One of the things some business owners believe about online marketing is that their Google search engine ranking results are all that matter. If they are ranking well in the search engines, they feel they do not have to worry about other factors, including their online reputation. However, this is far from the case. In fact, what is happening today may not be the same as what you can expect tomorrow. In short, this is an ongoing process you’ll need to carefully manage over a period of time.
Does a Good Ranking Protect Against Reputation Problems?
If you have good results in the search engines, either by paying for promotion or just good search engine optimization, that’s great for your business. Yet, it does not necessarily mean that your business is going to always get the client especially if you have online reputation issues. Ask yourself this. If a company you know of for doing shoddy work spends a lot of money on billboards and radio spots, do you automatically want to work with that company because they are advertising more often? In other words, consumers want and need more.
Your Results Are Always Changing
If you rely just on your search engine results to bring in customers, you’ll have numerous problems. The ultimate concern is that your ranking can change. Things like social media, news, changes in the search engine’s algorithm all can affect you very quickly. When this happens, you are still going to get customers, but it may come more from your online reputation rather than your rankings. In this case, if you have a less than ideal reputation online, you may end up with problems. The key here is to find a balance and to work towards improving your brand’s reputation.
There are many ways to do this of course. The first step is to recognize how important brand management is, especially when it comes to small businesses that do not want or need to spend a great deal of money on flashy billboards to get attention. You need quality word of mouth advertising and you need to know that your clients are going to hear good things about you when they head online to look your business up. Don’t rely on just ranking well. Work to improve your ranking as well as your online reputation on an ongoing basis to ensure clients and customers keep coming back.
