Bad Customer Service For Rankings
December 2nd, 2010 // 1:20 pm @ Fox
There are always people who will find ways to exploit Google and rankings. The latest to gain publicity internationally is the case of a website – DecorMyEyes.com – whose owner realised that bad feedback and negative comments were leading to his site being ranked higher than when it had good feedback.
Let’s look at why that is.
If you are happy with a company or service, you may post a complimentary comment on a blog or share the experience with your friends. However, if you have had a terrible customer experience, you will post a negative comment, tell your friends, try to warn others, go to Consumer Affairs and so on. More links, comments and posts will result from a bad experience than a good one. In Google speak, this amounts to a higher ranking.
The germ who owns DecorMyEyes.com made a career from diddling customers out of their goods, overcharging them, abusing them, and harassing them. This behaviour was good for business as people posted their bad experience everywhere, resulting in the site ranking in the top spots for many top brand names.
The full story can be found on The New York Times and is titled A Bully finds a Pulpit on the Web (free registration required).
Interestingly, the New York Times article appeared on the 26th November, and four days later, Google has posted a response on their official blog. Being bad to your customers is bad for business where they state how horrified they were to hear of this story. Google has released an algorithmic solution to this issue and claim that Google users are now getting a better experience as a result. In typical Google fashion, it is a little vague exactly what the solution is.
Presumably there are a number of attributes examined to determine a user’s ‘good experience’ from a ‘bad experience’. I hope that one bad review or comment will not decrease a site’s ranking. The best of companies can have a bad review or comment and it is not necessarily of their making.
Time will tell. No doubt there will further exploitation once the algorithm change is more apparent.
Category : SEO
Promising #1 in Google – Dodgy SEO
October 30th, 2010 // 4:55 pm @ Fox
I have written a post some time ago about SEO companies guaranteeing a #1 ranking on Google and what my thoughts are on this matter.
I caught up this week on some blogs of my favourite writers and SEO gurus, and came across this one from Ian Lurie that just says it all. It is titled Sleazy SEO sales tactics (and how to avoid them).
Not only is Ian Lurie an incredibly knowledgeable and intelligent marketer, but his posts are hilarious, tongue in cheek, and a damn good read.
Email Communications – Gaining a Subscriber List
May 29th, 2009 // 11:27 am @ Fox
A few weeks ago I posted a blog titled SPAM – Australian business and the law. I have had phone calls since then asking questions on how to obtain a mailing list.
If you wish to email a newsletter, specials and promotions, or other marketing material to a list then the best list to have is your own customers. Start collecting subscribers as soon as possible even if you are not ready to start emailing until some time in the future. By the time you are ready to send, you should have a list where the subscribers have consented to receiving your email.
For online subscriptions you will need to add an area to your website where the user can sign up:
- A text box where the subscriber enters their email address
- A checkbox with some wording such as ‘Please send me newsletters and special offers’. The checkbox must not be pre-ticked. The action of the ticking of a checkbox must be a manual process that the subscriber performs.
- A Submit button which saves the subscriber to a database maintained either by you or a third party.
Best practice dictates that an automated email is sent to the subscriber asking them to click on a link to confirm that they wish to receive the communications. There are times when a person signs up a friend so the request to confirm is a safeguard to ensure that the recipient does wish to receive the communication. It is also recommended to offer a link to your Privacy Policy so the subscriber can read your process and practices regarding protecting their private information. Of course you must let the subscriber know how they can unsubscribe from the mailing list at any time.
It is a good idea to place this subscription area on your website where it is easily seen such as the homepage, or a side column common to each page. Also add the subscribe option to any membership forms on your website. This is a good opportunity to gain a subscriber as they are already filling out a form and interested in your product or service.
You can gain subscribers offline as well. If you have a printed membership form or an offline newsletter, you can add the subscription complete with un-ticked checkbox to the form. There are a number of ways you can gain subscribers, but just be careful that you are clear about what they are subscribing to.
What if you are a new business, without a mailing list and want to email a target audience to let them know about your product or service?
You can buy a legitimate mailing list from a broker using a Pay Per Lead model. These companies will gain consent from a targeted consumer segment for your specific website to send information to them. Often the subscription is on a survey site.
