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Thursday, April 1, 2010

Responding to Negative Reviews Online

Online negative reviews can really hurt business. People like to hear positive experiences, especially when it comes to medical services. When your client finds negative reviews, the first step you need to take is to decide if the review is something you should respond to. You cannot respond to all negative reviews, but some you should address.

Here are some steps to consider when responding to negative reviews online:

1. Own the issue
Show the public that you are aware of their problem and that you are paying attention to them. Some people just want to be heard, and by not running from the problem, you may be able to soften the blow of the negative review

Your potential patient will be reading your response, so write the reply for them. This shows them that you are willing to face your criticism head on and you have nothing to hide.

It doesn't matter if the reviewer is stretching the truth, or lying, own the issue and respond without getting defensive.

2. Assure the public that future patients/clients will not have the same problem
A critical part is to assure the public that this is not a normal problem, or that something has changed.

3. Offer to fix the problem
You can't always fix every issue, but by offering to try on good faith will show online users that you want to do everything you can to offer a solution. Encourage the disgruntled person to contact you directly.

When drafting your response, take your time, do not come across defensive and keep it brief. Taking control of the issue will ensure that you your future customers will have faith that their experience will be better.

For more information on marketing and reputation management, contact Page 1 Solutions today!

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posted by Ashley Martin at 1:27 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Can SEO and PR work together?

SEO traditionally was used in order to increase business through site traffic. PR traditionally was focused on media. Press releases were written to appeal to the journalists and reporters, hoping to grab their interest enough to write a story.

PR and SEO are natural companions. Consumers and reporters are using the internet more and more to find news and product and service information. Because of this, online press release distribution has become more common to reach audiences, but 99.5% of press releases aren't optimized for the internet. PR is no longer just an avenue dedicated with the sole purpose of reaching the media. It has become part of an integrated sales and marketing strategy that can be better reached with SEO writing techniques.

  1. Here are some important things to note regarding online press releases:
  2. Distribution is becoming progressively more useful in organic search results.
  3. Have potential to direct consumers to an appropriate web page where they can request more information or inquire about the service offered.
  4. Enhance the effectiveness of company messaging. (Reputation Management)
  5. May also lead to an increase in sales and revenue.
  6. Search engines are the primary channels used to find news and information on products and services, so it is vital to have a good presence.
  7. Increase web presence and brand visibility.
  8. Contribute to one of the most important parts of SEO off-page linking.
  9. Put the power back into the press release make it an even more useful tool to organizations.

If you would like to learn more about how you can use Public Relations to your advantage, contact Page 1 Solutions today!

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posted by Ashley Martin at 1:17 PM 0 comments

Monday, January 25, 2010

Vitamin Water Creates a New Flavor of Facebook

Wanna know what Facebook tastes like? Well according to Vitamin Water, it tastes like black-cherry lime. The new drink flavor is a result of an online marketing campaign that ended this month. Vitamin Water asked Facebook users to compete in naming and creating a new flavor to represent Facebook. It is the second time this month that a unique campaign has swept through Facebook. Recently I blogged about a strange breast cancer awareness campaign on Facebook, where users were updating statuses with their bra colors. The campaign went global in less than a day.

Both marketing campaigns, though very different, have one major thing in common, they both got the attention from millions and have started more people talking about how social networking can launch a successful marketing campaign.

Social networking is no longer just to connect with old friends and share photos. Businesses that aren't using them need to start or they will be quickly behind the competition. Not only can they help brand your business, but with the recent viral campaigns, it has shown it can reach your target demographics instantaneously.

For more information on ways to think outside of the box with your online marketing, contact Page 1 Solutions today.

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posted by Ashley Martin at 1:23 PM 0 comments

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Increasing Traffic to Your Blog

As experts in optimization we all know different ways to optimize our clients' blogs. We use content that is keyword rich. We bold certain words to add emphasis. We create hyperlinks throughout the content for the spiders to easily move around from page to page.

