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How to Manage Your Business Reputation After the Google Penguin Update

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Steve Albright

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Online Reputation Management in the Penguin Update Aftermath

Whether you have an online or offline small business Google’s latest algorithm update, innocuously named Penguin, is something you should be paying attention to. One unintended consequence of this update is the wide open path it cleared for businesses to take control of their online reputation.

If you’re unfamiliar with this latest algorithm change, the Penguin update’s main target was sites manipulating search engine results to improve rankings. Most hit were sites that used large amounts of low quality inbound links with keyword rich anchor texts to rank for desired search terms. Another aspect to this update is the over “SEO’d” penalty that slapped sites with pages that were clearly created for SEO benefits and not users. The combined effect of these updates has been serious upheaval in Google’s search results.

So what does this mean for you and your Online business?

The benefit for your ethical business is that no matter what niche you’re in Google has most likely laid waste to a good portion of your competition.

Most obviously in the arena of branded search terms; it’s very difficult to rank for competitors’ branded terms without using some form of search engine manipulation. This means all those pesky sites siphoning off traffic from your brand name, product line, niche, etc were most likely penalized.

Another effect of the update is a great opportunity to take control of your business’s online reputation.

Here’s how …

How to Manage Your Business Reputation After the Google Penguin Update

If you’ve run a business for any amount of time you know that no matter how hard you try there’s always going to be that one person who’s not pleased with your service/product. Despite your best efforts at customer service an event like this seems inevitable.

While many small business owners disregard these rare occasions as a standard cost of doing business, it becomes a problem when complainers take their complaints online. And plenty of sites are ready and willing to post their grievances.

This becomes an even bigger problem when review sites start ranking alongside, or even above, your site. This is why you absolutely must take advantage of this window that Google has provided.
Now is the time to go on the attack and take over your niche and brand.

Meet your potential critics head on.

Here’s what to do:

  • Create pages on your site that address any impending problems your customers may have. Use Google Analytics and other search tools to dial in on specific terms that people are searching online i.e., brand name + reviews, complaints, refunds, how to cancel, support, and so on.
  • Write blog posts and feature articles about your commitment to service that intercept your customers before they start looking for these answers elsewhere, not only is that good customer service but it allows you to control the online narrative for your business.
  • Be proactive about solving problems. Instead of saying that we’re a company that doesn’t care about bad press or providing help to our customers it says we’re a tech savvy business that has taken preemptive care to make sure the customer has easy access to resources for all their pre/post purchase needs.
  • Create a feedback channel. It’s better to create an immediate channel for dialogue and resolution than being forced to address negative reviews publicly after they’ve already been posted.

This is also the best way to cleanup or prevent unfavorable first page search results. You can see that Google is on board, as most brand name search results are dominated by the companies own web properties, news mentions, and profiles. Simply put, if you have the right content on your site Google is more likely to show it first over 3rd party sites.

Ultimately, while you may not be able to purge the internet of unfavorable posts you can certainly control a large portion of your branded online real-estate just by having the right content.

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Author’s Bio:
Steve Albright is the editor of Reviewopedia.com, a product review site that helps online shoppers make smarter choices everyday.

Thank you, Steve. Online reputation is so important!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Be Your Own Digital Secret Shopper – 5 Ideas

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Rosemary O’Neill

When’s the last time you called yourself?

Go ahead, pick up your phone right now and call your business line. What happens? Is it a friendly greeting, or is it the third ring of voicemail hell?

On a roughly quarterly basis, it’s great to do a little secret shopping on yourself. It can be very revealing to step into the shoes of someone trying to get in touch with you. And you do want people to be able to reach out to you, right?

Here are 5 quick ideas for your secret shopping project:

  1. Check out your business cards. Do the URLs, email, and phone numbers work? If you have something fancy on there like a QR code, does it work correctly? Has your title changed?
  2. Log out and look at your websites. Go to a friend’s computer and look up your website, your Facebook page, other social accounts…how do they look from the “outside?” Sometimes it’s different than when you’re the account owner.
  3. Call your voicemails. If you’re still using the robot voice that came with your account, change it to something warm and professional. Unless you sell robots.
  4. Try to buy something. Go through the whole buying process for whatever you sell, as if you are a new customer. If it’s an online ordering process, take screenshots at each step, so that you can go back and update things if you need to.
  5. Put in a support ticket. If you offer customer support, put in a ticket using whatever mechanism is appropriate. Post in your own ticket system, send an email from an outside account, and/or ask a friend to Tweet for help (including an @mention of your company).

I gave this list a quick trial run, and noticed that I hadn’t ever changed my personal greeting in the company phone system!

What did you uncover?

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Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

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Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

Are Your Customer Relationship Management Skills Up to Par?

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If you see your sales numbers and return on investment (ROI) taking a significant dip as we near the midway point of 2012, perhaps it is time to give a second look to your company’s customer relationship management (CRM) skills.

Sit down and simply ask yourself as a small business owner what tactics you are employing to make the experience every one of your customers has better each time.

