The right way to Select the Proper Repute Administration Company

Is reputation management important?

Research from Uberall shows that if you increase your online review star rating by 0.1, you can increase your online conversions by 25 percent. A response rate of 30 percent also increases the conversion rate by 80 percent. With reputation management, companies can continuously increase their sales over time.

However, most businesses need help.

Reputation management has changed. The industry has grown into a large and demanding service. It's too much for the average company. Bad habits like bad reviews extortion and hate trolling, plus the large volume of reviews, make it difficult for companies to keep up.

With the right reputation management agency, you can build a solid reputation and stable portfolio of reviews.

Know your goals and desired results

Review management requires a constant amount of work. A lot of people think that the point is simply to solicit lots of online reviews from customers. There's more to it than that. If you want to keep reputation management working for your company, you need to clearly understand your goals.

These goals don't have to be complicated.

You are bound to the benefits of reputation management. These benefits are focused on specific results. You can use these as sample targets. Here is an example to show you what I mean.

  • Strong reviews increase conversion rates
  • Makes your advertising cheaper
  • Makes your advertising more effective
  • Increases search engine visibility

Once you know the results that reputation management can achieve, you can use those results to create a specific list of goals for your agency.

  • A conversion of 17 percent
  • Reduce advertising costs by 20 percent
  • Increase the online rating profiles in Google search results by 30 percent
  • Use review portfolios to increase traffic by 16 percent

Here's what you'll need to help your agency set goals.

  • Benchmarking the current performance (e.g. number of reviews, traffic from review profiles)
  • set goals
  • Make a list of metrics and KPIs
  • Identify, claim, and optimize review profiles

Having this information in advance will give your agency the data it needs to set up your campaign.

4 characteristics that make a great reputation management agency

Is it easy to find an agency?

Here is a breakdown of the characteristics that make a great reputation management agency. When you review an agency, you'll want to look for agencies that display the attributes listed below. This is not a guarantee of success, but it will help you get consistent results.

1. Your service is both proactive and reactive

In the 90s, reputation management mainly focused on removing negative online content. Things have changed since then; Today, reputation management campaigns are both proactive and reactive.

Requesting online reviews from customers, creating strong review profiles, and responding to customers is a proactive way to improve your reputation. Burying toxic, inaccurate, or misleading content is a reactive strategy that, while still needed, does not provide a complete picture of online reputation management campaigns.

You want an agency that is both proactive and reactive. They can bury the content that needs to be buried, but they can also help build your reputation consistently over time. That sounds obvious, but it's not common.

Some reputation management agencies are still largely reactive.

They focus their attention on burying content. They are more proactive in the sense that they help with content creation and inappropriate content. If your agency is not proactive, you will no longer be able to respond to negative content and events as they are displayed instead of standing in front of them.

2. Campaigns are aimed at customers

Old school reputation management campaigns are aimed at critics, enemies or opponents. New school agencies focus on building positive relationships with customers. Satisfied customers are usually willing to write four- and five-star reviews. The right reputation management agency focuses on:

  • We'll help you take care of your customers
  • Request customer inquiries
  • Create reviews on the right platforms
  • Promote and increase visibility
  • Respond to unfair attacks

The right agency will boost your company's reputation, protect you from unfair attacks, and help you scale your review management campaigns. You focus their attention on taking care of your customers and inviting them to leave real feedback.

3. The reputation management is not yet completed

The reputation diminishes over time.

Consumers feel that reviews older than 3 months are not relevant or as important as new reviews. This means that reputation management must be ongoing in order to be successful.

Your agency should provide you with this ongoing service. They should provide you with the people, processes, and tools you need to properly manage your reputation. You should have a team that manages customer, publications, and press contact.

Reputation management must be consistent if it is to be successful.

4. You are experienced in local searches

Local searches grow 50 percent faster than mobile searches. This is important because online reviews are part of the local ranking factors that determine your performance on Google local search and on Google Maps. Your reputation management agency should be experienced in running and managing local search campaigns.

