your company are optimized. To make this possible, you need to actively produce content related to your business, such as reviews, testimonials, media coverage, guest posts, and other relevant pieces.
3.- Improve SEO
Enhance SEO by making sure to:
- Increase relevancy and authority with content that is related to your target audience.
- Improve visibility by promoting the content on social media platforms.
- Boost ranking by creating backlinks from other sites.
- Reduce the impact of negative content by creating and optimizing press releases where you control the message.
To optimize your SEO efforts, aim to:
- Increase relevancy and authority of your website by creating content tailored for your target audience.
- Improve visibility by promoting the content across a variety of social media platforms.
- Boost ranking with backlinks from trusted sites.
- Minimize the impact of negative news by creating and optimizing press releases that share your viewpoint.
4.- Respond to Negative Content
Responding to negative content is critical in order to improve customer relationships, and there are several avenues to do so. Communities, forums, and review platforms offer a great opportunity to connect with an unsatisfied customer. By showing your concern and apologizing for their negative experience, you can go a long way towards appeasing and potentially influencing their opinion. However, if you are not actively monitoring the sentiment of customers, you may have to take drastic measures or risk your brand reputation.
5.- Social Media Presence
Social media is an invaluable tool for cultivating an audience, authority and trustworthiness. It provides a great platform for interacting with current and potential customers, while also boosting your SERP rankings. The more engagement that occurs on social media, the higher esteem you are held in by search engines. The positive views and comments about your business or brand directly affect SERPs and improve your online profile.
6.- Push Positive Content
Social media is an effective mechanism to increase reach, build leadership, and increase trust. It facilitates connecting with customers and carries huge potential for improving SERP rankings. Generating beneficial sentiment and customer reviews for your business through social media contributes to greater trust placed in you by search engines. The more engagement you can earn on social media, the more trustworthiness search engines attribute to you.
Conclusions for SERM
In order to get started with Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM), there are three important steps to consider:
- Monitor your online reputation. This is especially important in order to protect your brand online and offline. Monitoring activities on social media and building a loyal following is key.
- Pay attention to customer feedback. Transparency is important in order to build trust, so attend to all comments, both positive and negative.
- Leverage SERM experts. Our team of reps can guide you through the process and has worked on more than 500 projects across 30+ countries.
