Bad reviews: A disappearing act

Like in a magic show, making a bad review disappear isn’t true magic – it’s a slight of hand! Removing a review is nearly impossible, but moving it isn’t. Let me explain…

There’s good news and bad news when it comes to online reviews. The good news is that a business can’t buy third-party reviews. The bad news is….a business can’t buy third-party reviews.

Companies like Google and Yelp have safeguards in place to ensure the accuracy of their reviews. The key is not in trying to make negative reviews disappear, but in increasing the number of good reviews. Simply said, you can’t get rid of a negative review. There is no magic trick to make them disappear. However, there are things you can do to lessen the review’s impact.

How to improve your online review reputation and bury bad reviews:

1) Actively encourage customers and clients to submit a review on a specified platform like Google and/or Yelp. If you have an existing bad review or two, have your customers submit them to that specific platform to start pushing it down the list.

2) Beef up your other online profiles. The more information you control about your company or organization online, the more likely you are to have accurate and positive information appear in a potential customer’s search results. It’s also a great way to increase your online presence. A way to do this is to create free profiles on as many relevant business directories as possible.

3) Publish original content. This can be on a blog on your website or even on LinkedIn’s publishing platform. By adding solid content to your brand on the web, you are again stacking the deck in your favor and increasing your SEO value.

4) Post consistently to your social media accounts. Again you are flooding the Internet with messages you can control, which pushes that bad rating or comment farther down the search results list, making it less and less relevant.

5) Monitor your brand online. When someone posts a negative comment, respond immediately. Try to take the complaint offline by giving he/she a direct point of contact. If you are able to solve the person’s problem, encourage them to go back and comment on how their problem had been fixed. Now, anyone landing on that review will see you reached out to them and attempted to solve the issue.

To discover where you stand in concerning your online presence, take our free online assessment. One of our specialists will inspect your information and contact you for a personal consultation at no charge. What are you waiting for? Make your bad or nonexistent online presence disappear! Contact us now!