What are people saying about you? Do you know if your business is getting rave reviews, so-so reviews or bad reviews? If you haven’t Googled yourself or read your business’s reviews, you may not know what’s being said and that could be detrimental to your business’s health.
Take some time when you’re done reading this article to do a Google search for your name and your business name. After that, set up Google alerts that will notify you when your business or your name is mentioned.
What Are People Saying About You?
There are companies that will monitor your online reputation for you, but start simple and just see what you can find about yourself on line and about what people are saying about you.
- Google yourself. Search your name and your business name. Search for the keywords you use for your business. Search for unique identifiers about your business and the goods and services you, provide.
- Set up a Google alert to track any mentions about you, your business and your goods and services. When you set up a Google alert, you receive a notification into your inbox when you’re mentioned.
- Buy your domain name. It is possible to run a business and not have paid for the business domain name, but spend the money and buy the name. If you don’t own your business or your personal domain name, someone else could register it then charge you a lot of money to buy it back. In the meantime they could hijack your name and use it for purposes for which you’d never intended.
- Spend the money and pay for your site hosting. Don’t rely on rented ground like Medium, Tumblr or Facebook. Owning your site and your domain name gives you ultimate control over the content — and your reputation.
- Claim your name/business name on social media sites. You may not utilize all of the social media platforms you claim, but doing so assures they are yours when you want or need them. Even if you’re not going to be active, claim the name and complete the profiles, and link back to your site.
It is important that you monitor your online reputation. If you find a bad review, reach out to the person who wrote it and start a dialogue. Is their bad review valid? Can you work with that person to enhance the experience about which they are complaining? Remember, you can’t please all the people all the time, but if you’re not aware of what’s being said, you will be in the dark about even trying to manage your online reputation.