The Role of SEO in Online Reputation Management: Building Trust and Visibility for SMBs
“The best place to bury a body is on the second page of Google.” This wisdom appeals to any marketing agency that offers SEO reputation management for SMBs.
Even if great reviews and endorsements about a business exist online, poor or nonexistent SEO can render that valuable content invisible. Positive information, especially coming from sources outside of a business, promotes a high ranking on Google search. This is the magic behind SEO in online reputation management (ORM).
With the right SEO and reputation management strategies, you can accentuate the positive about a business and stifle the negative. Keep reading to learn four strategies to improve the online reputation of your clients.
Table of Contents:
- What Is SEO Reputation Management?
- Why Is Reputation Management Important for SEO?
- How SEO Impacts Online Reputation Management
- Why Online Reputation Management is Crucial for SMB Clients
- 4 SEO Online Reputation Management Strategies
- 6 SEO Reputation Management Tools to Get Started With
- Best Practices for Long-Term SEO Reputation Management Success
- SEO Reputation Management with Vendasta
Help local businesses track, manage, and control their online reputation
What Is SEO Reputation Management?
SEO is the effort to bring customers and traffic to a website through the use of keywords and other search-optimization tactics to improve organic search results. It can be a highly technical process that involves optimizing website structure to allow Google to crawl and index the site.
Pro Tip: Here’s more information about how Google search indexing works. Also, here’s a helpful infographic that explains how PageRank works:
Online reputation management refers to managing online reviews and mentions of the business. Effective online reputation management ensures potential customers find the most complete information about a business online through review generation tactics and review monitoring and responding strategies.
Social monitoring and social listening are two more tactics for gauging an SMB’s online reputation. Here’s how the two differ from each other:
The infographic below explains how to calculate essential reputation management metrics: response rate and sentiment score.
Why Is Reputation Management Important for SEO?
A strong online reputation improves a business's SERP ranking because search engines, such as Google, prioritize companies that receive positive feedback from customers. According to Google Support, excellent reviews and positive ratings affect an SMB’s “prominence,” which refers to how well-known a business is in the local community.
Also, search engines take click-through rate (CTR) into account when determining SERP rankings. Reputation management directly influences CTR because, understandably, users are more likely to click on options with high ratings and positive feedback.
Search engines also focus on surfacing fresh content. If your SMB clients regularly get positive reviews, this serves as a strong trust signal, helping them rank higher in local searches.
How SEO Impacts Online Reputation Management
One of the main benefits of SEO for ORM is the ability to control what users see first in search results via Search Engine Results Page (SERP) saturation. When potential customers search for a business, they typically pay the most attention to the first few links that appear on the page.
By optimizing positive content—such as official website pages, blog posts, social media profiles, and customer testimonials—you can make sure this content appears at the top of search results. When done well, SEO can "push down" negative results to lower-ranking positions, reducing their visibility.
High-quality SEO content not only improves rankings but also enhances brand authority, which directly impacts a brand's reputation. When your client’s business regularly publishes accurate, informative, and valuable content, search engines view it as a trustworthy source. This perception extends to customers, who are more likely to trust and engage with a brand they see as knowledgeable and transparent.
Why Online Reputation Management is Crucial for SMB Clients
While major companies like Nestlé can weather the storm after reputation crises—such as their widely criticized 2010 social media incident—small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) often don’t have that luxury.
SMBs rely heavily on positive online reviews and community goodwill. Research shows that 86% of consumers read reviews for local businesses. 95% of the surveyed customers are aged 18-34.
Effective reputation management can be a key differentiator in competitive markets and significantly influence a business's long-term viability. So, how is this done?
4 SEO Online Reputation Management Strategies
1. Claim Online Profiles, Especially Google Business Profile
Here is how Google describes Google Business Profile: “With a Business Profile on Google, you can manage how your local business shows up across Google products, like Maps and Search. If you run a business that serves customers at a particular location, or you serve customers within a designated service area, your Business Profile can help people find you. Verified businesses on Google are twice as likely to be considered reputable.”
When someone searches on Google for your client’s business, the top-ranking results ideally should be controlled by the brand. This could be their website which has been optimized for SEO, online review sites, and social media profiles.
Make sure that your client is using all the social media sites available and relevant to the business, including Google Business Profile, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X.
Essentially, any property outside of the client’s direct ownership (i.e. their website) where they can still maintain and own their presence, should be claimed. Because they rank well, it’s important that businesses “own” this online real estate, to connect with customers and ultimately help with marketing the business.
It is recommended that all social profiles are active and contain a wealth of useful information for customers such as contact information and hours of operation. These profiles should also offer unique content in areas such as company descriptions to help these profiles rank better.
Google Business Profile Posts
Again, to quote Google, a Google Business Profile “helps your business show up when it matters most: the moment customers search for your business or products or services like yours on Google Search and Maps. By logging into your Google Business Profile account, you can update your address, phone number, website, open hours, and more to help customers find and connect with your business. Keep your profile updated with fresh photos, special offers, and promotions to make it easy for customers to choose you."
