In today’s digital world, a lot has changed, and this includes how people conduct their business because most consumers prefer online shopping than visiting a nearby physical store. This has made online business more popular than ever before. One of the main requirements for a business to succeed online is building and maintaining a good online reputation.
This means that every update a business puts out there must positively represent the brand. Techniques such as SEO and public relations can be used in managing your online reputation and stay safe. While these two are both effective in their own ways, you may want to know more about then to understand which is more effective than the other.
Public Relations And Online Reputation Management
A public relation agency will develop an effective PR strategy that will help them spread positive brand information through carefully crafted mentions about your business. Their main focus is on building your brand identity by spreading and exposing your business in a positive way to different people including the media. They ensure that right messages and stories are written and above all are spoken in the right way to avoid bringing any controversy. In case some negative news about your business reach out to the public, PR agents will prepare and publish counterbalance news and stories that are headline-shaking and therefore maintain a good online reputation. Effective communication is key when it comes PR, and that’s why the great Communications on Behrman has assisted numerous businesses in building their brand image by learning how to not only compose a selling message but also how you say it.
PR will help a business to build a positive brand image and safeguard it by diluting any negative press that could have been released to the public. This will strongly help in maintaining a good online reputation. The only disadvantage of using public relations for reputation management is the fact that most PR placements especially the paid ones do not allow follow-links that can direct a reader to contents you would wish to rank in the search results.
SEO And Online Reputation Management
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a technique that many uses to rank their contents on different search engines. This means that every content that you prepare for the company appears first on search results and this means that your brand will be more visible to the public than your competitors. You can use SEO to identify and publish positive news about your brand and build links towards this content from authoritative and trusted websites. This will improve your visibility. These websites include Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and your own website among others. They will always hold the top positions in search results and thus prevent negative news from appearing first. Since the technique uses the art of keyword identification and effective use, you might consider working with a digital marketing company to help you apply SEO in the right way.
Publishing more positive news that is easily visible to the public will always dilute the few or any negative news about your brand, and this serves as a great way to manage and maintain a good online reputation. The only challenge of using SEO is applying it in the wrong way because it will either not work as you expected or will work against you. Also, SEO is more concerned with getting more content to rank on search engine and less on building your brand image.
So, Which Is Preferably Better Between SEO And Public Relations?
It is obvious that both techniques have their strong points and few drawbacks and the fact is that each technique is doing its part in managing online reputation. Since PR and SEO are applying different measures, it would be more effective to apply them both simultaneously rather than choosing one to manage your online reputation. This way, the two techniques will complement each other because public relation will help to develop compelling contents that will shift peoples’ brand opinions and SEO will ensure that this content is ranked at the top in search engines. You only need to get a balance between the two, and your online reputation campaigns will always be successful.
