Want to jump straight to the answer? The best online reputation management company for most people is definitely WebiMax or Podium.
In today’s digital era, an online reputation can make or break a business. This statement holds true for aspiring startups and well-established enterprises alike.
Consumers and other businesses regularly search online to learn more about your organization and brand before they consider working with you.
A positive brand image can lead to high sales, while a negative perception deters people from buying your products or services.
We’ve covered ways to improve your online reputation. But you can take this one step further by working with an online reputation management company.
These services can help you build and maintain a positive brand image as well as repair a damaged one.
The 9 Best Online Reputation Management Companies of 2021
There is a glut of online reputation management services on the market. In a saturated industry, finding the best option for your business is a challenge if you don’t know where to look.
I created this guide to help that decision. I conducted extensive research and narrowed the field to the top online reputation management companies for you to consider:
- WebiMax — Best for small businesses that need hands-on solutions
- Podium — Best for getting reviews automatically
- SEO Image — Best ORM for legal and medical practices
- Gadook — Best for rebranding after reputation attacks
- BirdEye — Best for getting Google and Facebook reviews
- Reputation.com — Best for knowing your competition’s reputation
- Go Fish Digital — Best for improving Yelp reviews
- Netmark.com — Best for hands-off, fast responses to reputation hits
Below, I give an in-depth review of each company. You will learn more about their services, features, benefits, and other considerations to make your decision easier.
Best Online Reputation Management Companies Reviews
#1 – WebiMax – The Best for Small Businesses Needing Hands-On Solutions
- Founded in 2008
- Custom strategies
- Cost-effective & confidential
- Highly intuitive
WebiMax is a digital marketing agency that specializes in reputation management for small businesses.
They stand out from the crowd because of their great customized solutions.
WebiMax creates a custom strategy for everyone. They prioritize cost-effective methods to bury negative remarks and promote a positive image.
Their process is confidential and will work under a non-disclosure agreement. So, nobody will know if you’re using a third-party service to build or repair your reputation online.
They also offer a free thorough reputation analysis to get a bead on where your brand needs help and how exactly WebiMax can help improve it.
The free reputation analysis includes:
- Timeline to achieve your goals
- Negative content report and deletion
- Positive content report
- Unclaimed profiles
- Custom price quote
All of their strategies are customized to a brand’s specific needs. You’re also not bound by a contract either. If your reputation isn’t improving with them, you can just walk away.
That can be great for small businesses with more idiosyncratic needs and need flexibility—and might not have the budget to invest in a long-term contract.
WebiMax is a top option to consider for small businesses. They have the resources, tools, and track record to deliver proven results. Visit WebiMax to learn more and get started.
#2 – Podium – The Best for Getting Reviews Automatically
- Specializes in reviews
- Works across all platforms
- Reputation management tools
- Used by 40,000+ businesses
Podium isn’t your typical reputation management company.
Instead of offering “typical” ORM offerings (e.g. trying to bury negative reviews or improving your rankings on search engines), they take a more proactive approach and use automated messaging to generate reviews for you.
For example, if a customer just purchased an item or service from you, Podium will send them a text message asking for a review. Your customer can click on a link in the text that sends them to Google, Facebook, TripAdvisor or whatever site your industry relies on. Once there, they can leave a glowing review for you.
It’s an automated way to garner reviews—and one that is actually incredibly effective. There are case studies and testimonials from Podium explaining how businesses went from 3,000 reviews to over 50,000 online reviews after using automated messaging.
With Podium, you’ll also get reviews and customer recommendations across all platforms. Whether it’s Google, Facebook, or third-party niche platforms, your businesses will be highly visible and will attract more reviews.
You can also use Podium to gather feedback from your customers. Gain insight into what your customers like and what could use improvement.
Of course, this is a pretty specific service. If you need more comprehensive rebranding or brand-building measures—or if you just want a more typical kind of reputation management—we recommend choosing a different platform.
