On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being very important, how would you rate online reputation?

I hope you gave it ten. I hope you ALWAYS give it at least a ten!

Online reputation matters a lot, like when…

• people are deciding to do business with you (or not!)
• it comes to getting a good rank for your website on search engine results page
• potential talent is checking out your career opportunities

In this brief article, we will highlight what changes are coming to search engines and how it will impact your brand.

What Google is doing 

Google always strives to give the most relevant results for every search query asked by an internet user on their search engine. So of course they are now going to look at a company’s reputation in the market and the level of authority that their website has in terms of providing accurate and quality content to their visitors.

They also sometimes monitor the activity of feedback given by people about the company on social media networks. The comments or reviews given by different social media users is considered as their honest opinion of the company, so it could go either way — if there is a lot of bad feedback is given about it, Google would probably be the first to know about it and the company’s website rankings would suffer as a result.

Search engines like Google would not want to point their users to the websites of those companies that do not offer their visitors a pleasant user experience, or those which have received bad testimonials about their products and services. So naturally, only honest companies with a good reputation would be given a higher preference on their search engine results pages.

What actions Google is taking 

Quite simply, Google has started pulling reviews of certain brands from various online sources for to determine whether it has a favourable reputation in the industry. These reviews serve users by helping them decide whether it is worthwhile to visit a certain shop or buy a certain product/service based on the reviews left by a previous customers or visitors.

So suppose a user is searching for places like a shopping centre, restaurant, cinema, etc. Google will show the user some reviews or ratings left by previous users on a review site. Accordingly, the user can now decide if the place is worth visiting or making a purchase from. These reviews will be stored in the Knowledge panels of Google and will be presented to users when they looking for a place to go, on mobile devices.

How would these changes affect you?

These changes will certainly affect your business if you do not maintain your online reputation. When a company receives bad feedback or negative reviews, then you risk not only losing business but your website’s rank may fall as well. So the best way to get back into the good graces of Google is to tackle each customer’s negative feedback in a professional manner and sort out those issues as soon as they arise.

It would also be advantageous for your company if you keep a strong service quality level at all times. When people are impressed with your level of service, they would naturally leave good reviews about the way you do business on local search directories and these would even get showcased on Google’s results pages.

For more information on using online reputation to boost your SEO, please join us on November 24 as we break down the latest algorithmic changes at our ‘Let’s Talk Google’ at Innovation Place.