It’s true – we generally only go to review sites when we’re upset with a business. So how can a business owner trigger more positive reviews and social mentions?

Please note: DO NOT under any circumstances, contrive positive reviews for your business. This is unethical, easily detected, and most likely illegal. This is called “astroturfing” and just like in politics, can ruin your credibility or damage your reputation even further.

Make sure you deserve a good review.

Most business owners think their service is impeccable and as long as people continue to buy, they have nothing to worry about. Like an IT technician is trained to look for problems with the physical layer first, you should make certain that your business gives exemplary service BEFORE you should expect any positive mentions or reviews. If your business model or practices are uncouth or shady, you cannot expect anyone to say anything nice about you online. Some businesses are inherently going to make some people upset, but this comes down to managing expectations.

Look at the reviews you already have.

Duh. You can’t generate good reviews (at least not legally) unless you have happy customers to write them. No amount of asking for user reviews or soliciting feedback will help compensate for a bad first impression. Greasy fingerprints on glass doors are a turn off of mine. Even if I get great service and the food is great, my first impression is that diner doesn’t care if they appear to be clean. Start by making sure to resolve any issues that particularly bother your customers if you possibly can. How do you find out what those issues are? By reading reviews left about your business. If you know a patron that left a bad review, ask them if you’ve improved.

Consider asking for reviews.

Tread lightly if you decide to do this. Don’t ask for good reviews, just reviews, and not until the end of the transaction. The request should come after a meaningful interaction of some sort, not with every routine transaction. I had an exterminator ask me to give a 5 star review on their page on the yellow pages website. He explained there was a contest going on for the field techs to get good reviews. I thought, “That’s a neat idea,” until I went digging into the full scope of their reputation online. There was a reason they were asking for 5-star reviews, to cover up the 300+ 1-star reviews they had. After reading several, I could tell which reviews were contrived, which ones were asked for, and which ones were legitimate complaints. I chose not to leave any review at that time, and decided I didn’t want to contribute to this company’s cover-up. I may have left a good review had I not been asked to write a 5-star review, when the service was not the extra mile.

Make your web presence known.

If a majority of your customers are younger than 30, asking them to post a review may turn them off. Instead, simply engage with them in the online world by creating a Facebook group and Twitter account for your business. Customers in this age bracket are so accustomed to posting online about every experience they have, they’ll almost certainly share their thoughts about your product or service without asking them to… good and bad. So make sure you are prepared for them.

Respond quickly to bad reviews.

The best way to deal with a bad review is to resist the urge to defend your company, product, or employee, an approach that almost always makes things worse. The key is how you respond is not just for the person who made the complaint, but for the general public that will see how you reacted. If a complaint is valid, thank the customer for the review and apologize for their bad experience. Most times, the consumer just wants you to acknowledge that you, the business owner, understands there’s a problem and wants to fix it. Some customers will often go back and update a negative review once the issue has been resolved, so you can turn a negative into a positive if you act quickly. If the bad review is unwarranted, it’s especially imperative to resist the urge to get defensive. Respond with empathy and appreciation for their honest feedback.

Reach out to negative reviewers directly.

Not everyone recommends responding publicly to bad reviews. Sometimes it is never a good idea to respond online to negative reviews, because doing so tends to put the business in a defensive position. Some companies elect to contact negative reviewers directly if they can be found, and tries to resolve the issue. Thoughtful, constructive responses go much further than ignoring them or rebutting them defensively. You may offer an extension of a complimentary dessert or a coupon for their next visit.

Make reviewing your business easy.

By putting a link to a review site page right into your website, you can expect you’ll get more reviews. Some strategies include ‘give feedback’ or ‘suggestions’ button on your website so that users can do so without going public. Think of this as the comment boxes you used to see in places that were corporately owned but locally operated. This does a few things for you; it can keep a good majority of complaints from ever being seen by the public, help you address and resolve the customers problem in private, and allows you the opportunity to ask for a review. If you’ve not claimed all your profiles on Google Maps, Yelp or Urban Spoon, you should do so right away to prevent a situation such as this from getting out of hand.

We may not have a crystal ball with all of the answers, but here at TheeDesign Studio we have a few 2012 predictions on how internet marketing will adapt to changes in web design.