There is no need to preach that you should never buy a mailing list from any other source.
Category : Email Communication &blog
Guaranteeing Search Engine Rankings
May 7th, 2009 // 6:15 pm @ Fox
I have been asked a few times lately if I guarantee first page ranking in search engines as a few competitors do.
The answer is ‘No’ and allow me to explain why this is so.
In a perfect world if a client implements every single idea I have and gives me an unlimited budget to spend, and Google never change their ranking algorithm, and if the client’s competitors do not spend much on SEO, then the chances are good that they will rank highly on the first page, maybe even #1. However, this is not a perfect world. There are always compromises with SEO, there is always a limited budget, Google continually enhance and tweak the ranking algorithm, and your competitors may be spending more than you.
Compromises with SEO include:
- A content management system that may not allow unique meta descriptions or page titles, or renaming images, or have friendly URL structures
- The client may not be comfortable using some of the suggestions for the strategy such as the use of social media, blogs or articles etc.
- Some marketing departments are very pedantic about content and will not change copy to include keywords
- I have experienced a few clients that are protective and argumentative about any shortcomings their site may have, and do not wish to make changes
Each Google update re-jigs the rankings and often includes an algorithm tweaking that shuffles competitors around including your site.
No one has control over Google or can influence the algorithm.
In this ever-changing landscape, how can anyone guarantee a particular ranking position?
Another important thing to keep in mind is that being on the first page of a search engine results page is only part of the race. Actually achieving a click-through and a subsequent conversion is another matter and a higher priority.
It would be a good idea to read the fine print on the contract regarding a guarantee. Is it within a particular time-frame? Is it subject to any conditions? Is it for one keyword only or all keywords? Who gets to choose the keywords for the guarantee, you or the provider? It is easy to rank on the first page or even for the #1 position for an obscure term such as ‘purple striped socks with braces’.
Let’s see what the experts think about guaranteeing search engine rankings.
Rand from SEOmoz is a guru in the industry. View his blog- ‘Why Reputable SEO Firms Don’t Promise Guaranteed Search Engine Rankings’ to get an idea of his views.
What do Google think of SEO providers guaranteeing search engine rankings. You can read their view here: ‘Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings …’
I will finish this post with a quote from Rand from SEOmoz that I strongly agree with:
What search engine optimization companies can & should guarantee is that they’ll provide the best advice possible to help your site earn more traffic.
SPAM – Australian Business And The Law
April 15th, 2009 // 9:52 am @ Fox
SPAM – unsolicited commercial electronic messages – that endless junk in our inbox that we try so desperately to reduce or remove.
As a business, are you guilty of adding to this global problem?
In Australia, the laws are quite clear on what you are allowed to do and what you are not. It is very important to businesses to be aware of the laws. Even the smallest company can be reported for not complying and the penalties are very steep. Although the SPAM Act 2003 covers SMS, MMS and IM, I am only referring to email in this post.
Consent
To send an email to anyone including a newsletter or brochure, there must be inferred or express consent.
Express consent – This is where a person has physically agreed to receive emails from a particular business. This consent may be given via ticking a box on a website, ticking a box on a form such as a membership application form, agreeing over the phone, handing over a business card or agreeing in person.
You cannot pre-tick a checkbox for consent on a website. The person must physically tick the box themselves.
Inferred consent – This is where there is an established business relationship. For example, if a person joins a membership based club or site, it is reasonable to expect to receive emails regarding account information, product information or emails specific to conducting a transaction. Inferred consent does not necessarily give permission to send marketing material or newsletters. It is better to gain express consent for this activity.
Conspicuous publication is when someone has publicly published their email address. In this case inferred consent is applicable. You can email this publicly published email address if the email is relevant to the person’s line of work. This does not mean you can start sending newsletters or promotional material to the address.
If in doubt about whether you are allowed to send something specific, gain express consent.
I have worked with many organisations where they say that one day they would like to send newsletters or promotional material. I ask them whether they have a subscriber list and the answer is generally, no. Don’t wait until you want to send newsletters and then realise that you don’t have a list to send to. Start now! Add a checkbox on your website form or on a paper-based membership form asking for permission. Then when one day arrives and you want to send newsletters, you have a list to work with.