You should always make sure your client’s profile is claimed and updated with correct hours, payment information, and photos. It goes a long way to creating a great first impression with customers.
Then take advantage of Google Posts. These are similar to other social media posts but appear when customers find the business on Google Search or Maps. These posts have an added benefit to regular social media posts in that they allow your client to inject timely offers, events, or news right into Google search results, without waiting for indexing.
Here are some tips from Google on how to create engaging Google Posts.
Google Reviews
Since 91 percent of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, monitoring what people say about a business is crucial. This is especially true with Google reviews, which are highly visible to anyone searching for the business.
Reviews on Google appear next to the Business Profile in Maps and Search and help the business stand out on Google. While negative reviews can seldom be removed, good reputation management is just as much about handling the negative as it is about the positive customer interactions.
Take the time to respond to negative reviews to offer a good customer experience, and hopefully turn something negative into a positive for the customer.
Google Q&A
Google Q&A is a simple tool that allows Google users to ask and answer questions about a business online. It is yet another way to provide customers with useful information, right in the knowledge panel of a Google Business Profile listing.
Potential customers can ask any question they want, and Google users have the opportunity to provide meaningful, or completely bogus, answers. The information that potential customers find can have a strong impact on their decision to call or visit a business. Check out this blog for more information about Google Q&A.
Google Q&A should be monitored in the same way as online reviews. Questions and answers can be submitted by anyone, and content can be just as persuasive. It’s crucial to stay on top of Google Q&A as it’s highly visible to searchers looking for information.
2. Establish a Presence on Review Sites
Monitoring online reviews is a good practice for online reputation management and is similarly effective for SEO. Getting frequent Google Reviews and responding to them, specifically, can help improve search rankings and optimize SEO efforts.
Plus, reviews that include keywords such as menu items, products, or services are likely to show up in search results as items that potential customers may be looking for. Look at this image, below, as an example using the search term, “pad thai.”
Even if your client doesn’t have a profile claimed on Glassdoor, Urbanspoon, or other review sites, it doesn’t mean that people aren’t talking about a business. Having a system in place to generate, monitor, and respond to reviews empowers your clients to stay in control of their online reputation.
3. Build a Content Marketing Strategy Around Keywords
Do Your Research
SEO and other online tactics can shine a light on the best things about your client’s SMB. When creating new content, such as a blog or text on a company’s website, do keyword research to determine the words and phrases used by people who search for similar businesses, products, or services.
A simple Google search can be very insightful. Google the business or the main product and see what kind of content shows up in the ‘People also search for’ section. Building content around these phrases and questions can help the business appear as featured content.
Map the Competitive Search Landscape
Once you know which keywords your clients should rank for, it’s then time to do competitive research on “share of voice,” which measures how often a business is mentioned in web content and turns up in local searches, compared to competitors.
Share of voice helps gauge brand awareness, brand equity, and target audience engagement. Use this as a metric to guide your client’s content marketing strategy and measure its effectiveness over time.
Monitor Brand Mentions
Backlinks are links from external websites that point to a business's website, and they are a critical factor in search engine ranking algorithms. When reputable websites link to a business's domain, it signals to Google’s algorithm that the business is a trusted and authoritative source, which can improve search engine rankings and visibility.
Here is a comprehensive infographic that explains how domain rating is calculated:
Additionally, backlinks can drive referral traffic to a business's website, which can lead to increased brand awareness and revenue. By implementing a backlink-building strategy that focuses on earning links from reputable sources, you can improve your clients’ online reputation.
4. Build Reputable Backlinks
Backlinks are links from external websites that point to a business's website, and they are a critical factor in search engine ranking algorithms. When reputable websites link to a business's domain, it signals to Google’s algorithm that the business is a trusted and authoritative source, which can improve search engine rankings and visibility.
Additionally, backlinks can drive referral traffic to a business's website, which can lead to increased brand awareness and revenue. By implementing a backlink-building strategy that focuses on earning links from reputable sources, businesses can improve their online reputation and establish themselves as industry leaders, while also climbing the SERPs.
6 SEO Reputation Management Tools to Get Started With
The right tools make SEO reputation management easy, whether your clients want to handle their search engine reputation management themselves or they want to leave it up to your agency. Here are 6 of our favorites.
Google Alerts
By setting up Google Alerts for their brand name, products, or other relevant keywords, SMBs can monitor online mentions of their brand in real-time. This can help them to quickly identify and address any negative sentiment or misinformation, as well as track the effectiveness of their SEO online reputation management efforts.
Google Alerts can also provide businesses with valuable insights into their industry, competitors, and customer sentiment, which can be used to inform marketing and business strategies. By leveraging Google Alerts, businesses can proactively manage their online reputation and stay ahead of potential reputation risks, while gaining insights that can help improve SEO efforts.
Google Analytics
Tracking website metrics such as traffic, bounce rate, and time on site enables SMBs to gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of their SEO online reputation management campaign. For example, if a business sees a spike in traffic after responding to negative reviews or publishing positive content, it can be proof of marketing ROI.