Responsive design will become mainstream.

Responsive design is the concept of creating websites that automatically scale and rearrange their content according to the device and screen size it is being viewed. We saw a bit of responsive design in 2011 with smartphone applications and games, but in 2012 it will become necessary for websites to function and become just as visually adaptable.

Responsive web design will require internet marketing experts to decide what content is the most important and how it should be placed on the page. A call-to-action button, like “Call us Now” or “Place Order Here,” in a sidebar on a desktop computer might not fit on a mobile browser, and so they’ll have to think about the size and placement of that button on the page.

Mobile design will become industry standard.

Smartphones are everywhere and tablet usage is growing every day. In order to stay in front of their audience, websites are being forced to adapt to the various mobile platforms available on the market.

In 2011 we saw marketers start to capitalize on mobile technology by offering incentives to customers who used their smartphones to scan promotional codes or check-in their location at their business. We will still see this mobile approach to marketing in 2012, but we will also see more business executives using their tablets as high-tech marketing brochures. Mobile devices allow the traveling salesperson to bring and showcase their portfolio, quickly pull up reports, or process a credit card payment instantly and all on one device.

Flash will become extinct.

Flash was once very popular for web designers, but it has slowly lost momentum. In 2012, flash will likely lose all or most of its momentum. CSS3 and HTML5 have come into the picture and offer faster loading, interactivity for users, and is simply better than Flash for mobile devices.

HTML5 has taken over most of the actions that Flash could do. HTML5 will greatly influence internet marketing in 2012 because it can create really rich and interesting typography, graphics and video which combined can create a dynamic marketing website that compels the viewer to stay on the site longer or make a purchase.

This analogy could be used with any number of other professions other than auto repair; attorney, family dentist, accountant, dog sitter, realtor – whatever, they are all relationships you would build and forge with trust. The same trust is necessary from your SEO agency.

Mechanics (and SEO’s) sometimes get a bad rap because even if you find one you know and trust, they charge handsomely for their time and expertise. What you may not consider is to keep up with how to fix newer cars with newer technology, costs are considerably expensive.  Take for instance, the amount of time it takes to replace your timing belt and the cost of the tools to do it correctly. It takes an average minimum 4 hours to remove everything in the way of the belt, replace it, and put everything back properly. Depending on your make and model, the necessary tools can cost about $8,000 just for the basics. Finding a mechanic that you know and trust is crucial to your vehicle’s value, performance and most importantly – your safety. Consider the same when you shop for an internet marketing agency.

Unsolicited phone calls and emails from SEO companies are usually not a trustworthy folks to hire. Would you agree to pay a mechanic a monthly fee to make sure your tires stay on and your doors close? That is essentially what you’d be getting if you buy into an internet marketing agency that comes to you.

Let’s say you choose to go with the dealership mechanic because you trust the salesman that sold you the car. What you may not know is that the service department is run separately from the sales floor and the management is a bit crooked. What I’m getting at is just because the company that made your website did an outstanding job at designing it, may not be the best at getting you traffic. This can be true even if you do trust them.

Much like your relationship with your mechanic, as you get to know your SEO provider, you should start to learn what his time and expertise is worth. You can do this by what data they show you and if your conversions have increased. It’s a lot like the mechanic giving you back the old parts as proof of a job being done. Even better, my mechanic actually shows me what he’s doing and makes sure I’m aware of the options for band-aids if my budget is low. He always suggests I take his advice and go with the best solutions to ensure my car runs at peak performance and is optimally safe. I hope your mechanic  or internet marketing agency does the same for you.

Our marketing and web design team here in Raleigh is working hard filling your website and internet presence with holiday cheer (and search engine friendly keywords). But sometimes even hard working elves need to take a break and share a laugh…

Internet marketing efforts can fall into two holiday categories: Naughty and Nice. Here are a couple examples of both to help you assess, is your marketing Naughty or Nice?

Naughty List

• Boring Content

If you aren’t keeping your website and social media content fresh and interesting, you are wasting your time. A common marketing mistake for businesses is that they believe they should talk only about themselves and their achievements. This might be interesting to you and your staff, but can be boring to your audience.

