You might think of online reputation management as something only large national and global corporations need to do, but it matters at a local level, too.
Any local business can benefit from managing its online reputation, both in terms of controlling customer sentiment to attract more business and improving local SEO to increase visibility in local search results.
What Is Online Reputation Management for Businesses?
Online reputation management deals with taking steps to actively improve a brand's reputation on the internet. This mainly involves monitoring and analyzing customer sentiment and identifying ways to act on it to optimize the business's performance and, ultimately, improve customer sentiment.
In practice, conducting sentiment analysis for local business reputation management revolves around monitoring and analyzing customer reviews, pulling out actionable feedback that can help a business get more positive reviews.
Why Online Business Reputation Management Matters for Local Brands
According to estimates, a single bad review online can deter up to 80% of potential customers from visiting or contacting a business.
As an example of the potential negative impact this can have on a local business, imagine a restaurant that receives 100 new customers a month, with an average sale price per customer of $40. That would mean the restaurant gets $4,000 in revenue each month from new customers, most of whom are probably visiting the business after finding it online.
Now, let's say the restaurant receives just one bad review from one of those 100 new customers. The following month, they could potentially drop down to receiving only 20 new customers, due to up to 80% of potential customers seeing the recent negative review online. This would mean they get $3,200 less revenue the month after the bad review.
There are various factors playing into how many positive reviews it takes to offset a bad one, including the total number of reviews a business has and its average overall review score, but estimates range from 10 or so up to about 40. So, depending on how long it takes for the restaurant to get enough good reviews to offset the bad one, it could take quite a while for them to get their revenue back up to where it was before.
But, by staying on top of sentiment and proactively taking steps to manage and improve their online reputation, businesses can reduce the impact of negative reviews and amplify the benefits of positive ones. Not only does this help keep sales high, it also provides local SEO benefits that can help local businesses increase their visibility and gain a competitive edge in the local market.
Reputation Management: Local SEO Benefits
The most important place to manage a business's reputation for local SEO is Google, or more specifically, Google Business Profile.
Google Reviews accumulated via a company's Google Business Profile play a direct role in the business's local search rankings. Google looks at how many reviews a business has and its average review score when determining where to rank that business among the competition for local search.
In general, the more reviews you have and the higher your total review score is, the higher you're likely to rank on Google. There are also secondary review factors that can influence rankings, such as review velocity (how many reviews you get each month) and review freshness (how recent reviews are).
By monitoring sentiment and implementing local business reputation management strategies, businesses can increase their rankings in local search results, helping them outrank competitors and capture a larger market share.
Tips for Local SEO Reputation Management
Ask Satisfied Customers for Reviews
One of the simplest and most effective ways to manage your online reputation is to actively ask satisfied customers to leave positive reviews.
Happy customers are often more than willing to share their good experiences if prompted, but many won't do so unless asked (customers who have bad experiences are far more likely to share them online).
Consider sending a follow-up email after a purchase or service, with a direct link to your Google Business Profile review page, making it as easy as possible for customers to leave their feedback. Or, ask customers for reviews in person and provide them with a Google Review QR code they can easily scan to leave a review from their mobile devices.
Respond to All Reviews Promptly
Responding to reviews on Google Business Profile and other relevant listing and review sites is a key online reputation management strategy.
Responding to all reviews, both positive and negative, humanizes your business and shows customers that you care about and listen to their opinions, ultimately building trust and helping manage your reputation.
In some cases, responding to a disgruntled customer and providing them with information on steps you're taking to correct the issue they experienced could even lead to them removing a negative Google Review they left.
Accept Responsibility
Whenever you engage with customers who've experienced issues with your business, either online or in person, always accept full responsibility for the problems they had.
When you get a negative review, the damage has already been done, so getting defensive or combative with the customer who left it isn't going to do anything to improve your reputation—it can only hurt it further.
As hard as it may be, always respond to unhappy customers compassionately, acknowledge fault, and share the steps you're taking to ensure customers don't experience such an issue in the future.
Address Customer Service Issues Right Away
According to a survey by Moz on the impact local business reviews have on consumer behavior, 65% of negative reviews stem from customer service issues. This might be because of slow, rude, or otherwise bad or inefficient customer service.
This makes addressing customer service issues to fix them one of the most important parts of local business reputation management.
If you fail to correct customer service issues, continued negative reviews can have a negative impact on sales that's very hard to recover from. On the other hand, if you take action to improve customer service as soon as you become aware of an issue, you can quickly offset a negative review with positive ones.
Monitoring review sentiment is so crucial to successfully managing online reputation because it allows you to quickly spot and proactively address customer service problems.
How Can You Quickly Analyze Google Reviews for Online Reputation Management?
As we already mentioned, Google Reviews are the most important source of sentiment for local businesses, and have the biggest impact on their rankings in local search results. But analyzing dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of reviews on Google Business Profile is extremely time consuming, sometimes prohibitively so.
So, how can you quickly analyze Google Reviews for reputation management? The solution is Local Falcon's AI Reviews Analysis tool, which can analyze hundreds of thousands of reviews at once for both you and your competitors, providing lightning-fast insights into customer sentiment along with actionable online reputation management recommendations.
Using the AI Reviews Analysis Tool can save businesses and local SEO professionals countless hours of time when it comes to implementing local SEO reputation management strategies, allowing them to focus on making immediate business optimization that can boost reputation and rankings.
Since you also get access to in-depth Google Review insights for competitors, you can identify opportunities to capitalize on their weaknesses and lean into your strengths, further improving your reputation and position in local search results.
Wrapping Up
Effective online reputation management is essential for local businesses aiming to improve their local SEO and attract more customers.
Utilizing tools like Local Falcon's AI Reviews Analysis Reports can streamline this process, allowing businesses to analyze vast amounts of customer sentiment and make data-driven decisions that boost their visibility and credibility in local search results.
In the hyper-competitive local market, maintaining a positive online reputation is key to standing out and achieving sustainable success!