Protecting Your Most Valuable Asset: Why Reputation Management Is Crucial

Reputation Management: Control the SERP

SERPs, as you likely know, are “search engine results pages”: What Google (or your search engine of choice) delivers when you punch in “best dispensary digital marketing agency,” just to give one completely random example.

Obviously, it’s in your best interest to make sure that properties you manage—your dispensary website, any social media accounts you maintain, your GMB platform (more on this in a moment)—are showing up first.

How? That means making sure that everything you do—from blogs to landing page copy to social posts—is geared towards improving your dispensary SEO. (Need a little help with that? Just ask.)

Listen, Consider, Engage

With so many opportunities for consumers to comment on your business, keeping track of negative (and positive!) comments can feel like a heavy lift. There are tools to help you keep track of such mentions—Google Alerts is a great place to start—but even more important is what you do about them.

While it may be tempting to ignore (or tear into) a negative or unfair-seeming comment, remember that there’s a real live person on the end of it. It should be intuitive, but listening to what your customers have to say should be second nature. So should responding to them courteously and appropriately (even when our buttons have been pushed.) Stay engaged; it not only helps smooth over most customer frustrations, but maintaining a healthy presence here is also in service of your larger goal: Controlling your SEO ranking.

How? A few years ago, online reviews accounted for roughly 5% of a website’s overall SEO signals. Two years ago, that figure had tripled. In other words, what your customers say about you has an outsized impact on your reputation.

Look After Your GMB

We’ve written a good deal about Google’s free business listing platform before: What it’s for, why it’s so important, and how to make the best use of it, among other topics.  In short: If you haven’t already claimed your GMB listing, you need to make that a top priority. Once that’s accomplished, be sure to use relevant keywords in your business description to increase your chances of being found.

Slight sidebar: In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s more important than ever that you share updates about service hours, precautions, and other relevant information with your customers there. It’s one of the most effective ways we know to do some corrective PR and get out news fast.

Of course, there is a downside: Establishing a GMB presence means that you can be reviewed there. And you really have no control over those reviews. Think of it as an opportunity: Any review—positive or negative—is a chance for you to engage and show potential customers who you really are. If you respond to adversity with poise and grace, it can go a long way towards minimizing the sting of any negative comments.

Make Your Own News

Finally, we want to wrap up by reminding you of a cardinal rule of reputation management. If you’re concerned about the impact of negative comments or reviews, invite the potential for positive ones by creating newsworthy events of your own:

• Engage with your community through special events (yes, even during COVID-19, there are plenty of ways to connect).
• Make sure your efforts are aimed at everyone in your customer base (including people you might not have thought of like senior citizens).
• Brush up on the art of writing a great press release.

You can learn more about reputation management with our webinar, Star Power: Learn How to Get More Reviews & Keep a 4.7+ Rating.