Recently a family member asked me how to increase traffic to his personal blog. How can someone increase blog readership if the blog doesn't have a central theme. He posts a variety of different things like photos, poetry, artwork and short stories. I spoke to some of our SEO blog experts here are Page 1 Solutions and also Googled different effective ways. There are a lot of different opinions out there. I pulled together some of the most common answers from other bloggers and SEO resources.

The following is a short list of ways to increase traffic, aside from optimizing content:

1. Add your blog to as many different blog directories as you can
2. Read other blogs and create a track back to you.
3. Comment on other blogs. Especially blogs that are highly trafficked.
4. Add links from social networking sites into your blog.
5. Update social networking statuses for friends to check out new blog posts.
6. Create a feed from new blog posts on sites like Twitter
7. Add your blog to RSS feed directories
8. Join sites like Digg, de.li.cious, technorati
9. Ping your new blog posts
10. Write about things that people want to read- become an expert in something.
11. Contribute to online forums.
12. Write and post blogs as often as possible.

There are several other things you can do to increase traffic to your personal blog page. But the above list will get you a good start and you should see an increase in user traffic. For more information on optimization and how you can use increase traffic to your site, contact Page 1 Solutions today

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posted by Ashley Martin at 1:09 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Online Marketing Makes Cents

I had a call with one of my clients last week and I want to share some of the details because it was a very refreshing conversation. The meeting was with a Plastic Surgery office in Houston with Brittney Lapuerta from the Plastic Surgery Institute of Southeast Texas. The client specializes in everything from Breast Augmentation to Botox. She is very informed about search engine optimization and it is so great to have a client be involved in her account. She asked a lot of great questions and wants to make her site the best it can be. The part of the call that was the most interesting was when she said she didn't care what it costs, she just wants to dominate on the internet. With the current economy, I don't hear that very often.

Brittney said that she knows without a doubt Online Marketing is the best place to put her money and I couldn't agree more. She has researched a lot of her competitors and knows that to beat them online she must work with us. She is changing the navigation of her site, adjusting some of her keywords, reworking the flash banner, adding more content and adding custom video to stay up with her competition online. She is a great client and I wanted to share the importance of staying aggressive with marketing, now more than ever.

If you have questions about what online marketing can do for you contact us today.

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posted by Ashley Martin at 9:25 AM 0 comments

Friday, June 5, 2009

If a picture is worth a thousand words, video is priceless.

Showcasing your company or business has become a big part of how consumers choose to either do business with you or buy your services. With "traditional" avenues shrinking, newspapers; magazines, etc., consumers are getting more and more savvy in the way they search for services in their cities, towns, villages.

Like any good business owner, you have your site up, it looks great; easy to navigate, relevant content, optimized well, and plenty of pictures to show off your company.

Now, take that next step. Connect with your potential customer base on a personal level. Online Video. More and more Americans are watching online videos, 78.6 percent of U.S. internet users’ watched online videos in April 2009.

With the different options out there for video, Borderless Video, streaming, and more; you can put your company’s products and culture in full view, and give consumers a more personal and intimate look at your business.

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posted by JosephCasper at 9:38 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

What is a Google Sitemap file?

One of my clients forwarded me an interesting email today. It was from a company offering to create a “Google Sitemap file” for his site for just $125. They also offered an MSN, Yahoo, and General file, each for the low, low cost of $125. That’s a whopping four files for just $500. What a bargain!

Or not.

What is a “Sitemap file?” It is basically an .html file describing the contents of a website which, converted to an .xml file, offers easy skimming for search engine spiders. Is this something your website should have? Absolutely. In fact, it probably already does.

In my client's case, as soon as his website went live Page 1 Solutions created a sitemap file which we submitted to both Google and Yahoo, and that the other search engines are free to spider at their own convenience. (This is something we include for every client.)

