What Google Means to Your Advertising and Word of Mouth

Your advertising may be what people see first, but it just sends people to the online hub of word of mouth: Google. While you may own the top several links, the rest are going to be from Wikipedia, news articles, blogs and other things you don’t control.

What to do:

• Always ask for online reviews. Google often displays reviews in search results, so make sure your biggest fans are sharing their opinions and ratings on places such as Yelp to ensure you’ve got plenty of honest, happy reviews showing up.

• Fix the negative stuff. If a negative blog post is ranking high for your search results, be sure your side of the story is in the comments. Even better: Earn the “update” blurb on the post from the original author because you fixed the issue and made it right.

• Get out there. Create blogs, communities, forums — all the stuff Google loves — so that you can earn more top results for your brand and your industry keywords.