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The Best Tools for Monitoring your Online Reputation in 2020

by Nishad Jiwa
written by Nishad Jiwa

Managing your online reputation is as crucial as ever for brand validity and awareness. What was once dominated by word-of-mouth referrals is now a smorgasbord of digital information that is publicly accessible. Access to your company’s industry ratings and client-customer reviews requires an internet connection from any device.

You must keep track of your online reputation to attract more clients and consumers. Even the slightest negative review can have a dramatic impact on your brand’s status in the industries you serve. As a business owner, any harmful statements about your products or services can turn away potential buyers. This can affect the number of leads you amass on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. These leads may result in higher web traffic to your online stores, blogs, and websites; higher conversions result in greater profits and revenue for your business.

For protecting and preserving your online reputation, there is a range of paid and free tools on the internet. These apps can highlight the positive aspects of your business while reducing the negative sentiment left behind by bad reviews. We have compiled a list of the four best online tools for monitoring your online reputation in 2020.

1. Brand 24

Brand24 is a popular brand management tool that allows you to create projects that improve your online reputation. Each project is designed to track social mentions of your respective company or commercial entity. This platform has three paid tiers for media monitoring:

  • Plus Package – $49/mo – this plan allows up to 5 users to track different keywords and mentions related to your brand. Data analysis, mentions, and citations are updated every 12 hours for your review. You also get in-depth tracking with a convenient mobile app; this lets you see who is trash-talking or leaving positive reviews for your company while on the go.
  • Premium Package – $99/mo – the premium plan allows up to 10 users and a maximum of 100k mentions per month. You also get timely analytics that covers your daily social media reaches and specifics on who mentions you the most. Real-time compiled data can be exported to Excel files or PDFs for your convenience. There is also live assistance via chat, email, or phone 24/7.
  • Max Package – $199/mo – the max plan allows up to 99 users and a maximum of 250K mentions per month. All data is updated in real-time, including tracking interactions and mentions. The max plan connects you with a brand management consultant who sets everything up for you with a precise analysis of the loads of data that flows in daily.

Brand24 crawls the entire web looking for mentions of your brands or companies. The tool stockpiles keywords related to your businesses and collect mentions from socials, blogs, videos, news sites, PR platforms, websites, discussion forums, Google reviews, and much more.

2. YouScan

YouScan is another popular social tracker that helps businesses’ tune into their customers’ online conversations. This social media intelligence platform is ranked number one among influencers, clients, and customers alike. As a media listening tool, YouScan scans the social platforms and web in search of your brand’s mentions and reviews. It analyzes Google reviews, industry citations, mentions, and other social gabs about your company. Here are some of its perks:

  • YouScan scans social media and the web for all your brand mentions.
  • It pinpoints data that you can sift through with user-friendly analytical tools.
  • Customers can create search criteria with strategic keywords that are relevant to their brands. YouScan will scour the internet and collect data that match your searches.
  • Its Visual Insights tool is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) for accurate results, charts, and numbers that reflect your brand’s image and reputation on the web.
  • This tool manages your brand reputation with actionable insights, texts, and visual media so you can see who is saying what about your company.

3. BrandMentions

BrandMentions digs every corner of the web to find relevant mentions about your brand or business. This platform uses the power of social media to help you make worthwhile, informed decisions about customer and client engagements.

This popular tool searches Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and other social platforms for mentions. It also scans blogs, review sites, news sites, and websites. While it might take some time to configure the tool as needed, BrandMentions is worth it, according to industry monitors. Each data return can be filtered accordingly. You also get a detailed breakdown of all mentions, reviews, citations, and even your competitors’ keywords for monitoring.

Using this tool is an ideal way to grow your pool of data. You can even respond to social posts directly from this platform’s user-friendly interface.

4. Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo makes this list for its excellent reviews and ratings. This tool takes a different approach to brand management and online reputation monitoring. It allows users to comb the internet for any content that relates to their search terms. The latter may include company names, brands, products, and even services within a specific industry or sector.

The platform delivers several search results that engage customers with real-time data and statistics. Customers can filter out searches using dates, countries of origin, B2B publishers, language, domains, and content-type. Similarly, they can check to see which publishers or influencers have cited or mentioned their brands within specific date ranges.

