When people evaluate businesses, they turn to search engines. Bad online reviews and poor press showing up in Google searches turn away searchers and hurt your bottom line, exactly as negative verbal reviews do.
You want to know if you should call Peter You want to know if you should call Peter Piper’s Plumbers to fix your sewer system. You ask 10 people. Seven of them have good things to say. Three of them have bad things to say. Do you call Peter Piper’s Plumbers – or do you look for a plumber with a consistently stellar reputation?
What to do?
Actively monitor and influence what Google knows and shows about your business. Online reputation management services remove or suppress troublesome publicity and often show results within just a few days, depending on the severity of your situation and location of the offending text. Technologically savvy business owners recognize that good online publicity and positive reviews translate into profits, or lack thereof. A one-star profile rise, for example, is said to yield a corresponding 5% to 9% increase in annual revenue, according to a 2011 Harvard Business School study. With numbers such as these, expert online reputation management is a worthwhile investment.