But if you want to gain as many reviews as you can across the platforms that mean the most to your business, we would definitely recommend adding Podium as part of your overall strategy.
Click here to learn more and get started with Podium
#3 – SEO Image – The Best ORM for Legal & Medical Practices
- Custom solutions for clients
- Tailored approaches for doctors & lawyers
- Managing reputations since 2002
- Dedicated team to help w/ your specific needs
SEO Image offers—you guessed it—SEO marketing and reputation services. If you want to proactively improve your standing in the eyes of Google, they can help you out.
The firm prides itself on using ethical strategies to boost your standing on social media, search, and review sites.
SEO Image has the know-how to help your company and its needs, whether the most pressing issue is promoting positive news, rebranding your business, quelling negative connotations with your brand, gaining useful insights from reviews that are currently out there, or anything else involving your reputation.
Where they really shine is in their specific solutions for legal and medical practices. These are two industries for which SEO Image’s employees are very experienced at creating content and improving images.
They offer doctors and lawyers customized solutions for improving their online reputation. After all, no one wants to go to a lawyer with a ton of one-star reviews on Google for their legal help. And no one, especially, wants to go to a doctor with a bunch of bad reviews for their medical care.
Outside of reputation management, they also offer a suite of digital marketing solutions such as social media management and content marketing.
So, if you’d like to combine your digital marketing strategy with your brand-building strategy (and you should, because they’re pretty much one and the same), you can do so with SEO Image.
Overall, there’s a lot that SEO Image can offer you. They’ll apply their vast search engine knowledge to create a targeted, customized, and effective reputation management strategy for you. And you’ll know that you have their complete attention and effort every step of the way.
Get in touch with SEO Image today to start the conversation about your custom solution for online reputation management.
#4 – Gadook – The Best for Rebranding After Reputation Attacks
- All-in-one solution
- Brand building & protection
- Reputation Management
- Short & long term plans
Gadook stands out for their excellent brand building and rebranding solutions. This is ideal for businesses that have experienced some type of brand attack or negative publicity.
Whether you made a mistake or something happened at no fault of your own, your reputation could be damaged beyond repair. Gadook knows that and will work with you to build your reputation back up.
From a website redesign to new domain names and re-branded customer service, they’ll handle everything you need to give you business the shot in the arm it needs to bounce back after controversy.
Here’s a quick overview of what Gadook offers:
- Brand Building
- Re-branding
- Brand Protection
- Social Media Optimization
- Reputation Management
The brand protection service is another top consideration. Even if your company has a well-established reputation online, you want to make sure that it stays that way.
Gadook can respond to negative posts online and help enhance the density of positive content related to your website. This will ultimately marginalize any negative reviews.
Reach out to Gadook for your reputation repair needs.
#5 – BirdEye – The Best for Getting Google & Facebook Reviews
- Wide range of solutions
- Benchmarking & insights
- Review management
- Used by BMW & Esurance
Birdeye offers a similar service to Podium—and they’re not exactly a typical ORM, either. Instead, BirdEye helps you generate reviews of all stripes through automated systems like customized pop-ups, messages, and emails.
But, they set themselves apart from Podium with their Facebook and Google integrations.
They allow you to automatically send messages to customers on Facebook Messenger to ask for reviews. They also have a great direct integration with Google’s private API. This encourages customers to review your business directly on Google.
You’ll also be notified each time you get a new review. This helps you to swiftly follow-up with customers during a time when their engagement is at its highest.
On top of this, BirdEye offers a great personalized workflow that gives you a very solid way of visualizing and making changes to how a review is generated too.
Like Podium, they also have a survey tool that allows you to gather customer insights and feedback to improve your business.
BirdEye also offers a deep well of review management solutions such as:
- Review monitoring
- Review generation
- Review management
- Review marketing
- Listings management
- Messenger and webchat
- Surveys
- Benchmarking
- Insights
- Ticketing
If your small business doesn’t have enough online reviews or needs to get more reviews on various platforms, BirdEye should be a top choice for you.
