A lot of times, no matter how you do it, the best way is to not face a poor reputation on your own. All of the steps that are necessary to begin to repair your reputation can take months to propagate across the Internet, and that’s if you do them all properly.

The one thing that is true about the Internet is that it never forgets. You can’t erase your reputation from the Internet, so don’t even try. The thing to do is to start is fix the issues internally, improve processes and start a Reputation Marketing campaign to increase your positives and reduce your negatives.

Also try to get your positive feedback to rank higher on the search engines so people come to your sites instead of the bad reviews first.

Finally, don’t do it on your own. While technically possible, it can lead to more heartache than reward, in addition to countless hours of lost time that you could have spent running your business and making your customers happy.


This leads us on to the final question, which we’ve already practically answered:

The answer to this is depends. Do you already have what it takes to repair your reputation? Do you know all of the steps involved in making sure that positive reviews aren’t erased by review sites because they are all new?

Are you prepared to invest the hours, days and weeks learning and understanding how to properly restore your reputation?

If you have the spare time and nothing more important to do, then by all means go for it! But doing a reputation repair on your own is dicey, since it requires several steps that need to be done exactly right in order for it to succeed. Hiring someone who does these things professionally can shave months off of the process; it will also ensure that the job is going to be done efficiently.

It is therefore advisable to delegate this task to an expert, who will know each step of reputation optimization by heart. Choose an provider that specializes in Reputation Marketing.

You need to ensure that you have taken the proper steps to mitigate any negative comments or reviews you have found online surrounding your business, while constantly monitoring for any new negativity surrounding your brand.

In the end, your reputation is everything. You need to protect it.

The best way to do this is to be vigilant and proactive when it comes to situations regarding unhappy customers. Give them a way to vent that frustration to you in a non-public manner. If they do take their grievance and promote it publicly, do your best to contact them and make the
situation better. Ask them questions, and do whatever it takes to make it right in their eyes (within reason, of course).

Learn from your mistakes. If you have a bad review that was really warranted, take it to heart and never let it happen again. Let that customer know that their experience has been taken seriously and that you’ll take measures to improve. Never make promises you can’t keep, however. Know your limits, and do your best to meet your customer’s expectations.

If your reputation needs a cleanup, hire a Reputation Marketing expert to help you. Don’t do it on your own. Not only does this take too long, but there’s a chance you might do something that only makes your online reputation worse. Hiring someone at the outset of your problems could also save you time and money in the long run, since you’ll be nipping some of those potential problems in the bud before they get any bigger and harder to handle.