The brand management network provides engagement figures from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, and other social or non-social platforms. You get a number of links per search result, as well as detailed graphs and charts. For effective online reputation management, the tool creates alerts for clients covering brand mentions, competitor mentions, keyword, back-links, and content from sites and blogs.

These are but four of the top online reputation monitoring tools in 2020. As always, you can check Google by simply entering your name or brand/company name to see mentions. However, an online tracker and tool provide detailed analysis and statistics that regular searches on engines cannot offer.

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MarketingReputation Management

Building Digital Bridges with a Reputable Austin PR Agency

by Nishad Jiwa
written by Nishad Jiwa

Digital branding is an intriguing way to build company awareness and visibility. In fact, long gone are the days of cookie-cutter advertising in the hopes of amassing clients and customers. Today’s public relations firms are all gearing their products and services towards digital marketing promotions. With this in mind, you need a sound online campaign that delivers measurable results at every turn.

With years of extensive industry experience, an Austin PR agency has the tools and expertise to convert leads to profits and revenue. With seamless integration of automated technologies and cutting-edge apps, they are able to foster brand growth across multiple, digital content channels. However, there are still essentials to keep in mind when looking for the right PR team in the Capital City.

Understand your Goals

Building digital bridges begin with understanding the goals you want to achieve. While PR marketing is designed to meet client goals and aspirations, there must be a precise and clear vision. This may include higher brand visibility for new ventures or increasing customer patronage at the grassroots level.  Your vision may also be to become or remain competitively viable in the industries you serve. By defining your goals, the local firm is able to formulate strategic plans that build stronger engagements.

Here are some questions to ponder when determining your business goals:

  • If your brand targeting geo-specific audiences? Do you want to entice and engage new customers while securing maximum ROI on your PR investments?
  • Are you interested in generating higher profits and conversion rates via pay-per-click (PPC) marketing?
  • Do you wish to become a thought and industry leader in your business niche?
  • How many products and services does your brand offer to the general public? What makes your company stand out from the rest?

You must have at least a few of these questions answered before approaching a PR agency. This will give you the foundation to build your company with the help of seasoned marketers. Most agencies also feature digital advertising teams, content specialists, web developers, and SEO professionals to help achieve desired results.

Know your Options

When selecting the right PR firm, adequate research is essential. You must check how long the agency has been in business and the services they provide. Look for success stories that the agency can claim about past marketing campaigns. While each firm will have a different approach to your campaign, the decision will ultimately be yours to make. With this in mind, make sure you are working with a knowledgeable and experienced agency with a proven track record of success.

Here are some more essentials you must address before making a choice investment:

  • How will the PR firm in Austin tackle your digital campaign?
  • Do they outsource projects to contractors or utilize in-house teams?
  • Make sure the firm you choose is actually managed by someone that understand public relations campaigns.
  • Look for core digital services like online reputation management, social media marketing, mobile readiness, PPC, content distribution, business ads, and digital banner advertising.

It’s okay if you do not have the answers upfront. This is why you are seeking out professional assistance in growing your online business. However, it is important to have a general grasp of the market and its current trends. This will give you an edge over competitors when it comes to launching your PR marketing campaigns.

Know your Budget

Budgeting for digital marketing campaigns is important for all-sized businesses. While larger companies may have expendable income, the same cannot be said for smaller companies and newer upstarts. It is imperative that you set aside sufficient finances to cover the costs of PR campaigns. Also, check to see how big or small the agency is you may hire. This is vital in securing the personalized, grassroots connections you are looking for. Look for agencies with closely-knit teams that are committed to meeting your PR needs within time and budget.

Reputable agencies will be able to help you with:

  • Grassroots marketing plans for local brand exposure and visibility.
  • Getting your new or existing brands listed on Google Maps and related business networks.
  • Enhance your brand’s online reputation with the best reviews, industry mentions, citations, keywords, and promotions for higher placement on Google.
  • Help your business grow with fresh and engaging blogs, content marketing, social media integration, mobile marketing, and handle all customized requests.