#6 – Reputation.com – The Best for Knowing Your Competition’s Reputation
- All-in-one platform
- Uses AI and machine learning
- Mobile-first mentality
- Quality analysis & results
Reputation.com handles all aspects of online reputation management. They do this with powerful software that monitors thousands of different websites where your brand is mentioned.
They also leverage a unique algorithm for calculating your company’s reputation and giving you a score. The index is measured on a scale from 100-1,000, calculated using nine unique factors.
Your score will also show benchmarks relative to your industry and competitors. Benchmarking your business against the industry and your competitors can be extraordinarily helpful. This will help you know exactly where you are in relation to your competitors, and can better inform your marketing strategy and how to position your brand.
Reputation.com works with businesses across 77 different industries. Some of their most popular industry solutions include online reputation management for automotive, healthcare, retail, property management, hospitality, financial services, and senior living.
Some of their top online reputation services include:
- Online reviews
- Business listings
- Directory management
- Surveys
- Social suite
- Search accelerator
- Managed services for Google
They also have a great mobile app, that allows you to manage your reputation on the go. That’s not really something that we see a lot with ORMs.
Bottom line: This is a good way to know how your business and brand is performing in relation to your industry and competitors.
Catch up to your competition by reaching out to Reputation.com today.
#7 – Go Fish Digital – The Best for Improving Yelp Reviews
- Full-service marketing agency
- Brand building
- Brand repair
- Brand protection
Go Fish Digital is another full-service digital marketing company that offers a reputation management solution.
The brand reputation management solutions from Go Fish Digital can be segmented into three main categories:
- Brand building
- Brand repair
- Brand protection
But where they stand out to me is their Yelp review services. If you have lots of negative reviews on Yelp, Go Fish Digital can get them removed. They examine the possibilities for poor reviews that violate Yelp’s guidelines. Then they submit your case to Yelp on your behalf for removal.
Since Yelp only gives brands one chance to make an argument against negative reviews, you’ll definitely want the experts to handle this for you.
They also offer a very interesting Google and Bing auto-complete clean-up solution. This can be great if your business’s name is typically associated with some embarrassing keywords in search engines’ autocomplete features. They’ll help get rid of those using their three-factor targeted solution.
The team over at Go Fish Digital will come up with a custom plan and solution based on the needs of your organization. They’ll handle things like search engine improvement, Yelp and online review management, and public affairs.
Go Fish Digital allows you to track search results on a daily basis. You’ll also be able to see reviews in real-time and view all of your data on an intuitive dashboard.
Overall, Go Fish Digital is a solid choice for any business that relies primarily on Yelp for business and would like help getting rid of bad reviews.
#8 – Netmark.com – The Best for Hands-Off, Fast Responses to Reputation Hits
- Wide range of services
- Proactive approach
- Focuses on reviews
- Tons of free resources
Netmark.com focuses on reviews for building, managing, and repairing your reputation online.
The company will help you take a proactive approach to negative reviews by doing the following:
- Set up alerts to see what people are saying about your brand online
- Quickly respond to reviews (positive and negative)
- Encourage customers to write reviews
- Promote positive reviews
- Bury negative reviews
Netmark.com works fast too, with speedy responses to any reputation hits and negative reviews.
They will also make it easier and more appealing for your customers to file complaints in private. This is much better than bashing your brand on a public forum.
In addition to Netmark.com’s reputation management services, they have tons of free resources, best practices, and tips for tactics you can apply today.
Bottom line: They’re great if you want a speedy response to reputation hits.
If you need a swift counterattack to slights on your company’s reputation, head over to Netmark.com today.
How to Find the Best Online Reputation Management Company For Your Business
With so many different online reputation management companies to consider, you might be feeling a bit overwhelmed.
Not all of these will be ideal for your business, which will help you narrow your focus to just one or two top options. By using our methodology, which I’ll explain below, you’ll be able to sniff out which of our selected products fits you best.