Identify
Ensure your communication clearly displays the business details including:
- The name of the business, postal address, phone number, fax number, URL, email address and ABN or ACN.
- Logo if a html email
- The ‘From’ should clearly display the business name
- The reply path should be a valid email address
Clearly identifying your business will reduce the chance of the recipient or an ISP (Internet Service Provider) thinking your email is SPAM.
Unsubscribe
This is a very important function and mandatory. There must be a functional unsubscribe on every communication. This is generally placed in the footer and contains a sentence such as: ‘Unsubscribe me from the mailing list.’
This may be an email unsubscribe or one that happens through a website. The business has 5 days to ensure the person’s email address is removed from the mailing list.
Penalties are harsh for a business that fails to remove a requested unsubscribe. You would be surprised how many companies I have seen that tend to disregard this aspect, or offer the unsubscribe but then fail to remove the email address. Big No-No!
Australian Link
The SPAM Act 2003 applies to anything with an Australian link. This may be an email send that originates in Australia, a SPAM email that is received in Australia, or an offshore send to offshore recipients where the authorising business is registered in Australia.
You can read more about the SPAM Act 2003 and how it applies to business in Australia at http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_310321.
Category : Online Laws &blog
Eye Tracking and SEO vs PPC
March 6th, 2009 // 11:10 am @ Fox
According to Wikipedia:
Eye tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze (“where we are looking”) or the motion of an eye relative to the head. An eye tracker is a device for measuring eye positions and eye movements.
How can understanding eye tracking help the marketing effort?
Studies have been undertaken using eye tracking to determine how a user interacts with web pages and with search engines. The screenshot below shows a search engine results page with the darker colour where the eyes spend the most amount of time. The shape of these ‘hot spots’ is commonly termed the ‘golden triangle’.
With the user’s focus on the golden triangle, this is the place in search results where we would all like to be.
What happens to the golden triangle when we add paid advertising (PPC) to the mix?
Rand from SEOmoz has a very good post on The disconnect in PPC vs SEO spending,where he concludes that organic search drives approximately 75% of search traffic and PPC drives around 25% of search traffic, yet PPC makes up 80% of the marketing budget and SEO around 15%.
The value of SEO is quite apparent when viewing the eye tracking images above, however the value lies in being in the top 6 positions on a search results page. If you are able to achieve these top rankings then you could reasonably expect to attract a great percentage of the search traffic for your keywords.
Rand questions the logic of spending so much on PPC when SEO results are so much higher. In competitive markets it is more difficult to achieve this top ranking so many companies turn to the easy and fast solution to reach the top of the tree.
I also feel that the search behaviour of the user differs depending on what they are looking for. If I am looking to purchase a product or service then I am more likely to view the PPC ads down the right hand side of the page, whereas if I am looking for information or just ‘surfing’ then I rarely glance at the PPC ads.
Achieving a top placing in organic search results can often take time. It rarely happens overnight and rarely for a new website.
Plan A: Have a top 5 placing in organic search results
Plan B: Put a long-term plan into action to be in the top organic search results and as a short-term strategy, have one of the top placings in PPC.
Category : Eye Tracking &blog
Claim Your Business In Google Maps
February 14th, 2009 // 9:35 pm @ Fox
Do you know if your business appears in Google Maps?
Judging by the number of unclaimed businesses in Google Maps, it seems many business owners do not know that they need to claim their business.
What happens if a business is not claimed?
Before a business is claimed, the listing is open to editing by the community at large. This means that ANYONE with a Google account can edit the location of the business and add information that is not correct. This can potentially leave room for business listing to be hijacked.
This is an excellent post titled Microsoft’s listing in Google Maps Hijacked (oops by me) which discusses the possibilities of foul play with listings.
How do I know if my business is vulnerable?
When you go into the detail for the listing, you will either see ‘Provided by the business owner’ or ‘Claim your business’.
Once your business is claimed and verified by Google, it is locked and can only be edited by the authorised business owner.
Business is too important to leave these details unattended.
Category : Local Search &blog