The easier it is to integrate local search, the better your reputation management campaigns will be.

Your agency should be able to manage your local search campaigns from start to finish. You should also be able to integrate your reputation management and local search campaigns. This isn't overly complicated, but there is still something to consider when reviewing a reputation management agency.

How to Find the Right Reputation Management Agency for You

The easiest and most efficient way to find a good reputation management company is to search for them on Google. You are looking for a reputation management company that has positive reviews, press, and mentions online. Companies with good ratings show that they practice what they preach.

This is not always an automatic win.

Agencies don't typically spend a lot of time on their website and marketing. They usually focus on the work they do for their clients. So it's not an automatic deal breaker if customers don't have positive reviews, press reports, or mentions online.

You can also use review platforms to find the right reputation management agency. Here are a few review platforms you can use to review your agencies:

Any of these review platforms can provide you with a list of agencies with good reviews.

How to work with a reputation management agency

Here is a list of the specific steps you need to take in order to be successful with your agency.

  1. Give your agency access. You want to make the settings so that your agency has access to your review profiles. You can use tools like LastPass to share your credentials with customers.
  2. Share tools and resources. If you're using third-party review management software, you'll want to provide your clients with the credentials they need to work with your agency.
  3. Work with your agency create a crisis management plan. This should determine what happens when you have a major crisis or reputational problem. This plan should cover verification bombs, verification extortion, and other crises.
  4. Clarify the legal requirements. If you have any specific instructions, rules, or requirements that discuss legality, make sure your agency knows those requirements in advance.
  5. Specify how you want to monitor your reputation. Your agency should tell you how they are monitoring your online reputation and what they will do to get more reviews. You should clarify the questions people get from customers.

These tactics are important as they show you how to work with your reputation management agency.

The top 5 reputation management agencies

You can use review aggregators like Clutch.co, HubSpot Agency Directory, Sortlist or TopSEOs to find the agency that is right for you. We've made a helpful shortlist of some of the best reputation management agencies in the business.

1. NP Digital – Best for local SEO and reputation management

NP Digital is my agency. If you are familiar with my job, you will know that I have a strong background in search engine optimization and marketing. I started an agency called Pronet Advertising more than 17 years ago when I was in high school.

I've been in search engine optimization and marketing for almost two decades! That gave me a lot of time to learn how reputation management works and how it relates to search. I took all the lessons I learned from Pronet, Quicksprout and NeilPatel.com (now) and built my agency with it.

2. ReputationX – Best for reputation recovery

While ReputationX offers both proactive and reactive services, they are definitely rather reactionary. They provide services such as SERP removal, search results suppression, DMCA removal, reputation protection, and international reputation management.

While they offer review management, this is not their primary focus.

3. Thrive – best for small business review management

Thrive is a full-service agency that provides reputation management and reputation repair services. Their services are proactive and reactive and they have experience with both the service and software side of reputation management.

As a full-service agency, they concentrate on a variety of other services. If you are looking for a full service agency, Thrive might be the one for you.

4. Reputation Rhino – Best for individuals

Reputation Rhino specializes in online reputation management. They serve small and medium businesses and individuals. Since then they have expanded to create a range of brand management and internet marketing services that they use with their main service – reputation management.

5. Reputation Defense Network – Best for Reputation Management Specialist

The Reputation Defense Network specializes in reactive reputation management. They focus on erasing negative content, protecting customer brand reputation, and identifying anonymous hackers, defamers, and attackers.

They use their 27 point removal audit to show you how to bury negative content.

Conclusion

Increase your star rating by 0.1 percent and increase conversions significantly. If you consistently respond to customer reviews, you will increase your sales by another 80 percent.

Review management takes a lot of work. A lot of people think the point is simply to solicit lots of online reviews from customers or to respond to negative feedback. There is more to it than that. With the right reputation management agency, you can build a good reputation and stable portfolio of reviews.


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