Among the steps that you should be employing:

  • Properly branding your product – While other companies scale back their marketing efforts when dollars get tight, others see the chance to take advantage of the tough times and gain an edge on the competition. When it comes to branding, it is more important than ever to make your product stand out;
  • Determine value to your customers – At times when consumers are concerned about their financial security as many have been in the last few years, they are in need of reassurance. Consumers are not likely to make binge purchases; many want the sense of making sensible purchases, control, security and simplicity, leading them to be more frugal when it comes to their buying habits;
  • Social media presence – Whether it is Twitter, Facebook or another venue, social media offers a great means to engage the customer and find out what they like and what they don’t. You may or may not want to employ someone in your business on a full-time basis to oversee this area, but at the least it should be attended to on a part-time basis;
  • Customer experience – Another main area to focus in on is the customer experience. Customers have a lot of options with which to choose from, so how are you going to set yourself apart from your rivals? The key here is making the customer experience worthwhile enough where they want to keep coming back time and time again. Do your employees put your customers first or are they an after-thought? Do your employees who work the phones treat the customers like they’d want to be treated, or are they short and rude with them? Finally, do your employees provide the necessary answer/s when a customer has a question about a product? Know these things and don’t take them for granted;
  • Customer rewards – Lastly, what are you doing to reward your customers for their loyalty to your business? A customer will continue to come back over and over again if they like the service and feel the prices are reasonable. It is important as a business owner to treat returning customers properly and reward them for their continued patronage, be it through special rewards programs like discounts and the like. There is a reason this particular customer came back to you for purchases, so never forget that.

Make customer relation management skills a top priority at your small business in order to better position you and your employees to reap the rewards.

Dave Thomas, who discusses subjects such as business plans templates and customer service call centers, writes extensively for San Diego-based Business.com.

Customers Who Care: Four Ideas for Inspiring Loyalty

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Anita Brady

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Quality and Service

Some rookie business owners seem to think that they can swing open their doors and the world will step inside. Others recognize the importance of marketing, but put all their effort into selling their concept while allowing their product to suffer.

Smart entrepreneurs (and their employees) know that quality and service reign supreme. It’s rare that one exists without the other. I’m recalling the TV show Seinfeld’s ‘Soup Nazi,’ an episode where people stood in long lines for soup, despite horrible service, because the product was so good. That doesn’t often happen in real life.

Likewise, the most charming salesman might sell you a bad product once, but you’ll never buy another if it breaks as soon as you get it home.

The bottom line is this: Offer a consistent, excellent product with a smile, and customers will remember and return. Fortunately, in a competitive market place, there are plenty of ways to make your business stand out from the pack. Adopt a few of these ideas and you’ll have your own line halfway around the block — just be nice to them when they get to the counter.

Introduce Yourself

Down the street from my house, a new surf-themed restaurant and tavern opened last year. Eager to try something new, I gave them a shot their first week in business. Immediately upon entering, I was faced with a crowded bar of people enjoying happy hour drinks. I was scanning the room for a table when the bartender reached his hand across the bar and greeted me, “Hi, I’m Perry. Welcome to the Wave Bar. Grab a table wherever you like.”

Perry later walked over to my table and reintroduced himself as the owner. He asked me my name and learned that I lived down the street. A few weeks later, I returned, and Perry remembered my name.

Nowadays, it’s the first place I take relatives when they come to visit. They think I’m really something when everyone waves and greets me by my first name when I walk in the door. Had I not been immediately made to feel like a valued local customer, I’d have probably returned, but not nearly as often.

Seek Out Customer Opinions

There’s a difference between an anonymous comment box by the door and actively asking your clients for feedback. Don’t get me wrong — a comment box is still a great tool — but don’t be afraid to take criticism in person as well. If someone has spent their money with you, they’re already invested in your business.

The produce manager at my local grocery store once asked me if there was anything they didn’t carry that I wished they did. I told him that I often go to a competing store, farther away, because they carried tempeh, a tofu-like meat substitute that I often use in tacos and pasta (don’t laugh). He had it in stock the next week, and I’ve hardly returned to the other store at all.

Don’t be afraid to solicit your customers’ honest advice. You may be able to tailor the services or products you offer more to their needs, and they’ll then be far more likely to return and recommend you to friends.

Reach Out on Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest give business owners an unprecedented ability to play a role in their customers’ lives. Design attractive, informative pages at each social media portal for your business, and then carve out time to visit the pages of people who ‘Like’ or subscribe to your page. Don’t be afraid to leave comments on their pages, giving them compliments and offering advice.

This shouldn’t be confused with direct marketing — although there is a place for advertising via social media, we’re talking right now about acting just as a friend would. Don’t spam your customers. Engage with them.

Say ‘Thank You’ In Every Possible Way

Your customers are far likely to return if they feel appreciated. Start with the most obvious method — give each person who makes a purchase the most genuine, thoughtful ‘Thank you!’ that you can muster. If your clients are online, a quick “We really appreciate you” email can work wonders.

If it seems appropriate, even sending handwritten notes to large clients and customers will ensure that you’re remembered. Keep a stack of stationary on hand to make this easy.