These are but a few ways to choose the best public relations firm for your brands. As always, you should see if the agency specializes in the industries you serve. For example, if you are a tech start-up then hiring an IT or SEO firm makes the best sense. Also, the agency should be an extension of your brand – not just a firm that treats you like a statistic and wants to make the most money out of the campaigns.

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Blog TrafficGoogleLocal SEOReputation ManagementSearchSEOSEO NewsSERPSite OptimizationWebsite Traffic

Google Search Now Displays More Diverse Search Results After Update

by Austin Robinson
written by Austin Robinson

On June 6th, Google announced an update to its search results with the goal of increasing “site diversity.” The Google Search update will attempt to provide greater domain variety by limiting the number of results from any particular domain to two or less for a specific search query.

That means you will need to adapt your SEO strategy to this new change to enhance your results. Otherwise, you risk being negatively affected by it. So here’s what you need to know:

Greater Diversity of Google Search Results

Throughout the years,  SEO experts have been tasked with finding unique and creative ways to overcome the fact that Google’s top search results often show too many listings from the same site. This can allow one company or domain to dominate a particular search query.

So in the past, if you searched for a specific keyword, you might see 4, 5, or even more of the top 10 results from the same site. With this new site diversity update, Google is now aiming to not show any more than two results from the same domain for any query.

There Will Be Exceptions to the Rule

Google will maintain the right to veer away from its “two results” limit if they deem it appropriate. One theory on why Google might do this is to allow more accurate results for branded queries. For example, if you searched for a brand like Nike, you would see more than two results from Nike.com on the first page.

Subdomains are Treated as a Part of the Root Domain

Google will consider subdomains and root domains as being the same site. So if your subdomain is blog.example.com, it will be treated the same as your root domain of www.domain.com and will be counted as one of the two results allowed.

Of course, there’s another exception. Google will reserve the right to treat a subdomain and root domain as different sites if “deemed relevant” for diversity.

The Update Will Only Affect Core Results

For now, Google is containing the update to core results only. Other On-SERP SEO factors like carousels, snippets, and top stories won’t be affected.

Domain Diversity is a Long-Running Theme for Google

Google is no stranger to updating their SERP algorithm to provide greater domain diversity. Since 2012, they have gradually made changes to limit the number of results from one domain for a given search query.

While not all of the changes have been publicly confirmed, SEO marketers have noticed the silent updates throughout the years and adjusted accordingly.

The Takeaway Going Forward

If you are trying to get your domain to dominate the Google search results for specific queries, this will undoubtedly affect you. One of the primary industries likely to be affected is reputation management, although other search professionals will see an impact as well.

For anyone looking to rank more than two pages from the same domain for the same search query, you’ll want to ensure that your analytics are robust. That way,  you can measure how this recent Google update will affect your sites moving forward.

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Reputation ManagementReviews

Check This Out! 85% of Consumers Won’t Look At Old Local Reviews

by Brandon Lee
written by Brandon Lee

Everyone knows that local reviews can impact what a potential customer thinks about your business, but this study from BrightLocal reveals how consumers truly view local reviews.

Especially reviews that have been posted recently.

According to the study, 85% of consumers don’t really care about local reviews that were left over three months ago. In fact, 40% of consumers only take into account reviews that were submitted within the past two weeks.

The results of this study are very important because it suggests that old reviews, positive or negative, can have no bearing on your brand if they are more than three months old.

Here are some more interesting facts from this study.

Local Business Searches are Increasing

More consumers are now conducting searches for local businesses this year compared to last year.

  • 27% of online consumers are regularly searching for local businesses, which is a percentage that has more than doubled from 2017.
  • 69% of online consumers have searched online for local businesses monthly, which is up 54% from last year.
  • 56% of online consumers searched for local businesses at least once a week, which is a 41% increase from 2017.

The study concluded that 18-34-year-olds are searching online for local businesses the most. More than half of them conduct a search every day, and 81% of them search every week.

This demographic is also reading the most reviews – 50% of 18-34-year-olds always read online reviews. Since more people are conducting online searches for local businesses, it stands to reason that more of them will read online reviews.

