Why is your reputation on the internet important? Simple, your reputation is directly effecting your sales and your business. If there are bad reviews, your clients and potential customers WILL see them.

It’s now embedded deeply into every consumer. So much so that the phrase “Google them” has become as common as any other household word. Because it’s a fact, over 75% of people admit that they do some “online diligence” prior to making any substantial purchase. What is a substantial purchase? To most it’s anything that costs more than $50.

Now, let’s take those reviews a step further, shall we?

Because those reviews that they find can be completely false, placed their by a competitor or a disgruntled ex, or angry employee and still have the exact same impact. Not important the validity, because people believe what they see in Google is the gospel, a “reverse halo effect” if you will.

It will cause them to take their business elsewhere and it will cost you the sale. If you are doing business and have negative content in the first page of the Google search results, you are losing business. PERIOD.

So how easy is it to ruin a business reputation?

Absolutely a snap. You can spend your whole life building your business and it’s reputation and have it smashed to ruins by one person in no time. Let me give you some examples of how online reputation problems destroy companies:

1. The doctor that has an angry ex-girlfriend posting on forums that he’s a “sexual deviant” and that she was “violated” during an exam.

2. The small business owner that lost a multi million dollar contract in buyout talks because they company considering the purchase found negative reviews on RipoffReport.com

3. The Microprocessor and semiconductor company that had incorrect reports about how their products harmed the environment floating around the blogosphere and costing them millions.

4. The Chinese restaurant that had it’s doors closed by a competitor posting false rumors stating the meat they served came from dead horses bought from rendering facilities.

5. The lawyer that can no longer get a client because a competing firm has created hundreds of negative pages about him that control the front page of the Google results.

6. The towing company that can no longer get new client calls because of hundreds of false complaints posted by a competitor on Yelp and local forums.

The list goes on, and on, and on. Real cases where businesses have lost money because of what consumers find online about them. No need for the content to be true, they will believe it if they read it. Which is why your online reputation is important.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Warren Buffet on reputation:

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.
~ Warren Buffett

If your business is suffering due to negative content in the search engine result pages, we can help. Call our office at 800.818.6286 for a free consultation.