The internet has increasingly become a huge forum for online users. It enables users to post their comments on various sites and social networks. In addition, it facilitates the uploading of opinions via videos and blog posts. Naturally, the internet has become a repository for all kinds of ideas and opinions. In this scenario, businesses have no other option but to harness the powers of the internet. So, business owners need to get their websites optimised for search engines. In addition, they can opt for various Social Media Optimisation (SMO) strategies to highlight their brands positively. However, if the internet can be a boon for your business, it could just as easily become a bane too. For instance, you can use the blogs and social media networks for promoting your wares. Similarly, a disgruntled customer could use these same tools for lambasting your business as well. If you don’t step in to deal with this situation, it could easily tarnish your reputation in the online world.

This is why it’s imperative that business owners pay attention to their online reputations. For this, they will need to understand how to manage their reputations online. Some of the simplest ways by which they could accomplish this is by:

• Respond to Comments: It is unwise to cover up or bury bad comments. People will consider this as an attempt at censorship. In addition, it will not reflect positively on your company. Instead of this, respond to the negative comments instead. Apologise for the issue. If the situation warrants it, offer some form of compensation as well. This will highlight your company as one that is willing to make amends if things should go awry.
• Run a Blog: On occasions, you might not be able to respond to the complainant directly. In this scenario, refer to it in a blog and state your point of view. You could do this in your social media interactions too. Doing so would go a long way towards improving your online reputation.
• Optimise Your Website: It can be quite annoying to have negative content appearing in the first few pages of search engine results. However, this will typically indicate a problem with content optimisation on your website. Hire SEO experts to optimise your website. This will result in pushing the negative content even lower in the rankings.
• Remove Bad Links: Unlike removing negative comments, you have the prerogative of removing links to your website that you did not request. For this, you will need to contact the site owners directly. Owners of online forums usually help in removing the offending links. Another recourse you could avail of is the ‘Links Disavow’ tool on Google. This tool enables you to share the links that you want Google to ignore when it ranks your pages for certain terms.