Archive for the ‘Tutorials’ Category
How to Avoid Customer Complaints on Social Media
Posted by Jubran Moe on February 23rd, 2011
How to Prevent and Address Customer Complaints on Social Media
by: Mohammad Jubran
Social media is a powerful life force, not only changing the culture of social interaction for entertainment purposes, but impacting the business arena as well. An organization’s success can soar with the right exposure on Twitter, LinkedIn and other public channels. However, it is also necessary to learn how to deal with negative online sentiment about your brand.
Gone are the days when criticism from a disgruntled customer can simply be routed to the complaint department and placed in the circular file. Tweets cannot be drowned out quite so easily. The good news is that customer service delivery is finally getting some well-deserved attention. The downside is the viral manner in which bad news spreads on social media when you do not know how to deal with negative online sentiment about your brand.
Ben Franklin’s quote, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, rings true for customer satisfaction. Issues occur when management is driving external customer service without unifying internal processes. When technological systems do not talk to each other and customer service delivery is inconsistent, a disconnect results which ultimately reaches the consumer. In the traditional environment, being re-routed to an 800 number when issuing a complaint is bad enough, but having to repeat the story is intolerable. Consider how information disseminates on a social network and it is clear that negative feedback can increase exponentially.
Consumer comments, whether positive or negative, require an expedient response. Positive comments should be acknowledged in the public arena so that negative comments are not the only verbiage to surface. Respond publicly to negative feedback as well, but reserve the exchange of details for an offline discussion. For the framework of the conversation, SEA is an acronym which stands for shock, empathy and action. Express shock that this incident occurred, demonstrate understanding of their reaction, and outline the corrective measures to be taken. These measures should be definitive and followed through to closure.
Grievances are inevitable but, in the end, your brand will be assessed more by the organization’s reaction to the incident than the event itself. Allegiance to your brand will be earned if the company is viewed as part of the solution, rather the problem, and fans will come to your defense. At the very least, they may reserve judgment on future consumer complaints.
Improve Google Ranking with Blogger
Posted by Jubran Moe on February 22nd, 2011
By: Codex-M
There are around 321,000,000 results for site:blogspot.com in the Google search engine. This means there are 321,000,000 indexed pages for blogs that are hosted in Google Blogger. Yet with this large number of pages, you’ve probably noticed that only a few of these blogs manage to get a decent Google ranking for most common blogging topics. Why? And can you duplicate their success? Keep reading.
A quick list of the most common blogging topics is published here: http://promediablog.com/blogging-tips-10-most-popular-blog-topics-to-make-money-online/. For certain key terms, a few sites stand out. For example, for “film reviews blog,” two results deserve further study: commonguyfilmreviews.blogspot.com and telugu-film-reviews.blogspot.com. For “pet blogs,” internet-pets.blogspot.com is worth a look. For “fashion and jewelry blog,” we’ll look at three results: dcelestine.blogspot.com, in-vogue-jewelry.blogspot.com and profashionjewelry.blogspot.com.
This article will examine the SEO characteristics of these blogs and what makes them rank in Google for their targeted terms. The information gathered by this observation can be used by aspiring bloggers to optimize their blogs for the best results in Google.
Content is Still King: Consistency and Quality
One of the common characteristics of most these blogs is that they emphasize writing quality content on a consistent basis.
Another thing worth observing is the large minimum number of indexed pages on these blogs. Based on the sample provided, you can observe that most of them have indexed pages greater than 50; in short, all of the blog owners have written at least 50 posts for their blog.
A high number of blogs in Google’s top 10 even have hundreds to thousands of indexed pages. Regarding the quality of the content, these blogs feature original content, and most of their blog posts are more than 400 words long.
These blog authors write useful and convincing content with the sole purpose of meeting the demands of their readers. The blogs’ readers, especially those that are coming from Google, expect quality information, and these blogs deliver. You might observe that their content is not spammy in nature, and that the authors write naturally for their readers.
Another thing worth observing is that these blogs do not contain too many ads on their pages. Well, you might have seen that most of Google’s “blogspot” users set up blogs just for Google AdSense. As a result, their blogs contain a lot of ads, but little content, which is a mistake.
