Author: Maria

Most competitors in your industry are solid, hard-working people who are looking to get ahead by using positive methods. Advertising that boosts awareness, discounts and sales to attract new customers, and providing valuable information so that more people visit their online business.Unfortunately, there is also the trashing competitor who uses negative tactics directed against your business. From stalking you on social media platforms to denigrate you or your business to posting on public platforms while you should purchase from their company and not yours, the bad mouth competitor can be difficult to deal with while keeping a level head.

Stopping a bad mouth competitor starts by assessing what they are doing and the extent to which they are trying to undermine your business. Here are a few tips of the different actions you can take which will help lessen the effect of a competitor out to get you.

React Quickly

The longer you let the lies about your business stand, the more they will sink in to the psyche of your potential customers. You will need to react based on the type of attack that has occurred. If it is something you can respond to in a positive way, then do so. However, there are some types of attacks that you may want to leave alone, especially if they put your competitor in a lesser light than you.

Be Professional

When the other side is tossing mud at you, respond with professionalism that does not directly attack the bad-mouthing competitor. Instead, respond with class and dignity that does not return the insult, but instead addresses the situation in a way that is above board. For example, if your competitor says you overcharge for your products and are only in it for a profit, respond with a general statement about how you set your prices and why all businesses are in to make money so they can keep supplying the customer with what they need. If the competitor accuses you of false claims, take legal action.

The most important characteristic to note is that most bullies are very insecure.

By focusing on what you do instead of directly responding to the accusation, you are not only taking the high road, but also tweaking in a sense the competitor that bad mouthed you. So, stay professional always.

Explore Legal Action

You will need to know where you stand when it comes to being harassed by a bad mouth competitor. While most accusations fall within the field of fair play which means that there is little legally you can do about it, there are statements which may cross the line. It pays to know where that line is and what you can do if they go too far. You may never have to use legal action for protection, but you should know when it is appropriate.

Remember to never take a bad mouth competitor personally, because that is what they want you to do. the way to beat a trashing competitor is to stay above their level and instead promote your business efforts positively. Stopping a bad mouth competitor starts by addressing each attack promptly so that potential customers can see which one takes the high road.

If you have a clear evidence of your competitor lying about your business, you can sue them. In old days many SEO agencies talked trash about their competitors in forums. Some newbie SEO companies are not aware of change so they still do it; every successful media company has been down this ugly road. As soon as they lay off some employees, those guys bad mouth them by creating fake Twitter profiles to tweet nonsense about them.  I remember a couple of years ago a major player SEO tool company was under attack of bad mouthing competitors.Their ex-employees ( under fake names) in reddit, SEO forums, black hat forums and Twitter talked trash about the company. I replied to some of them that by using fake accounts and hurting a SEO tool company’s reputation, they are wasting their time. They didn’t listen, they kept doing it until they stopped after a few months.

My own website was under attack of negative SEO several times by jealous and frustrated competitors. Finally I designed a code to hide all my SEO activity under my server. I blocked all seo tools, backlink checker tools and put up some fake backlinks. Whoever tries to monitor my website’s SEO activity and link profile, they either see nothing or some lousy links there. Once one of them created a fake profile on Twitter with a broken English commented under one of my tweets which had nothing to do with his comment. He wrote: “you don’t know SEO.” and claimed he  sees no SEO activities on my website. I laughed and replied: I am glad my codes are working fine.

Now all these newbie SEOs think those are my backlinks. I don’t reply to bad mouth competitor, I don’t care. I know they get tired unless, they cross the line in such case I make their websites disappear from online search results. Discussing with them online is waste of my time and useless. People who follow them are not children. Negative, petty or angry energy simply isn’t attractive; it alienates, and casts a trash talking competitor in a bad light.

Trash talking competitors won’t disappear and every business has those kind of people.

The day no one is bad-mouthing you, that’s when you’ve jumped the shark and are at the precipice of your downward spiral.  You can’t control haters and it is not worth the time, cost and your energy. Focus on your prospects and clients. Who cares what they say or think.

Strategy

Many ecommerce businesses are struggling with competitors who pretend to be client and create bad reputation for them online. If things get worse I  recommend using Google RLSA ads to target anyone who searches for that competitor after visiting your site with ads countering the lies that go to a landing page explaining the truth. Google’s remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) is a feature that lets you customize your search ads campaign for people who have previously visited your site, and tailor your bids and ads to these visitors when they’re searching on Google and search partner sites.

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Bad mouthing the competition is waste of time and useless, collaborate instead and make money. Life is too short to deal with toxic people and bad mouthing competitors. Who cares what they think.Focus on your business and be a better business. Concentrate on adding value to your products or services.

 

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