It is more valuable to your marketing efforts if you can tell your audience what you can offer them. How you can make their lives better or easier. Useful or entertaining information is much more interesting than self promotion.

• Christmas Spam

A holiday ham can be tasty, but spam is a different story. No one likes spam messages regardless of the time of year. However many businesses abuse the holidays as an excuse to send excessive amounts of email promotions. Being too pushy or spamming with your internet marketing can have the opposite effect of what you intended, as your would-be consumers start to opt-out of your messages or blacklist you as a spammer.

Nice List

• Holiday Keywords

The holidays are a great opportunity for marketing your products or services as gift items. Including keywords like “Christmas” or “Gift” can help your target consumers find your products easier as they are searching for the perfect gift items for loved ones. If you are a bakery for example, you could add the keywords “Christmas cupcakes for holiday parties” or “gifts for bakers.”

• Spreading Social Cheer

Wish your Facebook fans a Merry Christmas. Take some time out of your busy day and write personal thank you messages to clients on their Facebook wall. Make someone smile for the simple joy that it brings. People trust brands with good intentions and respond well to messages that don’t have an alternative or hidden agenda.

• Keep your page updated with new content.

One place to start is with content. You want to keep your Facebook posts and statuses new, fresh and interesting. The more interesting or relevant content you have on your page, the more likely users will see it and interact by commenting, sharing it with their friends, and liking your page.

• Ask interesting and fun questions to get fans talking.

In addition to good content, it’s also a great idea to ask questions from time to time. Not just Yes/No questions, but something that encourages comments and sharing like: “What’s your all-time favorite Christmas jingle?” Many time you’ll find that the simplest questions get the most responses.

• Hide your wall content behind a Like filter.

There are many Facebook social plugins and widgets available on the web. Many of them will hide your wall content of your Facebook page until you click the banner image or Like button. This pushes the visitor to Like your page before they have access to see and make comments on your wall or view any of your photos or info.

• Tag your fans in photos and videos.

If you host client appreciation events or networking opportunities, you can take photos and videos and encourage fans to tag themselves afterward. This pushes the pictures onto their wall and friends’ News Feeds, providing valuable exposure. We all know that a picture says a thousand words – think about all the times you notice thumbnail images in your news feed before text.

In today’s economy, consumers are searching for the most bang for their buck. Researching prices takes consumers online where they are more likely to buy the product than go to a local store. As a result, the majority of this online spending is directed towards national retailers who have strong online and social media presences. To stay competitive, small business retailers need to ramp up their own internet marketing and social media strategies.

Here are a few marketing tips to make sure your Raleigh business generates online holiday revenue:

• Promote Web Only Holiday Deals

Hosting online deals unique from your in-store sales is a great opportunity to attract consumers to your website. Whether you offer a site-wide percentage off or choose to reward customers for making purchases above a certain threshold, holiday offers give users a reason to shop your site instead of one of your competitors. While you’re busy promoting, it’s also a good idea to highlight your holiday deals on special landing pages.

• Create Holiday Specific Landing Pages

Consumers looking for a specific item will not have time to click around your site to find it. Be prepared to show them what they want (sometimes before they know they want it). Landing pages, also known as lead capture pages, are single page websites that appear in response to clicking on an advertisement or keyword specific link. It has directed sales copy that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link.

• Reward Your Virtual Fans

The holidays are a perfect time to reward your Facebook fans and thank them for their online loyalty. The holidays are when consumers are more likely to be trolling their Facebook pages, not just because work is usually slow as more people are on vacation, but their also checking their friends’ holiday party plans, and seeing if anyone is sharing holiday coupon codes. So their Facebook News Feed is right where you want to call attention to your own holiday deal and offer a bonus like a discount code specific to Facebook fans. By offering your Facebook fans a token for liking you, you not only give them a reason to make a purchase, but you also create something shareable they can forward to friends.

• Fine Tune Your Shopping Cart

All of this marketing work will be useless however, if your website’s shopping cart doesn’t function properly. Test and retest your shopping cart’s functionality to make sure there are no flaws. This is also an opportunity to implement some of the shopping cart suggestions we blogged about here before.