Ethical Practices and Methods
When it comes to increasing your brand’s reputation and presence online, there are two methods—ethical and… less than ethical.
Ethical methods are techniques to increase a brand’s reputation through actions like social media monitoring, positive review management, and SEO content creation. Generally, these are proactive ways of responding to customers directly and putting more information out there which accentuates your company’s positive attributes.
Of course, we’ve only selected online reputation management services which choose these methods.
But, you should be aware of the bad actors out there, ultimately doing more harm than good by being aggressive and shady how they’ll improve your reputation.
Unethical techniques include things like trying to “trick” search engine results with keyword stuffing and link farming. They might even threaten or coerce negative reviewers to take down their reviews.
It’s a weird twist, but the online reputation management company’s reputation matters a lot, too. You don’t want to go with one that resorts to sleazy methods to “improve” your reputation.
To make sure that their methods are above board, see how transparent they are with their tactics. Speaking of which, that brings us to our next consideration…
Maximum Transparency
Make sure you know exactly what you’re getting with your ORM company.
Are their methods and techniques clear and obvious to you? Do they leave you with more questions than answers when you take a look at their offerings or following a consultation?
If a service is cagey about how exactly they’ll work to improve your online reputation, that’s a red flag.
Improving a company’s online reputation isn’t some mysterious, magical action. It takes real work by doing things that are measurable and demonstrable.
If your reputation management service can’t explain the “what” and “how” of their work for you, you’re better off finding someone who can.
All of the services we’ve chosen in our list offer clear information on how they’ll work with you to attain your reputation goals. WebiMax and SEO Image, in particular, will go the extra mile to show just how much they can do for you.
Channel-Specific Solutions
Every company has its own unique way to improve your company’s reputation online. The type of business you have and your current reputation will dictate the best option for you.
A startup company with no online presence will not need the same online reputation management provider as a well-established brand that just received some negative publicity. The same goes for your specific industry and services (more on that later).
For example, Go Fish Digital is great for Yelp reviews. This is perfect for businesses that rely on Yelp as their primary reputation driver, like local businesses, restaurants, and home and auto services.
Podium leverages omnichannel customer messaging on channels like Facebook to help create positive reviews. That’s great for service-based industries and others that have existing and potential customers contact them on a wide array of platforms.
SEO Image focuses on—you guessed it—search engine optimization and ranking well on Google. If that’s your primary means of customer acquisition, I’ll bet you would love to work with them.
Industry-Specific Expertise
Look for an online reputation management service that has experience working with similar brands to your own.
Some companies specialize in B2B or enterprise-grade organizations, while others are best for small businesses.
There are online reputation services made for specific industries that lean heavily on customer reviews, like retail, healthcare, hospitality, and automotive brands. Find a reputation manager that offers a solution for your business type because they know that industry well.
For example, Reputation.com works across 77 different industries—but they specialize in automotive, healthcare, retail, property management, hospitality, financial services, and senior living. If your business falls in any of those categories, we cannot recommend Reputation.com enough for your needs.
WebiMax, for example, will give you a free reputation analysis before you even sign up for their service. That report will explain exactly the timeline they’ll work with you on, data on your negative and positive content online, and a customized quote.
If you’re a small town business, SubmitEdgeSEO is great for local SEO services. They’ll help your rank well for searches within your area.
Conclusion
If your company is in need of an online reputation management service, use this guide to help with your decision-making process. Here’s a quick recap of the top options on our list:
- WebiMax — Best online reputation management company overall
- Podium — Best for managing reviews and customer feedback
- SEOImage — Best customized reputation management
- Gadook — Best for re-branding and reputation attacks
- BirdEye — Best for acquiring and managing new online reviews
- Reputation.com — Best algorithm for reputation scoring models
- Go Fish Digital — Best for managing and removing negative Yelp reviews
- SubmitEdge SEO — Best online reputation management for local SEO
- Netmark.com — Best for proactively monitoring reviews
No matter what type of reputation you have, these providers can help you maintain, repair, or establish your brand name.
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