This is a guest post by Jean. Since 1995 Jean has been writing professionally for an advertising agency, and as a freelance copywriter. She is an active member of her local advertising and public relations board, and spends her free time counseling friends and family on the importance of online reputation management. Follow Jean Ryan on Google+

The significance of online reputation management is now becoming a really big deal for the companies that rely on the Internet for selling their products or services, and is increasing day after day with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

A reputation, maybe good or bad, would continue to follow any business for years to come. Just one customer with a bad review can make a big impact on your bottom line, and can also mean a highly successful year, or a painful year in terms of profit.

You must understand that once your business image is tarnished, it may take a very long time before you may be able to pick up the momentum again. Drop in sales due to bad online reputation means loss of thousands of dollars for you. Though building a positive online reputation takes time, but it's definitely worth the time and efforts. When it comes to the Internet, things are always changing, with new technologies and challenges surfacing everyday, you should tread cautiously and guard your online reputation to remain ahead of your competition.


Online Exposure-A Double-Edged Sword

Though the Internet offers tremendous opportunities for growth to all types of businesses, but this exposure is also a double-edged sword. Whilst it can help them in increasing their profits, but it also makes it easy for anybody to leave negative feedback about your business, which is visible to the entire world on 24/7 basis. For this reason, online businesses should use online business reputation management company to safeguard their interests.

There could be many reasons why you should worry about your online reputation. In some cases, your competition could use social media, blogs, forums, and discussion boards to spread negative views about your business. Unsatisfied customers can leave negative feedback about you, and in most of the cases, customers who are interested in buying the kind of products you sell, will believe the previous customers and not you, and may shun your products.


Online Reputation Management-Why It's So Important?

All those who are interested in creating a branded image for their business or for themselves, the use of services offered by reputation management companies can be invaluable. These companies work tirelessly to create a considerable web presence for your company using the resources that can be easily monitored and controlled, including web 2.0 websites, syndicated articles, social media accounts, directory listings and proper management of customer's own website.

Getting Control Over Search Engine - The biggest benefit of this strategy is you will get more control over what all major search engine results will show when your company name is typed in. With effective online reputation management by specialists companies, the search engine results will show the information that you are interested in divulging, rather than adverse remarks about your business made by dissatisfied customers, or your competitors.

Regular Monitoring and Management of the Company - It involves 24/7 monitoring service to keep track of what online community is saying about the customer, on review websites, social media, blogs and forums. Company may take immediate corrective measures if something negative is found anywhere on the web.

These measures will vary depending upon what is being said, and where the review, comment, or article was posted. A reputation management company has requisite tools and experience to nip all negativity about your business in the bud before it reaches your customer base. If it is not possible to deal with the complaint directly, then online reputation management company may use SERM (search engine reputation management) to lower the ranking of the websites that contain the negative feedback.

Maintain Positive Image Online - The highly trained staff of these companies can hide all derogatory comments from the top result pages on the major search engines. Therefore, all those who will search for your website will only see things that portray the positive image of your company.

Actually, online reputation management is not a one time, but a continuous process that also requires regular monitoring. This is really essential for all those who depend on the Internet for selling their products or services.


photo by franko_44:flickr