In today’s digital environment, reputation is more important, more pervasive, more unforgettable, and more meaningful than ever before. It’s easy to neglect, abuse, reject, or shred a reputation. It’s difficult to build, sustain, protect, and enhance a reputation. It can happen in minutes, and circle the globe within hours.
How reputation works: The information that shapes it and the people who perceive it
A person or company’s reputation is based on information (of some kind or another). And every reputation is perceived by people (of some kind or another). Put information and perception together, and you’re left with a potpourri of differences, reactions, interactions, and misunderstandings in the grand arena of how reputation works.
Have you ever bought anything online without looking for customer reviews first? If you’re like most adults in the U.S, your answer should be a straight “No!”
Why does it take six months for a website to rank? We get asked this quite a bit. For the most part, it's because there is a lag time of between 10 and 20 weeks before listings start to improve in search results. The exception to the rule is viral content—if users signal content is of superior value, and they do so quickly, search listings can improve in hours. Unfortunately, not every piece of content is going to go viral.
One of the first questions we get from most of our reputation management clients is “How long will reputation management take?”. (The next question is "how much does ORM cost" of course.) Their anxiety is understandable considering that more than 80% of consumers now search Google before doing business with a company. What Google’s first page says about your business practically determines how potential clients and partners see you. And this is why determining just how long it will take to conquer that first page and secure your brands online reputation is not as simple as you might think.
Search engines, bloggers and video sites remove thousands of posts every day. Why? Knowing what can be removed, and why, can help clean up and improve how a brand is seen very quickly.
Why did your traffic just drop off? Was it a search algorithm change or was it the content of your results that changed? It's a nightmare situation when suddenly you find that you're ranking for negative search phrases appended to your brand name, like "fraud" or "scam." Prospects are fleeing.
Online reputation statistics change regularly. This guide was last updated April 2018.
Need to fix a brand or persons online reputation but don't have a lot of time? Here is a quick n' dirty ORM plan most brands can use (OK, not so dirty). It's a massively abbreviated version of the one we use at Reputation X.
Websites that are "authoritative" in their space rank much better. Google pays more attention to authoritative sites and pages. But how does a website become "authoritative"? Leverage different kinds of media to accomplish your goals.