Reputation
How Can You Benefit From Removing A Ripoff Report
If you’re a business owner, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Ripoff Report. There’s also a good chance you don’t like it. Fortunately, The Reputation Management Company exists to deal with harmful websites like Ripoff Report. They can help you remove content when it’s dangerous to your business. Continue reading to learn more about how this issue impacts your business and what you can do to maintain a sterling online reputation.
What is Ripoff Report?
Created in 1998, Ripoff Report functions similarly to Yelp or Google Business Reviews, but with a twist. While most review websites allow for a broad spectrum of reviews, from the positive to the negative, Ripoff Report was created with the sole intention of hosting negative reviews.
While the website ostensibly requires its users to be truthful in their reports, there are no gatekeepers to keep out dishonest and malicious content. This means your business is at risk of being the victim of libel or defamation.
Because Ripoff Report is a popular website with an active user base, it tends to rank highly in search engine results. This is particularly bad for small and mid-sized business owners, as it’s unlikely that your business’s website and social media presence will outrank Ripoff Report. Consequently, a prospective customer’s first exposure to your business may well be a rant written by an ex-employee with a bone to pick.
Why Does Your Online Reputation Matter?
According to the World Economic Forum, a company’s brand accounts for over a quarter of its worth. With more and more business done online and consumers increasingly googling everything from restaurants to the shoe store down the block, your online reputation is your reputation.
This begs the question, where does your online reputation come from? Your online reputation is the sum of what everyone is saying about your business on the internet. This includes everyone from a reporter at the local paper to your customers, employees, and cranks who have never interacted with your business. If you don’t find the latter frightening, you should.
If they acted alone, a malicious party might have difficulty getting their rant against your business to rank high on Google or other search engines. However, the proliferation and popularity of rating websites such as Ripoff report have given these negative reviewers a platform they can use to harm your business directly. Unfortunately, removing these reviews is not easily done.
While your online reputation encompasses virtually everything about your business on the web, not all comments are given equal weight. More than 28% of Google users click on the first organic search result. The first five links combined account for over half of all clicks, and Google records virtually no clicks from the second page. This means that websites that rank high on Google will gain a lot of views.
What are the Downsides to a Negative Online Reputation?
93% of consumers report that online reviews impact their purchases, while 94% say that a negative online review has caused them to avoid a business. The reality is that consumers are not only paying attention to what’s being said online but also allowing these reviews to influence their purchasing decisions.
Not only can a negative online reputation damage your business in the short term, but negative online reviews can spill out into the real world as consumers warn their friends and family against choosing your business. A negative review doesn’t just act as a dark blot on your company’s reputation: it can actively work against more organic forms of word-of-mouth advertising.
This is why every business needs a reputation management strategy to help remove harmful content to safeguard this vital aspect of their business. If you’re struggling with creating such a strategy, bespoke reputation management firms like The Reputation Management Company exist to help.
What Steps can you take to Bolster your Company’s Online Reputation?
You can use suppression strategies to combat the negative influence of online reviews. Just as the name implies, this strategy involves suppressing negative material through the proliferation of positive or neutral websites, blog posts, and social media profiles for your business.
A quick note before you start: this is not a one-and-done strategy. To continue ranking highly in Google’s search algorithm, you will have to update your social media profiles and your company website continually, and you will need to generate new blog posts. Given the high cost of time and expertise, engaging a reputation management firm like The Reputation Management Company is not a bad idea The Reputation Management Company has the skills and experience necessary to drive a successful suppression campaign.
Social Media Platforms
Suppose you’re serious about removing a negative review from the first page of Google search results. In that case, one of the best things you can do to knock it down is to register social media accounts for your business on many different platforms. Aside from the more popular websites such as Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, you can create accounts on more niche websites such as Behance and Photobucket.
The more social media accounts you have, the more likely it is a negative review will get pushed into irrelevancy. While it may be impractically time-consuming to fill out every piece of information on each account, try at least to include a photo and your business’s pertinent information.
The photo will include your account on Google Images, and additional information will help Google index your profile. Use a professional firm like The Reputation Management Company to help build your social media presence for the removal of negative reviews.
Personal Websites
Every business needs at least one website. However, if your goal is removing an unflattering Ripoff report, then you should aim for at least three to five websites connected to your business. Make sure you use the same address used in the negative report when creating your website.
For example, if you were mentioned by name, then at least one of these websites should include your full name. This will help your website outrank the offending report, effectively helping with its removal from the first page of Google’s search results.
Blog Posts
Blog articles still hold a great deal of power in SEO strategy. A series of long-form articles of at least a thousand words each will easily overpower more stagnant content. This is also an excellent opportunity to educate your customer base about your business. If you don’t see immediate results, don’t despair. It often takes two to three months for this strategy to bear fruit. If this skill set is outside your wheelhouse, consider using The Reputation Management Company to assist in this facet of negative review removal.
Deindexing a Page
By deindexing the offending complaint, you can effect its removal from Google search results entirely. Before you go down this route, take stock of your situation. Is the complaint truthful? Is it a bald-faced lie or a matter of opinion? The less truthful and more demonstrably malicious it is, the better your chances will be.
Consider using a competent reputation management firm like The Reputation Management Company. When it comes to more complex strategies such as deindexing, expertise and experience are vital.
What Not To Do
Just as important as learning what to do is learning what not to do. When confronting a nasty online review, it’s common to want to respond directly to the offending remark.
While you might leave feeling vindicated, direct engagement with the Ripoff report will actually help it rank higher on Google search results. This is the exact opposite result you’re going for.
Making matters even worse is that your response will likely have little upside while exposing you to the risk that potential customers may find your response off-putting or unconvincing. Responding to a negative review can lend it an air of legitimacy and create a “he said she said” atmosphere.
Another understandable yet less than ideal reputation management strategy is to sue. Unfortunately, you will not be able to sue Ripoff Report for the content hosted on their website. While it may seem counterintuitive, hosting sites such as Ripoff Report and Yelp, do not bear responsibility for the content available on their website. This means you must go after the reviewer for defamation or libel.
This is an expensive and difficult strategy. Even if you take down one negative review through the courts, there’s no guarantee that another won’t appear after that. Ultimately, the considerable sum of time, money, and energy you will have to expend on a legal strategy, coupled with the likelihood of a lackluster result, makes this strategy a no-go for all but the most extreme cases.
Conclusion
Your online reputation is too valuable to ignore. With the walls between online and physical businesses falling by the day, utilizing an effective reputation management strategy is vital to the continued health of your small business. Rely on the experts to protect your company. Give The Reputation Management Company a call today.
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