The importance of Google for your company’s online reputation in 7 points

“Your brand is not what you say it is, but what Google says it is.” This sentence from Chris Anderson, former editor-in-chief of Wired, clearly shows the place Google has taken in companies’ online reputation. Since 2006, Google has become the “all-powerful” search engine, the one where you have to be seen on the first page. Here’s the proof in 7 points, in a non-exhaustive list.

1. Google, an ultra-dominant search engine

In 2014, the facts speak for themselves: 91% of French people use Google as their search engine and 46% of Google searches are made to find out about a product or a service(1).

2. The first page as a business card

When browsing the results page, most internet users don’t go beyond the first page(2). The brand’s or company’s website, a product’s website, but also results from social networks, articles, reviews, press releases, user testimonials… In a few seconds, the internet user will form an opinion about your company. Just like a business card, this first page of Google truly represents your company’s brand image. It’s what can inspire trust and appeal in the eyes of internet users. It’s also what can lead them to explore your offers and services, or send them looking elsewhere.

It is therefore important to diagnose on this first page the positive, neutral but also negative results about your company, in order to assess and improve your company’s page.

3. Google is capable of prolonging crises

Now, to understand the ranking carried out by the Mountain View firm to rank links on the first page, you need to know that Google places a lot of importance on a link’s popularity in its rankings. Links that were very popular in the past can therefore remain on the first page today.

So, while the impact of a positive article can be very beneficial, watch out for bad buzz (intentional or not). A company that has gone through a short-lived crisis can see its image “weighed down” on Google, months, or even years later.

Take the example of the meat and ready-made meals industry La Lauragaise, formerly Spanghero. The company hit the headlines in January 2013 when it was accused of horse meat fraud. This affair is very much present on Google: a link discussing this scandal still appears on the first page of Google for the query “Lauragaise”. The damage lingers over time.

Screenshot of Google’s first-page results for the query “Lauragaise”

To avoid experiencing this, it is advisable to adopt an internet communication strategy that highlights your results on the first page(3). These positive results will enhance your company’s image.

4. Google chooses the type of content it highlights in its results

In order to have positive links, a very important condition must be taken into account for ranking on the first page: content.

After the Panda algorithm, which fights against low-quality sites that invade its results, and the Penguin algorithm, which battles against low-quality links, Google has expanded its animal gallery with a new creature: Hummingbird (colibri in French). This algorithm gives pride of place to semantic fields, a search that is no longer focused solely on keywords, but also on the semantic aspect. This allows Google to associate other words with the ones provided, which makes it possible, for example, to associate a company with its products, or a singer with their songs.

For example, the e-retailer Best Buy was one of the first to enrich its search features with the possibilities offered by the semantic web in 2012, through the integration of the RDFa syntax (structured data invisible to the internet user) into the official blogs representing each of its stores. The goal: to offer more visibility on its stores’ essential data (contacts, opening hours, product prices). According to the site “Read Write Web,” quoting Jay Myers, the engineer in charge of developing the BestBuy.com website, this evolution reportedly generated 30% additional traffic to the brand’s websites, thanks to the search-engine optimization made possible by adding these semantic elements.

5. Google has its own review network

Google My Business is a tool set up by Google for organizations and companies. Simple and free, it lets you manage your online presence in Google Search and on Maps. Google My Business is very useful for showcasing your restaurant, café, boutique, store, or company. You can set your location and opening hours there. It can be fed with customer reviews. It’s important to manage the reviews left on your listing by internet users as well as you can! Google My Business is an integral part of your company’s digital identity.

6. Google can display paid keywords in the first-page results

Google also provides a tool to more easily reach the first page, with the Google AdWords advertising network. It is based on a bidding and quality system: a relevant ad will have a lower cost per click and will be more easily highlighted on the first page.

Beyond the classic purchase of keywords for the services and products sold by a company, one strategy during a bad buzz can be to buy keywords specific to the crisis. Thus, the oil company BP bought keywords corresponding to the crisis, two months after the explosion of the Deep Water Horizon platform. Having the company’s own responses in the results was, in a way, “a let-me-explain” on BP’s part. This proved to be an effective strategy.

Screenshot of the search for “oil spill” or “marée noire” on Google

7. Don’t be evil?

The search engine, but also the many tools offered by Google (AdWords, Google Alerts for monitoring, Google Trends to find out keyword trends…), thus allow companies to effectively manage their online reputation. With this in mind, the positive results shown on the first page are essential. They represent the company’s true “business card.”

Given the strong growth of the Californian giant, the collaboration between companies and Google should continue. What will Google’s policy of tomorrow be? Questioned by the Financial Times, Larry Page, co-founder and CEO of Google, admitted that the company should probably turn toward a new mission. “We’re in uncharted territory, we’re trying to understand it. How do we use all these resources… and have a more positive impact on the world?”…

Sources:

1. http://www.webrankinfo.com/dossiers/google/chiffres-cles

2. http://goo.gl/We3k3O

3. http://chitika.com/google-positioning-value