• Local Business or Place
• Product or Brand
• Company, Institution or Organization
• Arts, Entertainment or Sports
• Other

What this Means for SEO

Google is hands down the most recognized search engine in the world. The most recent figures reveal that 65% of search traffic is run through Google. Though Google offers a plethora of both free and paid services, its primary functionality remains serving as a search engine. Although Google’s page ranking algorithm is continually evolving and adapting in many ways unclear to SEO experts, one can be certain that Google+ will most definitely affect search results.

Another new feature for businesses is the ability to have their Google+ pages found through a service called “Direct Connect” in Google Search. This will happen for businesses that Google determines are particularly relevant for a specific kind of search query. What this means is that if someone types into the search field the name of your business with a + symbol in front of the name, they will be automatically pointed to your business. See the following example for Chrome:

What this Means for Social Media

If you’re setting up a page for a local business, you have special features including the ability to list your company’s phone number. Local Google+ pages are unique from other categories of pages because they have features that enable customers to easily connect with your business’s physical location. For example, local pages include a map of the business’s location and feature its address, phone number, and hours of operation.

Of course, many local businesses have already claimed their pages in the completely separate Google Places. Much of the information that Google+ Pages for local businesses wants – and more – are on those pages. But they remain unconnected.

Currently, Place pages and Google+ Pages must be managed separately. A Place page provides information about a business and makes it easy for customers to find local businesses on Google Maps and local search; while a Google+ page provides business owners with additional ways to engage, build relationships, and interact directly with customers.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is crucial for an effective marketing campaign. The idea is to get a higher ranking on Google, Bing, Yahoo! or other Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) than your competitors. This takes a careful combination of ongoing quality content and carefully-selected keyword phrases. As an example, a florist might offer content about the care and maintenance of flowers using keywords about the particular flowers (e.g., “roses” “tulips”) or occasions (e.g., “weddings,” “proms”) they are targeting.

Affiliate Programs

This is a process where a merchant places banner ads or buttons on a secondary (affiliate) site, and pays the affiliate site’s owner a referral fee or commission for each lead or customer received. Common types of affiliate programs include pay-per-click, pay-per-lead and pay-per-sale.

Paid Search

This is a common practice in which companies pay to have their ads appear at the top of SERPs. But why take a chance on which keyword phrases to use when you can fine-tune your campaign to reach just the right customer? Several online marketing companies are available to help you do this.

Email Newsletters

With all the new and exciting social media platforms you are probably wondering why I am spending any time on (yawn) email campaigns. Well, wake up! Email marketing is still one of the best ways to promote an ecommerce website. It offers actionable, trackable marketing that is easily customizable – at a price that’s hard to beat.

To avoid having your messages placed in the “spam folder” be sure your emails truly target customer needs and make it easy for people to opt in or out. To obtain and retain subscribers, be sure to offer something of value in each newsletter, such as informative articles, exclusive product offerings and limited-time offers. Need feedback on your site or its products? Create an e-mail poll or survey.

Social Media

In simple terms, your customers are using social media, so you need to have a presence there too. However, like all other marketing tools, it is important to use social media in a way that supports your business’ core objectives. To support brand loyalty, you can ask people to click ‘Like’ on a Facebook page or offer a contest where people use the product in an interesting or unusual way (such as a cooking contest for a food product). If the goal is a direct sale, why not try offering special promotions that are only available through your social media channels? You can also offer your shopping cart directly on Facebook (F-commerce) to catch those impulse buys.

A word of warning – consumers consider social media to be a two-way conversation. If consumers contact you directly through social media (an activity you should encourage) you must have the capacity to respond in a timely manner. You can also encourage conversations by offering polls, surveys or comment forms.

Live Chat

Live chat is the next best thing to having one of your salespeople directly in your customer’s living room. A recent study by Bold Software found that:

• Fans of live chat have a considerably higher income than average, are more likely to be college educated and spends more money online than do typical shoppers
• One in five Web site shoppers prefer live chat to any other form of communication with an Internet retailer
• Of those who prefer live chat, 61 percent say they are more likely to buy because of the presence of live chat.

However, all of the advantages can go out the window if your staff is not well-trained on your products, services, prices and current promotions. In addition, many shoppers said they left Websites because of pushy chat invitations (such as freezing the Web site while offering a chat) – so subtly is in order here.