However, most consumers will only read about 4 online reviews from a local business. This means that your online reviews have a shelf life, whether they’re positive or negative.

Local Reviews are Still Powerful

Even in 2018, the influence of consumer reviews has never been more powerful. Check out these key findings on the influence of local business reviews.

  • Positive reviews make a consumer 68% more likely to use a local business.
  • Negative reviews make a consumer 40% more likely to stop in their tracks.
  • 57% of consumers won’t use a local business with fewer than 4 stars.
  • Consumers want to have more than 40 reviews before they trust the overall star rating.

Today, local business reviews can still make or break your business. While it’s no surprise that positive reviews can improve your chances of gaining a customer, this study is consistently showing that negative reviews can extremely deter a customer from even considering to do business with you.

Negative Reviews Can Now Be Tamed

Let’s face it. There isn’t a perfect business on the face of the Earth. Different customers have different user experiences, so every business likely has a few online reviews they aren’t proud of.

However, as time passes on, consumers will be more likely to skip over your negative reviews, or they won’t even read them at all if they are more than three months years old.

This just goes to serve as a reminder that time literally heals all wounds and that your reputation can manage itself over time.

If you’ve had a few negative reviews in the past, you can likely rest easy knowing that your potential customers won’t factor those into their decision to purchase your products or services.

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Reputation Management

Have You Received a Negative Review? Here’s What To Do!

by Brandon Lee
written by Brandon Lee

Have you received a negative review in the past six months? If so, you’re not alone. Millions of businesses around the world receive negative reviews quite often. Therefore, negative reviews don’t always paint the true picture of how legitimate a company is.

However, 93% of consumers read online reviews to determine if a local business is good or bad, according to Bright Local. As you can see, it doesn’t really matter how often negative reviews occur, people are still inclined to show more favor towards businesses with more positive reviews and star ratings.

So, what does this mean if you receive a negative review? What are you supposed to do to prevent your potential customers from slipping through your fingers? In this article, I’ll tell you exactly what you should do.

1. Always Respond

Negative reviews come in all sorts of ways. Some of these reviews are somewhat polite while others are extremely abrasive. Many businesses notice bad reviews left on Google and social media and don’t respond, which is a pretty big mistake.

Even if one of your customers didn’t enjoy their experience with you, it’s still important to at least respond to their review to show them and other potential customers that you’re always open to criticism and feedback. Let’s face it. Everyone won’t like the services or products you provide.

However, you can create a great impression to your future customers by showing that you deeply value their opinions.

Note: You don’t have to respond to any review older than three months. 

2. Do Not Argue

When you choose to respond to a negative review, it’s important to remain cordial and understanding to the person who posted it. Responding in an equally negative or argumentative tone won’t do anything to help your case, primarily because your customers will see your response and won’t be convinced if they believe you’re being inappropriate.

Instead, try responding to a negative review by following these tips.

  1. Always begin your response by giving a genuine apology.
  2. Offer another chance to satisfy their request.
  3. Don’t give any excuses.
  4. Don’t blame the reviewer
  5. Don’t deny any wrongdoing
  6. Thank them for their review.

Following these tips will show your unsatisfied customer and others that you genuinely care about their experience. Responding in this manner will help paint your business in a better light.

3. Flag the Review

If you’ve received a fake online review from a person who was never a customer of yours, you can immediately flag the review for removal. Do not respond to this type of review at all because it could look suspicious if you wanted to remove a negative review after you’ve responded.

Fake customers reviews are pretty obvious to spot because they usually contain horrible grammar and abusive language. Before you respond to any review, perform an evaluation into your records to see if the reviewer was truly one of your customers. This can save you the headache of accidentally responding to a fake review.

Final Words:

Everyone receives negative reviews, but it’s how you handle them that will truly make a difference. If you’re polite and understanding to your reviewers, you can save your online reputation and prove to your potential customers that their opinion matters and will be handled accordingly.

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Reputation Management

Do Men and Women View Online Reviews Differently?

by Brandon Lee
written by Brandon Lee

If you’re running a business, it’s part of your job to understand the perception of your business from your customers. Not only does this help to improve your customers’ user experience, but it increases your probability of having your business accrue more positive reviews.