Do the other search engines spider those files? Let’s do an experiment. Go to www.msn.com and search for “Page 1 Solutions.” It probably isn’t a big surprise that Page 1’s homepage shows up at the top of the list. When I scroll down, though, I find four more pages that belong to Page 1, which means the search engine spiders have found them and recognize that they pertain to my search phrase. All without an expensive additional sitemap file or four. (Dare I mention that there are sitemap-generating programs which can be downloaded for free...?)

The moral of the story is, if you receive an advertisement for something pertaining to your website – particularly if the company wants to charge you big bucks – call or email your Account Manager and ask if it is something we recommend or provide. If we don’t offer it, we can let you know if we think it would be worth pursuing. You might find that your website has already been optimized in that respect.

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posted by Lydia at 3:37 PM 0 comments

Thursday, March 8, 2007

To Catch a Spider

You may be wondering what I'm talking about, so I'll let you in on the secret. It's a mysterious creature known as the Search Engine Spider. Until this morning, even I only had a vague awareness of what they actually do. Since I've recently been educated, I thought I'd pass on my knowledge.

So we are all (hopefully) aware that search engine spiders are the vehicle that gets you to the first page of Google, but what exactly are they? What do they see when they look at your website?

Your Friendly, Neighborhood Spider
A search engine spider is a cleverly written, always changing program that the various search engines send out to continuously look over website pages. The information that they come in contact with is then stored based on the ranking, relevancy and variables set by the different search engines. Not all spiders are created equal, though, and different engines have different criteria.

What They See
A spider really doesn't care for the design of your website. They want to go straight for the heart of it, the content. They are always searching for new information and have some definite dislikes:
  • Flash pages - a little judicious use of Flash is ok, but the spiders can't read anything on a website constructed entirely in Flash.
  • JavaScript
  • Text in Images
  • Dynamic pages - identified by #, &, ? and = in the url
Some Likes
What makes the spiders happy? A handful of things really get them excited.
  • TITLE tags
  • META tags
  • Heading tags
  • Relevant content with good keyword phrases
A few things to also consider when designing and optimizing a website: duplicate content, keywords, and pleasing design. Duplicate content is a huge hang-up that I run into. If you think you can get away with it, think again. You may be successful for a while, but eventually it will catch up to you. I've seen websites results slip slowly, plummet, or even be black-listed by search engines. And these spiders are getting smarter everyday. You used to be able to just stuff keywords and locations anywhere in a sentence and the spiders would be fine with that. Now, however, they can recognize that. You need to be thoughtful and careful about where you place your keywords; they need to flow with the rest of the content. Lastly, pleasing design. You aren't just out to impress the spiders, you have to think of the people that are viewing the website. You can be top dog on Google, but if you site is poorly designed, you won't get any business out of it.

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posted by Lindsay Phelps at 8:42 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

SEOverhaul

Is your website a few years old, maybe even more, and you're generally still happy with the design, but you're looking for ways to improve search engine results? Consider an SEOverhaul.

You can squeeze some more search engine juice out of an older site that's already been optimized and is performing at a decent result by giving it an overhaul to make its code more search engine friendly.

"If my site's only a few years old, why do I need it overhauled already?" you ask.

Website design is an ever-changing environment. The biggest offenders in website design of yester-year are table tags. Compared to the coding techniques used now, table tags are a clumsy and inefficient. They create clutter that the search engines have to stumble over in order to get to the content that they're really interested in.

We can recode your site so that the aesthetics don't change at all (unless you want to make some aesthetic updates at the same time), but the site is much more clean in code. We can also create new foot-holds for search engine optimization that may not have been there before. Depending on your site, we may even be able to recode it in such a way as to make website updates easier to make, and therefore less expensive.

Some things to consider when pondering an SEOverhaul:

Am I really happy with the design of my site, or does a complete redesign make more sense than a behind-the-scenes overhaul to the code?

Does my website have enough calls-to-action? If not, we should add them while making the overhaul.

Am I interested in a blog?

If this sounds like something you need, contact your account manager at Page 1 Solutions today!

Jonathan Fashbaugh
Account Manager
Page 1 Solutions

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posted by Jonathan Fashbaugh at 4:20 PM 0 comments