All online businesses need a good reputation to boost their sales and profit. Positive reviews help build a strong and positive public opinion that helps drive more customers. However, these customer reviews and ratings help build a good reputation on various social media platforms.
The search engines index the links of various reviews of the online businesses and are displayed on the result pages of search engines. These reviews play a significant role in successfully promoting or determining ideas about a brand. According to research, the damage done by one negative online review can be nullified with 12 positive reviews.
Therefore, to maintain a good reputation for any brand or service provider, you must understand the concepts of online reputation management, which will help you eliminate harmful content and links and include different methods for removing bad search results from the result pages of search engines. However, this online reputation management process can be complicated depending on the number of reputation-tainting elements like fake negative reviews, fake news, misinterpretations, bad or negative links, etc.
What are negative or bad links?
The Internet has proved to be both a blessing as well as a curse for several online businesses or individuals. The Internet offers exclusive opportunities for growth and connection. However, people may misuse technology and use it to hamper your business growth. Negative links provide a chance to naughty people who want to damage the reputation of any flourishing business.
Now, you must be wondering what a negative link is. Well, a person creates a negative link on various platforms used for reviews. The person does so use his or her own credentials. This person does so intend to spoil the reputation of a particular brand or a person out of envy or fun.
It is sad to know that negative links are difficult to handle. However, it is not impossible to remove negative links from Google. You can take a few steps to keep the damage done by these negative links under your control.
To what extent can negative links cause damage?
Negative links can be harmful to your business in several ways. Most people are not aware of the different ways by which negative links pose threats to your online business. In this article, you will get to know the various ways by which negative links can be dangerous for your site or online business.
1) Negative links spread fast; hence, the damage done to online businesses gets multiplied.
Negative content and links tend to spread faster on various social networking sites than positive content. Also, negative links bring a bad reputation to the brand and have an adverse effect on the business. Therefore, negative links amplify the damage to any brand’s reputation as they get viral within no time. Even if you have a single negative link, your online business will suffer considerably. Even if there is one negative link for your online business, your brand may suffer a lot due to the quick spreading of negative links and content. People tend to repost negative reviews more as compared to positive reviews.
2) Negative links can damage the reputation of your online business or site.
Negative links have proved to be severely dangerous as far as your brand’s reputation is concerned. It is a common tendency of potential customers to look for reviews and ratings of an online business over various review platforms before going ahead to make their purchase. However, they may encounter a negative link and change their minds. These negative links will create doubts in the minds of these potential customers, who may shudder away from buying something from the site. These negative links also build mistrust and affect the reputation of online businesses. Therefore, brands may lose potential customers and may also suffer from bad losses. Hence, you must take steps to delete negative links that may spoil your business’s reputation if you want to boost your sales and grow.
3) You can lose good opportunities to promote your business and make profitable business deals because of these negative links.
As discussed earlier, negative links make potential customers doubtful whether they should buy from that business. They may step back from taking your services or purchase products from your brand. You may also lose valuable opportunities that would have otherwise resulted in huge profits because of such negative reviews. Therefore, if a single negative review about your brand gets a high rank in the Google search results, not only will your reputation be at stake, but it may also lead to the loss of good opportunities. It will prevent your business from growing and flourishing in the future. Hence, these negative links and comments need to be removed as soon as possible.
4) The brand’s reputation is put at stake even if one negative link spreads fake news or reviews about your business, and this reputation will get hampered for a long time.
Negative links will result in long-term consequences, and the brand’s image will remain spoilt for a long time unless there are enough positive reviews to neutralize the negative links. These negative links can resurface once they get published, which will put your brand’s reputation at stake for several years in the future.
5) Negative links result in a competitive disadvantage, so competitors get the upper hand, and you lag in the race to gain recognition.
If you own an online business, you must have competitors in the market who sell similar products or services to the customers. They get an advantage if negative links regarding your business go viral. So, your competitors may also use this way of using negative links to put your business at risk by publishing fake negative reviews about your services or products. This way, they can get an additional edge to boost their sales and optimize their profits.
So, you can always face such problems from your competitors, who may create negative links and content and attempt to tamper with your brand’s reputation and reduce sales.
6) Negative links also affect the SEO results adversely.
Negative links and content negatively affect a brand’s efforts to make its site SEO-friendly. Search engines prioritize content that is popular and get enough reviews. They may also popularize the negative ones if those links get enough traction. Once the negative content about your brand gets popular over the Internet, it becomes challenging to remove the negative search results. It will definitely hamper the brand’s image and decrease the number of potential buyers approaching the brand for necessary services and products.
7) Negative links also hinder the employee morale.
Negative links and content lead to a negative influence on the employees of the brand. Employees may feel demotivated and indifferent when they come across such negative views about the brand for which they have been working.
So, it is best you remove bad links from Google regarding your business so that your brand’s reputation is intact and your employees are encouraged to work.
How do you remove negative links from Google?
Negative links can cripple your online business in various ways. This article has already mentioned all the methods by which your brand may get its image ruined. However, you must also know how to deal with these negative links and content. Continue reading to learn more about the ways by which you can get rid of bad links and remove negative search results.
1) Increase positive links and content about your brand on Google so the negative links don’t get enough reach.
A way to push down the negative links in the Google search results is by increasing the number of positive links. You can do so by optimizing your site so that it takes considerable space in the Google search results. The site must have a well-designed map and good site links so that they take up space in the Google search and the ranks of negative links fall.
You may also use social media platforms to take up more space in the search results as the rank of negative links falls.
2) Contact a PR firm that can help you delete the bad links from Google to spread positivity about your brand on the Internet.
You may make these negative links irrelevant by using a press that spreads positivity about your brand. So, you can easily create a press release that upholds your brand’s accomplishments. There are multiple press release distribution services that help you share the press releases as news stories. It is definitely an effective way to deal with these negative links.
The news outlets may pick up the press release and help you fill the search engines with positive content about your brand. It will obviously put down the negative content, and visitors won’t get derailed because of them.
3) Consult a reputation management expert to help you boost your brand’s reputation, and understand if the negative reviews were legitimate.
Reputation management involves dealing with the negative links that come up in Google regarding your business. The ranks in the search results play a crucial role in dealing with negative links.
However, it is essential that you find out if the negative content is justified. If so, you must take steps to fix the products or services as per the customers’ demands. You may send products or offer services to unhappy customers to keep them content. However, suppose you find the negative content unjustified. In that case, you may contact the happy clients and request them to put genuine reviews about your brand on the Internet so that people ignore the fake negative content.
Final Words
If you want your business to grow and reach a wide range of audience, make sure that you deal with the negative links and negative content appropriately. Try out the strategies to remove negative Google search results to bring in more potential customers to your brand. You must first understand the ways by which negative links can affect your online business and contact professionals to help you deal with these damages. Experienced professionals can advise you on ways in which you can boost your brand’s reputation and get more sales. We at Boodle Web Mart are a team of professionals who have been working for more than twelve years. Our team comprises more than 120 professionals who have experience in this field. We will be glad to help your online business grow by suggesting the best ways to get rid of bad links in Google. If your competitors are spreading negative links about your brand, get in touch with us at Boodle Web Mart. We offer the best services at an affordable price so that your business gets the necessary help to flourish, and you can also optimize profits by dealing with negative content by taking our services.