It’s a proven fact that people regularly consult online reviews before they make a purchase. In fact, 97% of customers read online reviews before making a purchasing decision, according to BrightLocal.

However, Jamie Pitman from BrightLocal reported that there is a huge difference in how men and women interpret online reviews. Check out these interesting findings below.

37% of Men Check Online Reviews No Matter What

IMAGE 1 800x476 - Do Men and Women View Online Reviews Differently?

Local Consumer Review Survey from BrightLocal (2018)

Before this study, there haven’t been any research-driven indications of how different genders might use online reviews, but BrightLocal has discovered some key differences in this behavior.

While both men and women said they have regularly viewed reviews for online businesses, there’s a large gap between men and women who always look at reviews.

As you can see from the graph above, 37% of men always look at reviews for online businesses, compared to a meager 15% of women.

If your business targets a predominantly male audience, then it’s important to use your time and effort into securing high-quality reviews. Though, while men are always keen on targeting online reviews, prior research from BrightLocal explains that people don’t care about reviews left over three months ago.

44% of Women Have Never Been Asked to Leave a Customer Review

IMAGE 2 800x482 - Do Men and Women View Online Reviews Differently?

In the chart above, it shows that men are much more likely to leave a review after they’ve been asked compared to women. However, there is something very alarming about this chart in particular.

Take a look at the condition “No, I’ve never been asked”. As you can see, 44% of women have never been asked to leave a customer review. While we can’t really explain why this occurrence is happening, there is a big factor that is hindering the growth of reviews posted by women.

One preconceived reason behind this may be that businesses find men more approachable when asking for a review. You can see on the chart that men are much more likely to leave a review if you simply ask them.

Nonetheless, by not asking women to leave reviews for your business, you’re missing out on a 37% chance that they actually will do it. This is a huge wide-open opportunity to get more reviews for your business by simply asking a woman to post one.

63% of Women Believe Negative Reviews Should Get Responses

IMAGE 4 800x481 - Do Men and Women View Online Reviews Differently?

When it comes down to the type of reviews consumers believe businesses should respond to, the results get a little hectic. For example, I was a little surprised to see that nearly 30% of men and women believe businesses should respond to fake reviews.

The major takeaway here is how both genders value responses for both positive and negative reviews. 63% of females prefer businesses to respond to negative reviews, while 58% of males believe businesses should respond to positive ones.

Conclusion

So, what I can actually do with this data? Well, if you’re catering to a male audience, you can make sure that you develop a strong focus on your reputation management. According to the data above, men care about both reviews and their responses.

On the contrary, if you have a largely female audience, you can simply ask them to post more reviews to receive a higher probability of increasing your star rating if you’re providing excellent products and services.

Overall, men and women shouldn’t be treated differently when it comes to getting reviews. Though, this data indicates a few behavioral patterns for both genders that can be extremely helpful to developing your online reputation.

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Reputation ManagementYelp

Businesses are Going Anti-Yelp and It’s Working

by Rolando Herrera
written by Rolando Herrera

Ever since Internet use became widespread, people have been posting reviews and opinions regarding different businesses or products online. Over time, reading online opinions has become an essential aspect of the shopping experience.

People don’t visit restaurants, hire a service, or attend an event without reading some feedback on platforms like Yelp. While this has made things easier for both customers and businesses, the system isn’t without its faults. Many businesses have started anti-Yelp marketing campaigns, encouraging their clients to leave negative reviews on the platform.

The Reason Behind Anti-Yelp

A large number of businesses believe that faceless online criticism has compromised genuine interactions between clients/guests and business establishments. Instead of approaching the management directly with their problems, customers post online reviews. This limits human interaction and understanding between business establishments and their customers.

The goal is to spread awareness about online reviews and their influence on the industry. Business owners want clients to know how much power they have, encouraging them to use it responsibly. They want customers to consider the concept of second chances, of allowing businesses to learn from their mistakes. No business establishment is perfect so there’s always a chance they’ll mess up, communicating the problem directly to the establishment can help them improve their service without compromising their reputation.

