At some point, every business has to deal with disgruntled or unsatisfied customers. While interactions with these customers were once limited to phone calls or in-person complaints, the nature of our online world means that negative reviews left by unhappy customers are publicly available for everyone to see, and they can have a major impact on a company’s bottom line.

Studies have shown that 84% of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations and that a company risks losing as much as 22% of their business if a there is a negative review on the first page of their search results. This means that it is incredibly important to respond quickly to negative reviews. But even if you are unable to rectify a customer’s complaint, following these reputation management tips will help you get the most out of these interactions:

1. Stay calm - It can be tempting to respond in anger and attack the person who left a negative review, but this will only make things worse. Take the time to calm down and respond rationally to the customer’s issues, even if you do not believe the review was left in good faith.

According to Google, more than 80% of people look for local information in online searches, which demonstrates the importance of providing people with the right information when they are searching for your business. In order to help businesses make sure the information they include in local listings is meeting their customers’ needs, Google recently rolled out some new features:

Updating Business Information in Google Search

Google My Business helps business owners control the information that appears for their company in Google’s search results. Google recently made updating this information easier by providing a dashboard that is accessible directly in Google’s search results.

Today, the primary way people find information is by searching for answers on Google or other search engines. It is important to rank high in search results for queries related to your area of business, which is why Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a key part of any modern marketing strategy. In Google’s search results, sites can greatly benefit from appearing in featured snippets.

What Are Featured Snippets?

Google’s standard search engine results pages (SERPs) typically feature a list of relevant pages related to a user’s search query. However, for some queries, Google SERPs also include a featured area at the top of the page that excerpts content from one of the search results and provides a quick answer to a user’s question.

New and old businesses alike often wonder how much of their overall budget should be spent on marketing. In 2019, more than $103 billion will be spent on search engine marketing, social media marketing, display advertising, and email marketing. However, most businesses do not have million of dollars to invest in digital marketing. So, just how much of your budget should you spend in this area? 

The amount you should spend on marketing depends not only on the size of your business, but your industry and business goals as well. In general, businesses that are around one to five years old should use about 12 to 20 percent of their revenue on marketing. Businesses that have been around for more than five years should use about 6 to 12 percent of their revenue on marketing. 

It has happened to the best of us. You put all of your time, resources, and creative energy into creating an amazing piece of content, hit “publish,” and then...*crickets.* If you struggle to gain traction on your content, you may need to reevaluate your content distribution and marketing strategy. Here are eight ways you can distribute your content for maximum reach:

1. First things first: create valuable content.

Your content distribution and marketing efforts will be in vain if the content is of low quality and is not engaging. Provide your target audience with content that is interesting and of value to them, and you will see a high return on investment (ROI) for your content marketing.