Welcome to the second issue of ChatterBlast’s ongoing Search Experience Optimization (SXO) series!
Over the past year, AI ranking algorithms have significantly altered established norms. Previously, achieving high rankings on search engines, particularly Google, primarily involved optimizing website backends, keyword stuffing, and employing various blogging techniques. The methods for ranking were specific and solely focused on on-site optimization.
However, with the rise of AI, the landscape has changed. There are now diverse factors and management components that contribute to higher AI rankings, with reputation management being a critical element. In the past, managing negative reviews was less crucial; while Google acknowledged them as signals, they were not paramount to a page’s ranking or visibility in search results, as long as other optimization tasks were completed. With AI pulling search results in new ways, businesses must actively monitor and engage with platforms such as forums, Yelp, and Angie’s List—anywhere a business might be reviewed. It is now imperative to secure positive reviews and to respond appropriately to negative ones, ensuring a cohesive strategy for optimal ranking.
While negative reviews can significantly impact a business’s standing, it is still possible to mitigate their effect on overall ranking through proactive measures. Today, we’ll explore some strategies you can implement to make sure a business has its best shot at ranking on an AI search engine, as well as Google, through reputation management.
👍 Ask for Honest Reviews
When you’re trying to get your business noticed online, having a strong presence on different business directories is super important, even though lots of businesses don’t really pay attention to it. You might think it’s too much work or too expensive, but being listed everywhere really makes a difference. One of the biggest things that helps people trust you (and helps search engines find you!) is having real customer reviews. AI algorithms especially look for signs of trustworthiness, and a good history of customer feedback is a huge one.
Think about sites like Angie’s List and Yelp—they’re awesome places for customers to share their experiences, which helps other potential customers make smart choices about products and services. So, a great first step for any business wanting to boost its online reputation is to get listed on these and other trustworthy directories.
After you’re listed, the next big thing is to actually ask for reviews. Some companies, for example, might offer things like QR codes that lead out to review pages, or might even offer a little discount or cashback, but you’ve got to be careful. Paying for reviews can seem a bit shady, like you’re “buying” good feedback. We definitely don’t recommend those methods, even if they can get people to engage. A more natural and better way is to just make it easy for customers to leave feedback, instead of giving them paper slips that just get thrown away.
Having all sorts of reviews, from super positive to pretty negative, actually creates a more real and complete online picture of your business. While amazing reviews are obviously great, even “okay” reviews can give helpful insights and show that your business is open and honest. Negative reviews are just part of doing business; not every customer will have a perfect experience, and that’s totally fine. What really shows how much your business cares about customer satisfaction is how you respond to those critiques.
The Inevitable Negative
It’s really important to have a plan for dealing with negative feedback. That could mean setting aside specific times or having dedicated people to read and respond to all critical comments. Your responses should be understanding, acknowledging what the customer went through, and offering solutions or apologies when needed. Phrases like “We’re sorry you had that experience” or “What can we do to make this right?” show you genuinely care about making things right.
Expecting a perfect 5.0-star rating forever just isn’t realistic. Embracing the occasional negative review and proactively addressing it is an unfortunate but necessary part of good reputation management, making sure your business stays strong and believable online in the long run.
👍 👍 Reputation Management
Although it can feel like a heavy lift, a brand’s reputation can be managed by a combination of targeted SEO and digital public relations, by actively engaging with your audience as concerns arise.
Reactive Social Monitoring
Reactive social monitoring involves actively tracking mentions and responding to immediate inquiries across social media and online forums, regardless of the feedback’s nature, similar to what we discussed about reviews above.
This ties back to the idea that search and social are interconnected, because they inherently are. People find things on social and search for them, and people find brands on search, and look up their social accounts to prove they’re real. Social mentions can be categorized by whether they include a backlink (linked vs. unlinked) and whether they refer specifically to the brand (direct) or to related people like the CEO, employees, or proprietary services (indirect).
The importance of these mentions can be ranked as follows: direct, linked mentions are the most critical; direct, unlinked mentions are important; indirect, linked mentions (e.g., an employee’s profile on the company website, a proprietary service page) are impactful; and indirect, unlinked mentions are the least critical.
If someone wants to say something about your business, and truly means it, they’ll make sure you see it… and this concept goes a long way to ranking higher on traditional and AI-driven searches.
Proactive Social Monitoring
Proactive social monitoring focuses on analyzing trends and sentiment to identify opportunities or brand mentions, similar to using a sentiment analysis or social listening tool. This can lead to discovering themes for blog posts or news articles and identifying recurring questions that can be addressed in a FAQ section.
To effectively manage your online reputation beyond engaging consumers to leave reviews, cultivate collaborative relationships with reputable publishers and influencers for relevant joint opportunities. This can include influencer marketing, where influencers review and create content about your brand, and guest posting, where your CEO or prominent employees contribute articles to relevant publisher websites.
By building this collaborative content, you’re taking a page out of the old SEO handbook by building backlinks, but not just any backlinks—relevant, fresh backlinks that AI search engines use to help surface better results.
Finding communities that have their own rankings, like the ‘Top 25 Plumbers in Philadelphia’ or ‘Must-See Shops and Events in Chicago This Month’ are excellent ways to build your brand, reputation, and get some additional publicity, since many people will look at these types of resources to understand where to put their hard-earned money. If you’re stuck, put together some blogs that treat your own brand as the authority, and link out to peers or industry giants that could help you catch the wave.
For example, if your brand deals with heating and cooling services, put together an FAQ or How-To blog for a common, simple fix, and tag products your brand believes in to get the job done. Another way would be to put together a ‘Top Ten’ of your most trusted tools for the job, which could help you build great partner relationships, and even lead to some sweet deals if a brand sees traffic thanks to your blog!
👍 👍 👍 Be Authentic with Customers
Customer service extends far beyond the point of purchase, and with the advancement of AI search, it’s critical to make sure your brand is as authentic as possible. Here at ChatterBlast, we take a holistic approach to helping brands navigate reputation management.
We offer a full suite of services, ranging from proactive social monitoring and listening, to competitive and landscape audits, engagement strategy and development, crisis communications, content and sentiment analysis and much more.
If you’re looking to beef up your presence against big players, working to repair or establish reputation in a space, or are curious about how to rank better on AI search, feel free to reach out!
