How do you measure reputation? What does it mean when someone says your reputation is 1, or 2, or a, or any other number or variable. There is no real way to quantify your online reputation. The only metric that can be used is a scale that highlights your online reputation on a scale of 1 to 10 or a to x, or whatever scale you like using. Yet, the question remains as to how you arrive at that particular number. What makes you believe that your online reputation is a solid 6 out of 10? In SEO, a few metrics can be used to come up with a relative answer to that question. Here are a few of them.
Google Alerts: This is an easy one. By creating Google Alerts for your name, the company you work for, and other keywords that are related to your brand or personal reputation, you can keep track of your online mentions across the internet.
Mozcast: This free web app can provide insight into search engine rankings and traffic patterns over time using multiple data points such as links, mentions, social shares, etc. It provides real-time information based on what it sees happening across the internet at any given moment, so this will provide you with a rough idea about where you stand online right now compared to others.
Social media mentions: We are not talking about the number of likes and followers you have (although it may be helpful to compare yourself against your competitors). Social media monitoring tools can provide a wealth of information regarding where people are discussing your company, product, or services online. This also includes any comments that people make about your business or website on social media. Since social media directly influences most people, keeping track of your social media mentions is in your favor.
SEMrush: SEMrush is a great tool to monitor all of your online mentions. This free-to-use software also uses sentiment scores and resource authority to help you get a better understanding of your online reputation. While SEMrush comes in different packages, certain services are similar across the board. These include finding mentions and backlinks to your website, measuring estimated reach, spotting industry leaders and influencers, tracking referral mentions from various sources, identifying mention segments, and evaluating its authority.
SentiOne: No, SentiOne is not the short form of sentimental or related to it in any other way. SentiOne is an online tool that helps business owners get a solid understanding of their online reputation. This allows you to view what people are saying about your products and your brand across the internet. With SentiOne you not only get real-time data that is updated every other minute or so, but you also have access to historical data. So, if you are wondering where did that one negative mention about your brand was, SentiOne can help you locate it.
Reputology: While SentiOne and SEMrush are great tools, they don’t work much for multi-location businesses. This task is best left to, Reputology, which is a review management and monitoring platform that is designed to help multi-location enterprises to improve. This not only allows you to check on what people are saying about your business on social media but also on industry-specific sites that are related to your business. Instead of just limiting the information to your relevant industry, Reputology tracks brand mentions across several sectors.
Chatmeter: The aim of Chatmeter is simple, to collect and analyze online mentions of a company or a brand and draw metrics based upon them. The metrics are then used to draw strategies and plans to improve online mentions. This ongoing cycle helps brands stay on top of their online reputation game. Chatmeter also alerts you about new mentions depending on how often you want it to. Similar to Reputology, the tool is best used by multi-location brands.
Rank Ranger: If you do not care much about positive reviews, but want to go after negative and slanderous reviews about your brand, then Rank Ranger is what you want to get. It allows business owners to scour the internet, especially for negative reviews. In addition, it also enables you to monitor SERP changes and how reputation management tactics manage your visibility.
Meltwater: Using Meltwater feels like using a cheat code. You can use the tool to track mentions of your brand or company across the internet, including media pages. If the prime-time news mentions your brand, Meltwater will let you know. In addition, you can also use the tool to track the reputation of your competitors. What are the pages mentioning your competitors? Are they getting good reviews, or are they down in the dumps. Meltwater allows comparison between businesses and helps you understand your place in the industry.
Winning the reputation game is not something that can be done overnight or with one single solution. It’s an ongoing process of monitoring your online presence, understanding what customers are saying about you, and making changes to improve customer satisfaction.