Posting anonymous online feedback might warn other customers of potential problems, but also compromises an establishment’s ability to handle problems. All negative reviews remain on these platforms permanently so even if an establishment moves forward and grows, their reputation is forever compromised. That’s why business owners use the anti-Yelp strategy to help spread awareness.

How Does this Work?

Some establishments encourage visitors to post negative feedback by offering discounts or mentioning it on their menu cards. Others post signs saying “no Yelpers” on their establishment, discouraging people who are inclined to leave reviews on similar platforms. These deliberate negative reviews often take on a comedic tone, with customers mentioning ridiculous reasons for one-star ratings. Most prospective customers immediately recognize the criticisms aren’t genuine and become more interested in an establishment.

This has worked well for many businesses. Most of them agree that online criticisms are an important aspect of their industry. They don’t discourage genuine grievances and don’t want to undermine the importance of criticism. Business owners aren’t looking for ways to shield themselves from online criticism so if a customer is disappointed even after approaching the management, they’re encouraged to leave an online negative review.

While many industry experts support this move, some also caution against it. People trust online reviews and they can help a business bring in more traffic. Compromising their trust in this system can backfire. It’s better for businesses to focus on delivering good services instead of feedback.

Online reviews and related platforms can be a double-edged sword. This system can be abused or manipulated, which is why many businesses feel relying on them isn’t a good idea. While anti-Yelp businesses still browse through negative feedback left on their platform, they encourage customers to approach management with their problems directly. If the management doesn’t resolve the problem after being approached directly, they usually deserve criticism.

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Reputation ManagementSEO

Credibility in the Business Marketplace can Be Easy, Here’s How

by Matthew Henderson
written by Matthew Henderson

Using feedback as a tool to ramp up your company’s street cred

In a marketplace built on networking, it would seem that it really is all about who you know, or rather, who knows your business and what they would have to say about it. New research points toward customer reviews as a crucial part of creating new business from local organic searches with as many as 90% of users checking reviews before ever setting foot in an establishment.  What does this mean to the business owner? The importance of making your company seem credible has never been higher.

Imagine your old college roommate lures you and a mutual friend to a pub and proceeds to ramble on about his business idea. His company is called “Re-Fill” and they produce canteen backpacks that collect and recycle the user’s sweat for later consumption. You respond with the appropriate “pff..” and look to the third friend for solidarity only to find them listening intently with a stern and thoughtful expression. Why? Because everyone has their own threshold of credibility. A sort of mental watermark that divides what we immediately reject from what we are willing to give some credence to and follow further. If a particular idea registers deeply within our logic and value system, we may even regard it highly enough to accept it at once.

Let’s say your old roommate began to elaborate and you learn that his business was actually announced in 2015. The creative team was comprised mostly of professors of health science from the University of Texas.

Is Re-Fill starting to sound a bit more plausible?

He goes on to explain that the seed money for the project was in fact donated by local football legend Vince Young who also happens to be the proprietor of a successful Austin steakhouse. Last month a soundbite featuring Young endorsing Re-Fill aired on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

Starting to wish you’d kept in closer contact with your old roommate?

The Role of SEO in Credibility

If increasing conversions from local searches are based on good reviews and credibility is based on making sure your message and aesthetic will clear the average user’s threshold, you had better make sure you come correct with your SEO structure when they get there. Meta descriptions, clean titles, your social media based business pages. All of this must be calculated to guarantee returned listings and make sure you are projecting the right impression.

Three Steps to Getting a Rep

  1. Presence and Perception

How convincing do you come across at first sight?

Try to answer this question based on the indicators visible to everyone. If you have a Google My Business page, for example, five or more reviews will result in stars. A star rating appears on local, paid, and organic searches. To kick it up a notch, ensure that you are allowing reviews in the highly utilized business directories. Yelp, TripAdvisor, Urban Spoon. These are high traffic portals that have already earned the trust of the consumers you want to reach out to.  If your particular industry has a few prominent names in your city and those other companies are paying more attention to their initial awareness than you, your business may be broadcasting an impression that is below the average line of believability.