But the top ranking blogs do not contain distracting or obtrusive ads. Instead, most of them even have no ads, or if they include an advertisement, it is clearly separated from the content, and limited.
This implies that these blog authors are not blogging just for the purpose of making ad income; they are blogging to write great content which is helpful for their readers.
Finally, they are not only writing quality content on a single occasion; most of these blogs are consistently updating and adding content.
Random SEO Tags
Posted by Jubran Moe on February 20th, 2011
Best Random SEO Tags – plugins
Random One Cat Widget
This Widget shows up to five random posts from a given categories.
Random Tags Cloud Widget
This Random SEO tags plugin allow you to display random tags on your website / blog
Benefits of Random SEO Tags
Using the random SEO tags will help your visitors to view the common articles. also it will help to increase your pages exposures on search engines.
The Skills & Experience Needed to Excel in SEO
Posted by Jubran Moe on February 17th, 2011
When referring to SEO, marketers often consider it to be the “technical” part of their online marketing strategy, as all SEO techniques require some technical knowledge, or at least a familiarity with basic HTML. In addition to technical knowledge, a good SEO strategist will need to be handy with words and text, so it helps to have experience in copywriting. Search engines are becoming so intelligent that they can differentiate between a well-written relevant piece of text and a block of text that has been written hastily in an attempt to quickly add content to a website. This is why good copywriting experience, typically associated with blogging, is fast becoming a highly sought after skill for any SEO strategist.
Optimising a website so it achieves high ranking organic results is really only a small part of what a good SEO strategist should be doing for a business. Having a high ranking means nothing to the business if customers are being turned away from the website as soon as they arrive as a result of poor web design. While it can be argued that it’s the Web Designer’s responsibility to ensure the website functions properly and looks great, it’s also up the SEO strategist to advise the Web Designer on ways that the two can work together to achieve a better overall web design.
For example, if the SEO strategist determines that the website needs a larger space for text on the home page, the Web Designer will need to redesign the website to accommodate, instead of simply trying to squeeze the text in. A good SEO strategist will therefore always have a basic understanding of what constitutes good web design.
Keyword Research
Posted by Jubran Moe on February 17th, 2011
SEO Keyword research
Keyword research can be defined as the process of uncovering and selecting the appropriate keywords for a particular website. Keyword research is one of the most fundamental SEO techniques as it provides the basis for any SEO campaign. Some of the world’s leading SEO experts often credit their success to how much time they spent doing keyword research before launching a SEO campaign. Keyword research is so critical to the entire SEO process that it’s always the first item on any SEO strategist’s to-do list.
When conducting keyword research SEO strategists typically work from a top-down approach. This means trying to understand the website’s target audience, and from this derive a list of keywords that the audience would use to find the website using a search engine. This can be achieved by either brainstorming or surveying both past and potential customers.
A brainstorming session will yield more than just a list of keywords, but also a list of alternate spellings, wordings and synonyms. When brainstorming for a target audience, SEO strategists must also consider how language and cultural factors change the way people search. For example, if the website is located in Australia the SEO strategist cannot use keywords that are spelled out using the American version of the English language, but instead must use keywords from the British version of the English language.
Surveying customers is the most ideal way to extrapolate the perfect list of keywords, however it’s also the most difficult and time consuming. There are numerous ways to perform surveys including emailing existing customers, conducting in-house focus groups or even adding optional pop-up surveys that appear when new users arrive at the website.
Once an initial set of keywords has been established it’s a good idea to write the list up on a whiteboard or somewhere that is accessible to all members of the team, as the keyword list will constantly change throughout the entire SEO campaign. For example, if the Marketing Manager conducts a focus group, he/she may need to alter the keyword list as a result of customer feedback.
Search Algorithms
Posted by Jubran Moe on February 16th, 2011
A search algorithm is an algorithm that finds a file with specified properties within a database of files that are stored on a computer system. In its most basic form a search algorithm is a procedure or set of steps for solving a particular problem by using the problem as input and returning a solution. In relation to search engines, search algorithms are used to rank information on the Web.
