THESE DAYS, A great danger lurks just a few clicks away: the online
review. By Googling your company's name, anyone can read and track your
business's performance - including missteps, poor service or
less-than-stellar products.

Protecting your company's reputation is now a 24-hour vigil. Negative
reviews - whether they're merited or not - can turn away potential
customers and vendors, and reflect badly on your company's brand.

The good news is that small-business owners can be proactive in securing
positive reviews by asking satisifed customers to share their
experiences. But what if it's already too late?

Here are the three best ways to improve your online reputation:

1. Reach out immediately to dissatisfied reviewers. Their negative
comments don't need to be the end of the conversation. Small-business
owners should attempt a dialogue, experts say, as complainers might
improve the review or take down the post. Oguz Ucanlar, president of
SpaForever LLC in Chicago, managed to turn around bad reviews on
Yelp.com by contacting the aggrieved posters. He apologized, explained
the situation and offered the reviewers discounts or a free massage. The
result? One bad review was deleted, and the spa's overall rating went
up. "I take it really seriously," he says. It also helps that Yelp now
allows business owners to respond publicly to any customer comment,
giving others a window into how the business treats its most finicky
customers.

When a bad review surfaces, an apology goes a long way, says Lisa
Barone, co-founder of Outspoken Media Inc., a Spring Hill, Fla.,
Internet marketing company. "Most people just want to be heard," she
says. "They just want to know you're listening and you care, and that
you're going to try and fix it."

Keep in mind that a negative review can sometimes be helpful. Case in
point: an online customer of Nationwide Candy LLC of Albuquerque, N.M.,
complained after she received the wrong bubblegum product. Turns out,
the candy wholesaler had posted an incorrect image on its site. "It just
casted a bad image on us," says Ken Hanson, its general manager, who
immediately corrected the error.

2. Flood search engines with content you can control. Use digital
media's reach to your full advantage, says Evan Bailyn, founder of First
Page Sage LLC, a New York search engine optimization company. Mr. Bailyn
says he often helps clients put "good publicity on top to knock bad
publicity off the first page" of search engine results. To do that, he
suggests releasing press releases through prnewswire.com or pr.com and
building Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts since these social-media
sites show up high on search results. "The overall strategy is
inundating the Google results with as much good or neutral content as
possible so that the bad seems like an anomaly," Mr. Bailyn says.

3. Appeal to bloggers to review your company or your product. Getting
others to weigh in can be an effective way to generate neutral or
positive reviews to counteract negative ones. Influential bloggers in
your niche market can bring instant credibility to a company. If you
already know bloggers in your industry, read or reach others by simply
scanning their blogrolls, a handy list (typically placed in the sidebar)
of potential contacts. Alert them to news about your product or service
as a first step in building the relationship.

While it's controversial, some business owners say they've improved
their reputations through sponsored blog posts. Netfirms Inc., a
Web-hosting company in Markham, Ontario, is paying $10,000 to
SocialSpark.com, a marketplace for paid reviewers, and to about 60
bloggers to write 200-word reviews of its new Twitter service. "The more
positive feedback that we can have, the better," says Dan Feferman, its
product specialist and community manager. Other sites to consider are
PayPerPost.com, SponsoredReviews.com and ReviewMe.com, Mr. Bailyn says.
Costs can range from $15 to $150 per posting. While some business owners
liken sponsored posts to traditional ads, keep in mind you could turn
off potential customers. To prevent that, make sure the blog post
contains a disclosure that it's a paid or sponsored review.

Write to Raymund Flandez at raymund.flandez@wsj.com