If your competition is less tapped into business directories, exploit this to your advantage and boost your credibility! What else are they trying and how do they come off in a first search based impression? How do you come off? What does a typical search around your brand and major terms look like?

  1. Appraisal

Once they are beyond first impressions, your prospective client will begin to evaluate your credibility based on more meaningful criteria. It now becomes necessary to truly internalize the intentions of your target audience and your current standing within the local marketplace.

If you are a downtown sushi bar, what is your ranking on TripAdvisor? How are the reviews? If a map-based search for “Asian food” buries your restaurant in a litany of results, it can often be helpful to designate your business within a more specific subcategory, in this case, “Sushi”.

Being the highest rated Asian restaurant in your local area may be tough, but making the cut for the “top three downtown sushi bars” is a much more workable goal.

  1. Long-Term Integrity

This part of ramping up your stats is a recursive process and not one that you ever really check off your list. The main idea here is to customize the maintenance program for your credibility to the specific needs of your company. To make this happen, you must know your market and customers. You must also be aware of the tools in your arsenal, a few of which are mentioned below.

Choosing the right tactics will depend on the customers you are seeking out. Thorough market research and buyer personals are integral here.

Reviews and Testimonials

  • Reviews are key to local businesses but consideration must be given as to the type of reviews needed and where they will be seen. Google + is a good place to start but you must branch out from there. Testimonials are even more personal than reviews and typically link the reader to the author’s social media profiles. The result is usually positive. To see a well-kept virtual space and a clean cut photograph will enrich the reader’s perception of the review. Make sure to consider your audience and be selective when deciding which testimonials will be visible to readers.

Case Studies

  • Let numbers do the talking! Case studies are typically packed with facts and statistics that demonstrate how you provided your customers with ROI and how you are competing with other companies in the industry.

Blogging and Social Media

  • Purely as a form of content, blog posts can be a strong demonstration of how well you know your industry and your market. The “featured in” section on the main page of larger SEO and marketing agencies is a way to show where they blog in order to gain clout and momentum from these noted industry sites.
  • Social media, on the other hand, is more useful for its transparency. Not only does it provide another forum for reviews but it also allows prospective customers to see how your employees get along with their customers and communicate with their industry at large. Is the tone comfortable? The content? Are they more service oriented or is there a bit of an edgy vibe?

External Sites

  • No matter the industry, there will be abundant opportunities to have your business mentioned on third-party sites. Depending on your location and target audience these shout-outs can refer to anything from generic business directories to more specific or esoteric forums.

Making it Work

Good SEO is about more than raising your listing by a few points on organic searches. At the end of the day, it all comes down to conversion rate. It is the layer effect of a strong presence, valid content and long-term relevance that raise the credibility of a business and keep it there.  The strategies discussed here will lead to a more engaged relationship with your search listings and a stronger sense of who your audience is and how to retain them.

If you want to know more about our SEO and marketing, don’t hesitate to call us or contact us through our online form at Insignia SEO.

 

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BrandingGoogleMarketingReputation Management

Don’t Guess about Success! 3 Signs Your Business Will Succeed

by Matthew Henderson
written by Matthew Henderson

If you’ve ever been advised to, “shoot for the moon, because even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars!” be sure to say thank you for the worthless platitude. A business philosophy based on the idea that if you are working as hard as you can, you are living up to your potential can be just as harmful as having a lazy outlook. What is your metric of success?

Even when numbers look good, businesses need to apply other measures of whether they are hitting their targets and achieving a successful liftoff. Here are three solid indicators that your new business will succeed.

  1. Your reputation is coming from users, not media hype

Marketing can go a long way. In fact, when a promotional campaign is done well, a product or service may end up achieving an unwarranted reputation before it’s even released. Once consumers are interacting with a product, they no longer care what it’s makers claim about it. They want to hear it from each other. When a new device or social media platform gains cultural traction, it is the users who are introducing it to each other and even teaching one another how to use it. Don’t rely on sales reports alone. If users are sharing your product with each other, find out why. What are you giving them that they don’t see in the competition? If you can identify that “it” factor, you may be able to exploit it further.