In the past, search algorithms were based on complex mathematical formulas. By using search algorithms, a search engine could determine how many links a website had, how long users typically spend on the website, the number of times a keyword or phrase appears on a website and the density of those keywords or phrases. The search engine then uses the output of search algorithms to give the website a ranking.
The problem with search algorithms that are solely based on mathematical formulas is that once the formulas are revealed to the public, people can abuse the system by tricking the search engine into thinking their website is relevant. To counter this, search engines began using search algorithms that employ a combination of mathematical formulas and human input to determine the website’s ranking. These types of search algorithms are the focus of SEO Today.
These days, search algorithms are able to derive a ranking by looking at everything, from how long the website has been on the Web to how many errors are encountered. New search algorithms are even able to derive relationships between keywords, for example, the algorithm knows that the keywords “Ferrari”, “sports car” and “automobile” are all related, and ranks the website accordingly.
It’s important to understand that each search engine uses different search algorithms and that these algorithms are usually kept secret, due to the competitive nature of the industry. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) experts are constantly trying to discover exactly how a search engine determines a website’s page ranking, which leads to a lot of speculation, assumption and guesswork.
Search Engine
Posted by Jubran Moe on February 16th, 2011
What is a search engine?
A search engine is a software program that is used to find answers to queries by using algorithms to search through a database of information that is stored on a computer system. In its most basic form a search engine can be described as an electronic information retrieval system. The software that runs on a computer terminal at the local library, to help people find the books they wish to borrow, is an example of a search engine. The most common form of search engine, and the focus of SEO Today, is a Web search engine, which refers to an online tool that is used to search for information on the World Wide Web (Web), or a small portion of the Web.
Web search engines use propriety algorithms to create and store indexes of the millions of websites available online into a database. These algorithms ensure that only meaningful results are displayed when users make queries. Because all Web search engines use different algorithms, a user may get varying answers to their queries, depending on which Web search engine they choose.
Web search engines typically consist of three parts:
1. Retrieval Program – A program that searches the Web and gathers information, commonly
referred to as a spider, crawler or robot (bot).
2. Database – A collection of the indexes and associated information that has been created by
using the retrieval program.
3. Search Tool – An interface that allows the user to search through the database by using
queries.
Update Your SEO Vocabulary
Posted by Jubran Moe on February 15th, 2011
by Terri Wells
The SEO field changes constantly in response to the search engines. These days, though, visitors find your site via Facebook, Twitter, and other resources in addition to Google. That means your approach to SEO needs to expand – and so does your vocabulary.
SEO now embraces a range of fields. A well-rounded SEO understands some of the technical aspects of websites, the wider field of Internet marketing, conversion metrics, how to test ads, and much more. If you want to keep up with the field and understand where it is going, you need to get acquainted with the concepts I’ll be explaining in this article. Give yourself a pat on the back if you’ve already heard of these, but don’t be surprised if you see a few you’ve never encountered before.
Let me give credit where it’s due. Tad Chef, writing for SEOptimise, covered these terms and more. If you want to see them explained in greater detail, he links out to an article for every single one of them.
We’ll start with a number: 503. You know about 404 not found codes, 301 redirects, and probably even 200 (which means the URL is accessible). What is a 503 code? It tells search engine crawlers, and anyone else who visits your site, that it is temporarily down for maintenance. Google notes in a Webmaster Central blog post that using a 503 HTTP result code is a way “to deal with planned website downtime…that will generally not negatively affect your site’s visibility in the search results.” You can even specify the length of time your site will be down in an optional Retry-After header, to let the Googlebot know when it can come back for something to crawl.
The next term I’d like to discuss is “A/B testing.” Also known as split testing, this is not a new technique. You’ve probably known about it for years. Google even offers ways for you to do A/B testing of your ads with them. In its simplest form, split testing involves comparing two versions of a page to find out which one gets more visitors to do what you want them to do: make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, request more information, and so forth. Doing it right is both an art and a science, as small changes can sometimes lead to big differences in a page’s conversion rate.
Posted in News, SEO Tips, Tutorials 
Tags: lates seo tips, seo 2011, seo tips, SEO Vocabulary 
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