Why Your Online Reputation Is Your Most Valuable Business Asset (And How to Monitor It)

Might be a happy customer telling their friends. Might be someone complaining on Reddit. Could be a blogger you've never heard of comparing you to your competitor.

The question is—do you have any idea?

I looked it up recently: 93% of people check reviews before they buy anything. That number stuck with me. One random negative post buried somewhere on the internet could be costing you customers and you'd never even know.

Here's the problem

You probably Google your business name every now and then. Maybe check Facebook or Instagram for mentions. Most people do.

But that misses... a lot, actually.

There are forum threads where people talk honestly because they think no one's watching. Blog posts reviewing your product that never show up in your alerts. News articles. Industry sites. Comparison posts. Random directories.

hundreds of billions of pages out there. No human can track all that.

And yeah, Google Alerts kind of sucks

I used to think I was covered with Google Alerts. Turns out it catches maybe 10-20% of what's actually being said. It misses forums, new pages Google hasn't crawled yet, smaller sites, international stuff. Basically all the places where honest conversations actually happen.

So what do you do?

The people I've seen handle this well do a few things.

They pay attention to more than just social media. They watch what people say about their competitors too, because it helps put things in perspective. When something negative comes up, they deal with it fast—before it spreads. When something positive shows up, they use it. Screenshot it. Share it. Turn it into a testimonial.

Pretty simple, but most people don't bother.

Quick reality check on mentions

Someone writes something nice about you on their blog? Great—reach out and say thanks. Maybe it turns into something.

Someone's frustrated in a forum? That's your chance to fix it publicly. People notice when businesses actually respond.

Someone listed you in a neutral comparison? Could be a chance to build a relationship with that writer.

Not everything needs a response. But you can't respond to what you don't know exists.

If you want to actually do something about this

Start by finding out what's already been said. Just get a baseline. Then set up some way to catch new stuff as it happens—not three weeks later when the damage is done. Pay attention to whether people sound happy, annoyed, or indifferent. Have a rough idea of how you'll handle each. Check back occasionally to see if things are getting better or worse.

That's really it.

Why I made this tool

I got frustrated trying to track this stuff manually. So I built something that searches across hundreds of billions of pages and shows you who's mentioned any website—and whether they seem positive, negative, or neutral about it.

You can try it free. No credit card, no commitment. Takes like 10 seconds.

See what people are saying about your site →

Want more tips on managing your online reputation? We post new stuff here every week.