  1. You’re watching your burn rate

Confidence is a wonderful thing if you can get the dosage right. Initial growth is a volatile period and achieving positive numbers early on can be deceiving. If you’re encouraging the rapid growth of your business because early sales were positive, you may be setting yourself up for failure. There is a more important question than whether you’re making sales. Are you spending more or less than you’re taking in?  If a business is booming and growth is coming with it, are you still putting more cash in to cover your overhead than you’re making in profit? If so, slow down.  All the positive hype in the world won’t keep your staff employed if you go cash-broke overnight. Successful businesses manage their growth strategy by watching their burn rate. Remember to walk before you run.

  1. Your turnover is low

Word gets around. The worst indictments against a growing business come from ex-employees. Regardless of your current success on paper, a relatively high turn-over rate will be a red flag to consumers, investors, and prospective employees alike that this environment is not stable.

On the other hand, a strong retention rate will lead to a different narrative. The employees there must be happy right? The must-have “bought-in” to the mission, content with their salary and work environment. Otherwise, they would leave, right?  With a solid team in place, trust will only grow and the vibe will stay positive. Take care of staff morale so your staff takes care of you.

If you want to know more about our SEO and marketing, don’t hesitate to call us or contact us through our online form at Insignia SEO.

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Google Is Now Flagging All HTTP Sites as “Insecure”

by Matthew Henderson
written by Matthew Henderson

Why switching to HTTPS is a must, and how to get it taken care of

If that title seemed both scary and confusing to you don’t worry, you’re in the majority. The bottom line is this. That little “S” stands for secure, and if your site doesn’t have it, Google is trying to make sure that visitors notice.

If you’ve happened to enter the URLs from any old business cards into chrome lately, you may have noticed that upon routing you to the address you entered, the page included a lowercase “i” next to the address in the search bar when you arrived. Your browser is trying to notify you that the site is “insecure”.  If you click the icon to investigate, you may see something that resembles the following.

HTTPs or Not - Google Is Now Flagging All HTTP Sites as “Insecure”

 

 

Google has just released Chrome 68 which prefers users to enter a URL beginning with HTTPS.  As previously mentioned, the “s” stands for “secure” and basically declares that any data being transferred on this site is encrypted. That may sound a little cinematic, but really it just means that the information you enter when you visit a website is no longer completely visible for any wandering middleman to read and exploit.

Browsing the internet works on a “request and response” cycle. The acronym HTTP stands for hypertext transfer protocol and it is more or less the foundation of data communication for the web. Any text, picture, or sound file is formatted into http before sending. When you send a request to a server, logging into Netflix for example, your computer creates a hypertext message that specifies whether it is looking for an HTTP or HTTPS site. The response from the server will include a message in the headline that states the HTTP format of the page along with a status code (The site itself, “file not found”, etc). The problem is that part of interacting with many sites involves entering personal information; social security numbers, credit card numbers, and more. If a site does not communicate through encrypted hypertext, any middle-man can jump in and view it like a cornerback picking off an interception.  Google’s new chrome platform is no longer allowing users to take that risk without receiving a blatant notification.

Google announced the upcoming change over six months ago, expecting responsible online business owners to act accordingly and get their site registered as secure. Why wouldn’t they? Though it began as a security measure for online banking, over 80% of the highest traffic sites on the internet now hold an SSL certificate.  Nearly 70% of Android and windows traffic is now secure while Mac and Chrome OS hold roughly an 80% rate.  Getting the picture?  If your site has not transitioned to HTTPS, not only are you endangering the cybersecurity of your customers, you also look very much behind the ball.

Depending on the sheer scale of the content, completely converting an entire website from HTTP to HTTPS can be time-consuming and intimidating. That being said, obtaining an SSL certificate by having a third party do the work for you is quite simple. A reliable SEO service should be able to assist you in this process.

When it comes to online security, the river really only flows one way and is not likely to reverse its course. American’s are more vulnerable to data theft than ever before and they look to their trusted brands to be well informed and always looking out for their best interests. To protect your customer’s security as well as their image of you, move quickly to ensure that every page of your online space is using HTTPS URLs.  Don’t show up late on this one.

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