I’m sure by this point you already know that owning a positive online reputation for your business is key. No matter what your business is, managing to have a good online reputation can highly impact your business. It might seem hard to think that you need to be aware of all your social media websites in the lookout of comments and feedback from your customers; and yes, it can be hard, especially if you run a very hectic business. But, it is very important to know what people are saying about you business, if its good then you want to thank them for doing business with you; but if it was a negative review then you want to do something about the issue.

Showing interest when your customers complain about your business is very important. By showing interest, the customer will feel appreciated and will reconsider about making business with you again. So, how do you show interest? Just reply to their comment and apologize to them for the bad experience they had. Tell them that you are going to be working on improving the issue, and that you hope to see them again. It is very important that you actually work on the problem, because if they do decide to come back and they see that you did nothing about the issue, then they will surely not return again.

What if I am very busy and I can’t keep track of my online reviews?

 You can’t just ignore your online reviews. Ignoring how you or your company appears in search results and on ratings websites has arguably never been more risky. Fortunately for you there are ways that can help you out with this problem that many of us have. There is something called online reputation management software. What this software usually does is that it manages your online reviews for you and decides whether to post them on your social media sites depending on the type of review given by the customer. The software may vary depending on its provider, but that is usually the idea behind online reputation management software. There are many of these softwares that you find on the Internet. There are several things that you should remember when looking for a company to do your online reputation management.

• Weigh any negative reviews of the company more heavily than you normally would. Remember, these companies are in the business of defending and rehabilitating reputations.
• No company has the magical power to automatically remove negative reviews from the Internet.
• Consider the benefits of a service that charges monthly versus a flat-fee service. Monthly services will constantly monitor your reputation.
• It’s entirely possible that a reputation-monitoring service won’t be able to help you, so you should probably spend some time thinking if the service will really benefit your company.

These tips can help you determine between a company that will actually help you and one that just wants your money.

But it might be that you think that hiring a company is not really necessary or it simply just fit your budget. According to Entrepreneur Magazine, there are also steps you can take that can help you improve your online reputation.

Step 1: Track Your Online Presence

• Perform a search for your company name in a general search engine, such as Google or Bing. Be sure to search not only for your company’s name, but also for related keywords, possible misspellings, and phrases (utilizing quotation marks). Note any negative reviews and where your company’s Website appears in relation to them (higher or lower).
• Run site-specific searches on relevant Websites, including social media Websites such as Facebook and Twitter, review Websites.
• Search for individuals if you want to track the information available about you or your colleagues on people search engines.
• Sign up for alerts from search engines. Google Alerts allows you to track search terms by type. The service will send any new mentions of your search term to your inbox daily, weekly, or in real time.

Step 2: Address the Issues

• Read the reviews, both negative and positive. People usually spend more time reviewing services they feel strongly about, whether that feeling is love or hate.
• Contact Websites if you encounter any false or unnecessarily vindictive reviews, and request that they be removed.
• Respond to customer complaints by apologizing and offering your side of the story. Then if someone later sees the negative comment about your company, they’ll also see that you’re committed to fixing and fostering good relationships with your customers.

Step 3: Connect and Create Content

• Connect with your customers via social networking Websites. It’s not enough to have a Facebook page or a Twitter account that you post dry, business-related updates to — you have to engage your customers and help them get to know you, your business, and your brand.
• Create original content for the search engines, to displace any negative content that is currently popping up. This may take the form of anything from blog posts to informative articles to contests.

Online reputation management might seem like a full-time job, but that’s not necessarily the case. If you take the steps to instrument the general tone of your brand’s online presence and discover that you’re doing a pretty good job, retaining a professional reputation defense company to manage a couple of bad reviews makes little sense.

But in the other hand, if you’ve tried to manage your own online reputation and you see little to zero results, then it might be time for you to consider professional help. Before getting any reputation management company to manage your online reviews, make sure that their previous work is trust worthy and that they aren’t just in it for the money.