Google Analytics can also help businesses to identify any technical SEO issues that may be impacting their online reputation, such as slow load times or broken links. By leveraging the insights provided by this free tool, businesses can continuously improve their online reputation, securing more website traffic and boosting revenue.
If you want to leverage Google Analytics for your client reporting, here’s an infographic that gives insights into what SEO KPIs to focus on for which industries:
Listing Builder
Building citations across the web is an excellent way to boost visibility and build a more positive online reputation. However, it can be a time-consuming task, and errors can be costly from an SEO perspective.
Using Vendasta’s Listing Builder makes it easy to create a large number of consistent, up-to-date citations at once in a few clicks. Businesses can also easily update their NAP data from a single dashboard and have their updates pushed out to all listings at the same time.
Reputation Management
Reputation Management from Vendasta is a white-label software that can be used to manage reviews from a single dashboard, gather AI-powered insights, track conversations across the web, and gauge competitor performance. Completely rebrandable and user-friendly, it can be used both in-house and by SMB clients to achieve SEO reputation management goals. 
- Allows to set up email alerts about new reviews
- Streamlines review responses with AI-powered response suggestions
- Automates the process of sending out review requests via email or SMS
- Leverages ML algorithms to analyze online reviews
- Calculates NPS to help gauge customers’ sentiments and allows to build automated workflows based on NPS scores
Customer Voice
Having lots of up-to-date listings is great for SEO, but for SEO online reputation management, it’s also important that those listings showcase recent, positive reviews.
Customer Voice is an SEO reputation management tool that can be used to reach customers wherever is most convenient, from their email inbox to their text messages, to request reviews. 
A cherry on top is that Customer Voice comes with built-in analytics that give up insights into the percentage of requests that were opened and clicked. This visibility is invaluable for A/B testing your review requests to discover the perfect formula for boosting the number of new reviews for your clients.
Local SEO
Vendasta has a white-label local SEO tool and platform that integrates Google Insights, providing essential data for local businesses in a single dashboard. Powered by AI, the platform recommends what keywords to target with your content marketing strategy based on local search volume and rank difficulty.
An outstanding feature of local SEO is that it comes with auto-generated, mobile-optimized local listing pages that include essential business details like address and working hours.
Best Practices for Long-Term SEO Reputation Management Success
Here are some best practices for ensuring long-term SEO reputation management success.
1. Consistent Content Updates
Search engines favor websites that consistently add new content because this keeps their message current and reinforces positive perceptions.
The content marketing strategy for your clients might cover the following topics:
- Industry trends
- Customer FAQs
- Success stories
By continuously refreshing your customers’ websites and social media profiles with valuable content, you demonstrate their commitment to staying relevant and accessible.
2. Proactive Review Management
Here are some best practices for proactive review management:
- Encouraging reviews: Politely request feedback from satisfied customers and provide easy ways for them to leave reviews.
- Responding to negative feedback: Address complaints calmly and professionally, showing both the customer and potential readers that your customer’s brand values feedback and is committed to improvement.
- Leveraging positive reviews: Highlight outstanding feedback and testimonials on your customers’ websites and social media profiles.
3. Continued Keyword Optimization
Updating keywords in the marketing content you create for your SMB clients helps ensure that search engines continue to see them as relevant and valuable.
Here are some tips for staying on top of keyword optimization:
- Monitor trends: Regularly track trending topics and phrases in your customers’ respective industries, as these can reveal keywords you may want to target.
- Update content: Revamp older content to ensure it still aligns with current SEO best practices and audience interests.
- Address customer concerns: Use keywords that reflect common questions or pain points expressed by customers, demonstrating that your customers understand and respond to their needs.
4. Engagement Across Channels
An engaged presence across various digital marketing channels helps you control the narrative around your customers’ brands and reach a wider audience.
Best practices for multi-channel engagement include:
- Social Media: Regularly post updates, share relevant content, and engage with your audience through comments and direct messages.
- Review Sites: Monitor and respond to reviews on popular sites like Google My Business, Yelp, and industry-specific review platforms.
- Business Directories: Ensure your clients’ business information is accurate and consistent across directories.
Pro Tip: Rapid progress in the field of AI makes omnichannel marketing automation possible, and you don’t want to miss out on this trend.
SEO Reputation Management with Vendasta
As evidenced above, managing a business’s online reputation can be a complex matter. Local businesses often look to an expert for help in getting a handle on their online reputation.
AI-powered reputation management software brings all the components that contribute to a business’s online reputation under one roof.
With one login, your clients get access to Reputation Management Pro, where they can manage their online reputation, including review monitoring, mentions monitoring, competitive intelligence, and Google Q&A monitoring.
Vendasta offers both managed services and self-service tools so that you can tailor your offerings to meet the specific needs and preferences of each SMB client.
If you want to offer full-service reputation management without having to fulfill it in-house, Vendasta’s white-label platform is available to deliver SEO white-label services while working under your agency’s banner. Request a demo today!
This article was originally published in March 2023 and was updated in November 2024 to include the latest information and insights.