I was recently shopping at a local boutique clothing store, and after making a purchase, the proprietor handed me an invitation to a cocktail-hour and special product showing the following week. The timing was convenient for me, so I stopped in, enjoying champagne and finger food catered by the bakery next door. Guess what? I couldn’t help but buy something that day.

Let your customers know that you appreciate them, seek their input, and stay in touch. As long as your product is good, you’ll find that they’ll take pride in your business and help spread the word. What other ideas have you used for inspiring customer loyalty?

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Author’s Bio: Anita Brady is the President of 123Print.com, one of the foremost suppliers of customizable custom designed business cards and other items for small businesses and individuals. She is an industry veteran who has managed strategic marketing and other efforts for companies small and large.

Thank you, Ann. Loyalty is key to a strong business.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

I Can Show You How to Do That in Less Than 20 Minutes

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All you have to do is ask.
People say that every day.
But you ask and it doesn’t work. Why is that?

I remember when I wanted to learn how to set up an ebook, I asked and asked and asked. You might think with the group of friends and connections that I have i might have been able to find one, two, or twenty, who already had dome something like that. In fact, I did.

And I asked.

But what happened next … became 6 of the most frustrating weeks of my life.

The 7 or 8 people I asked all told me the same things …. things like

  1. what a great idea
  2. it’s easy to do
  3. I can show you how to do that in less than 20 minutes.

Then they talked about random things for over an hour and still never showed me how.

I’d see them on Twitter and say hello. We’d chat. We’d update each other on progress. I’d mention that I’d still not figured out my way through the ebook maze. And again I’d hear something like

  1. what a great idea
  2. it’s easy to do
  3. I can show you how to do that in less than 20 minutes

But they never did.

All you have to do is ask.
It’s more complicated than that. What I’ve learned since then is that

  1. people like to help people who help themselves first.
  2. when you help yourself first your questions are specific and answering them doesn’t feel like work
  3. helping someone is even more meaningful when it moves our own cause forward too.

Now, before I ask, I learn all that I can learn on my own — read all my friends and connections have written about what I’m trying to figure out. Then when I still have question I can start with

I’ve read your blog and there’s one part of this process I don’t understand. Could you help me with it? You might get an idea for a new blog post out of it. I might even offer to write that blog post in return for the advice that I’m getting.

It’s always more attractive to help someone who has started by helping herself.

Be irresistible. Help yourself first and show how helping you will move them forward too.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

What Customers Already Know about Influence and Loyalty

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Time is the New Money: 7 Crucial Truths for 2012

The silos of thinking that made our processes work were great when we were building assembly lines and factories. The spreadsheets of data that sorted our thinking were fine when we were counting dollars and doughnuts and things that didn’t think too. Fear of change, love of past success, bias that interprets history in our favor leads us to repeat and re-imprint bad or outdated behaviors in our organizational brains.

But when it came to predicting human behavior, teaching and training leaders, or bringing together teams in collaboration,

Big data has crashed through the halls of our silos.

Now through weird combinations of buying habits Target decides that we’re pregnant. For as much as they’re right, they’re wrong too. Just ask my friend who isn’t pregnant who’s getting samples from Similac.

Why don’t they just ask if it’s true? We talk to people who ask us more than we talk to people who tell us.

Find out about Influence and Loyalty

Once in the world of broadcasting, companies could control the conversation. Is it that habit of controling that keeps them secretive about asking?

The older, the larger that business has grown the harder achieving that new culture must be;
that is … they have more past success, more to lose, more to fear, fewer models of trust and collaboration.

Yet the business that will win my trust and gain my influence will be a role model, leader, learner, teacher, guide to the use of its product or service. If you want your company to embrace the social web, champion these ten roles as an action plan …

    It’s important that we recognize that customers already know …

    • Influence is more than moving people to click on an add or retweet an offer. We might do those. We might even write a blog post. Hand us a free phone and we might use it, but that doesn’t mean will carry your banner of influence.

      Want me to tell my friends about you, evangelize and spread the word to others who I hardly know? You have to be even better than your product. Understand what it means for me to put my seal on your product. I have to trust that it won’t show up broken, or break when someone first uses it. I have to know that my good experience wasn’t just a fluke. I want to know that you weren’t only extremely to me, but that you’re extremely professional to everybody.

    • Loyalty is a relationship based in trust. Lasting loyalty isn’t tied to price, points, or other forms of bribery.
      The “tools of social media and social networking” are as important, but not more important than other social tools and venues through history, such as cave paintings, paper and pencil (or crayons), print communication, the telephone, radio, television, the neighborhood bar. Loyalty is a belief that you’ll be there and be the same person even when I’m not around to see you.

    We are influenced by our friends because they are predictable. We know which ones always buy the first of everything and which buy after the sell-by date. We don’t follow the fickle ones blindly. We don’t follow the judgmental ones to places where we disagree.

    And we don’t follow people who tell us what to think without finding out who we are.

    Just yesterday, I heard someone who spends no time online talk about “companies that don’t ‘get’ it.” What she meant is that her favorite store changed a policy in a way that served themselves not their customer.

    What customers know about influence and loyalty is that we don’t like companies who are selfish.

    Are you sure you’re serving your customers?

    –ME “Liz” Strauss
    Work with Liz on your business!!