How To Assess And Measure Your Online Reputation In Business

In the digital era, your online reputation is everything. The majority of modern customers use the internet as their main source of information about a business. Even if you provide a good service or are selling a good product, what people read about you online can have a massive impact on their purchasing decisions. 

So, how can you evaluate your online standing? 

Simple - by calculating your business’s online reputation score. 

What Is An Online Reputation Score?

Your business’s reputation score is the total value of your overall footprint. This number accounts for both positive and negative aspects of your brand. You can also look at it as a representation of what users see and think of your business after looking you up online.

Online reputation score is based on the quality and frequency of your reviews, with other important factors being your overall ratings compared to your competitors.

The score also consists of various data points such as the overall mentions of your brand name, as well as the search and engagement level of each of those mentions. 

How To Calculate Your Online Reputation Score

There are plenty of companies out there that can manually calculate this score. Considering the amount of factors involved, this isn’t easy and takes a lot of time and effort. While there’s no replacement for an expert, plenty of sites online can automatically calculate this score in a few seconds and only require you to enter the name of your business.

In the majority of cases, you’ll receive a report and your online reputation score will be measured on a scale of one to five (some sites use a score of 1 to 100). 

A high score generally means that you have a positive and consistent presence on the first page of search results. This is basically the whole point of reputation management - having the best information displayed front and center.

A bad score indicates there are some negative items about your business appearing in search results. These could be unfavorable comments or articles damaging your overall reputation, and in extreme cases, dominating the discourse around your company.

Sadly, even if you have one such item, it could hurt your business and lead to plenty of lost opportunities. 

What Can Harm Your Online Reputation?

Negative online reviews are typically the biggest culprit in a bruised online reputation. People hold customer feedback in high regard and they’ll look up your review pages before deciding to work with you.

Subpar social media management can ring off alarm bells too, more so if you let a comment thread go off the rails or your employee accidentally shares something unflattering on your business page. 

Another factor in your online reputation score is the consistency of information. If your business information varies between different pages and platforms, you’ll come off as unprofessional and untrustworthy, in spite of online reviewers singing your praises. 

Can You Improve A Low Online Reputation Score?

If your online reputation score is low, it’s not the end of the world. Sure, fixing something “broken” is not that easy, particularly when it comes to news articles - but it can be done. 

Bad press is often devastating, so you should invest more effort into SEO practices to slowly bury the offending article or blog post. When it comes to content such as forum posts, you can reach out to the author - a nice apology may be enough for them to remove the thread. 

Reviews are the most challenging part. Due to strict procedures (especially on sites like Google), you don’t have the ability to remove the review unless it’s spam. However, you can start managing your reviews and boosting your rating by generating new, more positive pieces of feedback. 

How To Manage Your Reviews

While you can certainly boost the number of positive reviews manually by asking your customers to leave a review, why bother? You’re probably using software to simplify and automate your other workflows, and review management shouldn’t be any different. 

Because the proper way of managing your online reviews requires you to track the discourse on a variety of different platforms, it’s simply too arduous to do so consistently without losing valuable hours going back and forth between different tabs.

On the other hand, with a tool like ReviewArm, you can automate the process of tracking your reputation and generating new reviews. 

Here’s what ReviewArm can help you achieve:

1. Track reviews on various platforms

ReviewArm’s intuitive dashboard provides all the information at your fingertips. It consolidates all the active platforms into a single window, allowing you to see what’s happening on different review sites in real time. 

2. Receive notifications

You don’t have to look at the screen 24/7 because ReviewArm notifies you whenever a user leaves a review. Since a swift response can potentially convince the customer to change their score or edit their review, the option to reply as quickly as possible is something that will immensely benefit you. 

ReviewArm also uses a powerful AI language model that analyzes the review and automatically provides a unique context-correct response, saving you even more time. 

3. Generate new reviews

The best way to improve your online reputation score is to generate new reviews. This can get tricky without software assistance as happy customers often forget to leave a review. To remind them, you have a short timing window.

ReviewArm can automatically send out review requests to customers via email or texts at a predetermined time, improving the chances of snagging that valuable customer feedback. 

Restore A Broken Reputation

Even the best businesses sometimes come under scrutiny or have to handle a reputation crisis over negative feedback. Still, the fact you can slowly repair these reputational risks through SEO and generating new, positive reviews should provide you with some comfort.

Plus, it doesn’t have to be a challenge. With ReviewArm, you can simplify the process to the extent that your panic-induced attempt to alleviate the damage will quickly turn into an attempt to take your business to new heights. 

Restore your reputation - sign up for a free trial now.