First of all the name of these websites, when they appear on a page of search results for your business name, is enough to unnerve you let alone When your business name and RipOffReport.com is in the title a Google search result page it immediately implies that you have done something wrong. When these complaint posts are resolved to the satisfaction of the consumer you will find that the post still stays up. You might infer that the end game of these websites it to have something “bad” on every business name to drive traffic to their advertising campaigns.
Second, these websites make their living off of being sensational and controversial so doesn’t expect any common courtesy or concern how a post is negatively affecting your business. The owners of these websites get daily threats and letters from lawyers but most are ignored. This can be incredibly frustrating especially when businesses could be losing hundreds or thousands of dollars a week.
Is there any protection from your competitors who decide to make false reports? Not really. If someone wants to attack there are numerous ways to defame another company anonymously. So what is a company to do when the Internet has created a soapbox for anyone to instant create a global message?
Companies need to have a strategy that includes but offensive and defense measures to control what consumers are writing about them on the Internet. The companies that are hurt the most be sites like:
are businesses that implemented a proactive Internet Reputation Management strategy in place that ensured that there were ample positive reviews on the Internet to create a balanced view of their companies and its products or services.
The defensive elements of an Internet Reputation Management would start with ensuring that your business listing is correct in all the top consumer review websites. Once this task has been completed, an email needs to be drafted that would simplify the task of your customers posting reviews on these sites.
The customer participation email would have a few versions since there are a dozen places that you will eventually want to have your reviews posted. You would not want to have only one version that shows links to 10 different review websites; it would overwhelm your customers. I would recommend that you don’t put more than 3 choices in a customer email.
Since there are about a dozen websites that should be considered for your IRM platform, your first email could link to the highest value review sites like Google Maps, Yahoo Local and Yelp. Once these websites had ample reviews posted, you could send a second version of the email to target sites like InsiderPages, CitySearch and JudysBook. The goal will be to have at least six positive reviews on the most popular public portals in your industry.
Do your research since every industry has specific high value web review properties. For car dealers that website is www.dealerrater.com. For restaurants they have a few high value sites like www.opentable.com and www.chowhound.com. So, in addition to the well known review websites don’t overlook industry specific websites.
Keep in mind that only REAL customers should be posting. Often computer IP addresses are checked when a review is posted so 10 reviews from the same IP address would most likely raise a flag and the posts removed.
Fake reviews are often easy to spot. Encourage your customers to be specific in their reviews and write about whom they dealt with in your company and what was their specific interaction with your business. In your email, ask them to close the review with their full name and the State/City they live in. By adding a name the post has an extra degree of credibility rather than a review being signed as “J. Smith”.
The offensive elements on an Internet Reputation Management (IRM) campaign will be proprietary to the firm that you hire to assist you with your specific problem. However, in effect, an Internet Reputation Management consultant will often employ highly focused SEO strategies and content publishing platforms to push these negative reviews off of page one.
If your business has not carefully review what has been written about your business on the Internet, take the time to assign that task immediately. Then formulate a company IRM policy that addresses any immediate needs and protects your business from future attacks. Ignorance in this area of Internet Marketing can be costly.