Attribution Modeling

This is the practice of carefully studying who visits the site and makes purchases based on items such as marketing channel, message and medium. It can answer such questions as whether a visitor who enters the site via Facebook will have a larger chance of making a purchase than one who gets there through paid search. Several vendors offer this service such as Google Analytics (free), Coremetrics and iCrossing.

Integration of Marketing Channels

All of these ideas are great on their own, but work even better when channels are integrated. Why not offer e-mail subscriptions through the Facebook page and Facebook links through the e-mail newsletter? Where appropriate, Facebook users can be directed to the FAQ page on the main Web site, and the Web site can have a link to a Facebook page. Combining your e-commerce acquisition and retention strategies is the best way to move people toward your shopping cart.

Here are a few website maintenance tips based on some of our tactics:

1. Keep a running list of the exact webpages you’ve updated including: WHEN you changed them and WHAT you changed.
2. Backup! Make a backup copy EVERY time you’re getting ready to update a page. Please note WordPress, our favorite CMS has this function built-in. in case you use a smart content management system, you don’t need to make safety content backups anymore.
3. Store the original size of all the images you’ve ever used or plan on using in a subfolder (ex. www.yourwebsite.com/images) for easy access. It’s important to have your high resolution images handy in case you are plannng to design printed marketing materials.
4. In case you don’t utilize a smart CMS like WordPress, have a page template on-hand. Create a page that has all your website design elements, including your menu and header so when you create a new page you can start by copying that template and filling in the appropriate content.
5. Utilize a CMS (Content Management System) for your website. This makes updating content much easier.
6. Check browser compatibility. Internet browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Google Chrome, etc.) are constantly being updated and new browsers come onto the market pretty often as well. Make sure to stay ahead of these changes and check that your website is showing up properly on all of them.
7. Use absolute terms when referring to time. For example, instead of saying “I wrote this article 2 months ago,” say “I wrote it in August, 2011.” That way you don’t have to go back later and update the number of months that have gone by!
8. Check for and fix broken links. Make sure all of your links are working properly by checking them every so often. If you run into any 404s, fix them quickly! Broken links are bad not only for your website’s image, they can negatively impact search engine rankings.
9. Update your plugins frequently. If you’re using a CMS, make sure to update your plugins when they become available in order to save time and hassle later on.
10. Keep it clean! Avoid using too many different colors and sizes in your fonts. Stick with a theme and stay consistent in order to look professional.

Good content can help your visitors learn more about your products and services and encourage them to make a purchase. With the right content, your website can become a powerful selling tool for your business.

Here’s a quick overview of how content affects sales and how a professional web copywriter can help make sure your website is converting visitors into paying customers!

Optimize Content with Search in Mind

Writing for the web is obviously very different than for a newspaper or magazine. It has to fit two specific audiences: search engine spiders and human readers. The spiders look at the words that your website uses and uses those to identify it for searching purposes. Human readers, however, read content that speaks to emotional reasoning. The trick is balancing descriptive with search engine technicality.

Copywriters can also create blog posts which are frequently updated on your site. Having a blog on your site can help increase your search engine rankings and create a long-lasting and profitable relationship with your market.

Be Strategic With Images and Video

Images and video are also important content elements on your website because they can increase user engagement and create a personal connection with visitors. A wide variety of product images is useful, as is important displaying multiple angles and 360-degree views of those products.

How-to videos can also be helpful for website visitors and reinforce user engagement with a brand or product. Video testimonials show customers giving feedback or demonstrating how to use a certain product. People tend to trust and value comments and feedback from like-minded buyers.

Highlight a Call to Action

Once you have a website visitor’s attention with great written content and interesting images, you now have to show them how to buy! A call to action is a request/direction for the visitor to do something – often the next step that a consumer could take toward the purchase of a product or service. The wording is then often accompanied by a button that users click to begin the process (i.e. “Buy Now,” “Checkout,” “Sign Up”).

A professional website copywriter can use writing in a variety of different ways in order to help your business. This content is optimized using specific keywords and designed to move the reader toward an action — whether that is signing up for an e-mail marketing list, calling for a consultation or actually making a purchase.