Online reputation management: a practical guide for Indian businesses

Search your business name on Google. Then search it again on your phone, the way a customer would. Whatever shows up on that first screen is, for most people, your reputation.

Online reputation management (ORM) is the work of making sure that first screen is accurate and fair.

What ORM is, and isn’t

ORM isn’t about hiding the truth or buying fake reviews. That usually backfires and can break platform rules and consumer protection law.

Good ORM does three things:

• Responds properly to genuine criticism
• Fixes or removes content that is false, fake or breaks platform rules
• Builds accurate, positive content that deserves to rank

Step 1: Audit

List everything on the first two pages of Google for your brand name, your founder’s name and “brand name + reviews”. Grade each result: positive, neutral, negative or inaccurate.

Step 2: Fix what you control

• Complete your Google Business Profile with photos, hours and services
• Update your website’s about and contact pages
• Claim and complete profiles on LinkedIn, industry directories and review sites

Step 3: Respond to reviews

Reply to negative reviews calmly and quickly. Acknowledge the issue, explain what you’re doing and offer to continue offline. Future customers read the replies as much as the reviews.

Ask happy customers to leave reviews too. Most satisfied customers never think to.

Step 4: Request removals where justified

Fake reviews, defamatory claims and content that breaks a platform’s policies can be reported. Genuine criticism can’t, and shouldn’t be.

Step 5: Build positive content

Earned media coverage, expert articles, case studies and active social profiles all give search engines better results to show. This is the slowest part, and the most important.

How long does it take?

Small fixes, like reviews and profiles, show results within weeks. Pushing down a strong negative result usually takes months of consistent work.

When to get professional help

If a negative news story or viral post is hurting enquiries, or you don’t have time to manage reviews, an ORM partner can help. Here’s how we approach it.