Reputation management is one prong of digital marketing that is not so commonly talked about, especially when compared to SEO, PPC, social media marketing, and now, AI marketing.
But it is an element of digital marketing that cannot be overlooked because brand image is so closely tied up with a company’s digital footprint, especially in the modern era where such a bulk of transactions occur over the internet.
So, for better or for worse, reputation management is something with which owners of businesses of all sizes will have to wrangle.
In theory, all reputation management would consist of would revolve around adherence to solid business practices: honoring company policies, having available representatives available to handle customer concerns, and making a decent, high-quality product.
That alone should keep reviews mostly positive, with a few stragglers naturally expected here and there. Unfortunately, in the modern era, some review platforms, notably Yelp, have introduced complexities into this dynamic.
One need only spend a few minutes on Google or Reddit to uncover the slew of complaints that business owners have about the platform, a few of which I will cover in this post, as well as what you can do about it, from a digital marketing perspective.
The Problem with Yelp Reviews
For the most part, Yelp is a decent platform. It allows customers to post about their experiences interacting with a business, leaving detailed commentary in addition to an overall review out of five stars.
When businesses, and their customers, are honest and forthcoming, the system works perfectly. After all, it is one of the largest review platforms on the internet, and is widely trusted, despite some of the complaints that I am going to uncover.
Be that as it may, it is far from perfect, and one of the most common complaints from business owners is that the algorithm (however it works, I will not speculate on that) seems to disproportionately boost negative reviews.
You can test this for yourself, and don’t need to take my word for it. Look up a business you want to vet. If there are any Yelp reviews, you will see what I’m talking about. The negative ones have a habit of popping up right at (or near) the top.
Now, to a degree, this serves the ends of the customer journey. To be frank, shoppers can learn more about a business from its actual negative reviews than its positive ones, but there is a limit to this.
First, the reviews must be genuine and they must be honest. A dishonest negative review is completely useless, and just as misleading as a dishonest positive review. Second, the reviews must be shown in proportion to their prevalence. That is to say, one negative review should not overshadow a hundred positive reviews. That is unsound reasoning and statistically indefensible.
This would be problematic enough, were it not for the fact that there are an equal number of complaints from business owners that many of the reviews are either speculatively or definitely fraudulent.
Here is where things get really complicated. Not only is there no way to delete fraudulent reviews, but even if you flag an outlier, business owners have noted that Yelp tends to take the reviewer’s side.
Now, Yelp is basically a consumer advocate board, since it is for customers to leave reviews so others can learn about their experiences. That Yelp should take the consumers side would not be problematic, were it not for the facts that they give precedence to negative reviews, and that they don’t vet their legitimacy.
Either way, there is a benefit to this for consumers; we wouldn’t want businesses to take advantage of their customers and then be able to silence their reviews. That would be counterintuitive and would imbalance the power dynamic in favor of the business.
But, again, the issue is not patently this, but that there seem to be quite a number of fraudulent reviews floating around Yelp.
Even worse, some business owners have reported that Yelp has a team of salespeople that make calls, attempting to extort them for ad packages that might help obscure some of those fraudulent reviews.
Worse yet, business owners are often barred from even updating their accounts (such as to update an address). This is counterproductive as it prevents business owners from relaying updated information and can actually confuse customers.
All of this is not to flame Yelp; rather, it’s to serve as a snapshot of some of the complaints that business owners have with the review board. Don’t assume innately that what you see on Yelp is gospel. As a savvy consumer, you should naturally harbor a little bit of skepticism not just for the business whose objective is to sell you something, but for the review board that has its own modus operandi as well.
At this point, from the perspective of the business owner, we’re back at square one, which is, what can be done about those fraudulent reviews?
While you can run through the appeal process and hope for the best from Yelp, it might be more effective to improve your overall visibility independently through an effective SEO campaign, especially one that is content-forward and will improve your performance through answer engines as well.
How eCommerce SEO Services Can Help Combat Those Shady Negative Reviews
This isn’t rocket science. In fact it’s fairly basic digital marketing. The premise is, if you can’t remove negative reviews (or other listings) you can simply drown them out by overwhelming them with positive listings.
Given the current state of organic marketing, any effective SEO campaign is going to rely heavily on content, not just because of the prevalence of zero-click searches, but because of increasing reliance on answer engines that require effectively optimized content to deliver.
SEO specialists, or, if you like, generative engine optimization (GEO) specialists, will create a variety of blogs, press releases, FAQs and other CMS page copy, and in some cases (especially those with an eCommerce focus) product and category page copy that will improve your website’s overall organic visibility, not just in the search engines but in answer engines, for relevant keywords and pertinent long-tail queries.
This is one approach to online reputation management that doesn’t necessarily directly involve managing reviews. What it does is create so much positive visibility and credibility for your website that it pushes negative reviews to the margins. An intensive SEO or GEO campaign can almost literally silence negative press and reviews, even if it can’t categorically remove them from the internet.
On top of that, as your overall authority increases, there is a higher likelihood that your listings, whether on your website or on third-parties, generate such visibility that they force other negative reviews either to the bottom of page one or onto page two entirely. At a certain point, if Google determines that your reputation precedes itself and that the negative reviews are themselves discreditable, it might even further strip them of ranking.
And so, if you invest heavily in organic marketing that has an effective impact on how your website and brand in general are perceived, it can basically vie with any negative claims for primacy.
The end goal is this: you discredit negative claims regarding your website or brand and overload the internet with positive instances of interactions and claims. It’s like killing the haters with kindness, and it works.
It’s a sort of indirect marketing tactic, but the effects are positive and when diligently executed can be highly effective. If you’ve ever experienced issues with review boards and the conventional avenues for redress are leaving you out in the cold, get in touch with one of our SEO or AI experts and we will go into more detail as to how you can combat that issue.