Google – Page 9 – The Web Authority

July 13, 2016July 8, 2016

Tips on Handling a Bad Review

Bright Idea Tips for Handling a Bad Review

Sometimes a well meaning friend will send you a link to a bad review about you or your business that they found online and it can spoil your day. Here are a few things to know about how to handle a bad review.

Not all bad reviews need a response
Not everything needs you to respond. In some cases a response may be worse than just letting the review stay out there. If you do decide to write a response, take a deep breath. Never respond to or write a rebuttal when you are upset or angry. Take time to craft a thoughtful response and be conciliatory in your comments. Acknowledge the feelings of the reviewer.

You cannot please everyone
This is hard for some business owners, but you cannot please everyone every time. Take the bad along with the good and know that there are simply some “trolls” out there that get their jollies crushing you online.

Consider the review placement
If the review is on Google+, Yelp, or another highly visible site, I do recommend that you consider writing a rebuttal. If appropriate, I would encourage you to even contact the client – if they have given enough information for you to identify them and see if you can fix the problem. A customer who has had a problem resolved can be your biggest advocate. Don’t forget to ask them to update their review after you have fixed the problem. If the review is not on a high profile site, know that even then, it may still be visible to others and may still need your attention.

Move forward and learn from any errors
If you did get a bad review that is warranted, use the opportunity as a chance to retrain staff or challenge your current processes. You can really learn a lot about how customers perceive you from reviews even bad ones.

Move forward after a bad review, remember you’ve pleased plenty of other customers and stay focused on what you do right and work to improve areas where you may be weak.

Need help solving a problem like a bad review? Visit our website at www.McCordWeb.com to find out how we can help today.

May 30, 2016May 27, 2016

What’s Google Got in Store for the Rest of 2016?

Google Partner Badge — McCord Web Services is a Google Partner.

I watched the Google Live Stream this past week with curiosity. What was Google going to cook up next to wow us with and when would it launch? I was not disappointed.

Here’s what’s in store from Google for the rest of 2016 and early 2017

Longer AdWords Ad Text
AdWords will be moving to a title and ONE line of descriptive text not two 35 characters each long lines. This single longer line will be 80 characters long. Doesn’t sound like much, but in the world of AdWords this is huge!

AdWords Bid by Device
This is a really big one and one I have wanted for a while. Now I will be able to bid by device, not just do a bid adjustment. This will allow me to fine-tune my strategies for mobile and give me more flexibility as an AdWords account manager.

AdWords Google Display Network (GDN)
The AdWords display ad builder will now take your image and make it device responsive in the GDN. Excellent news!

Google Maps is Now Ad Inventory
Promoted Pins are in the queue, expanding AdWords more fully into Google Maps. Google Maps is now part of the search network. This will be very important for mobile advertising. But be ready to see these as you use Google’s driving directions.

Local Search Ads are Coming
In an effort to increase store foot traffic Google AdWords is revamping location extensions. Google will use beacon signals to record local store visits and these will now be recorded as conversions in AdWords.

RLSA – Remarketing for Search Improvements
Google AdWords is continuing to refine and revise RLSA ads and expanding your reach in this product by offering similar audiences now for RLSA and search ads.

Demographics for Search Ads
This one is pretty big, but Bing Ads has been doing it for a while. Google AdWords will now offer demographic targeting for search ads. Just another way to refine your targeting by age, gender, and potentially income.

It’s a Mobile First World
Google stated that search activity is now a “mobile first” world compared to just one year ago a “desktop first” world.

Google Analytics Updated for Mobile
Tying in with a mobile first world, Google Analytics is undergoing a major platform update and redesign. Many of the best features are in the paid model, but expect to see some nice changes even in the free version.

Google Data Studio
Interesting, this new application could be very good. It connects all your data together and let’s you build dynamic reports that are very visual. They are allowing some free reports in the trial beta.

What interesting plans and great new improvements. I am looking forward to each one of them.

May 2, 2016April 29, 2016

Site Prominence and Local Organic Placement

Mobile exposure in AdWords is key. — Does your website show up prominently in mobile searches for your location?

Organic placement in the local results is important for many businesses, but the big question is how can you get there other than paying your way onto the page with Google AdWords?

If you are a service provider that looks to sell your services in your hometown, placing with your location is key to growing your business.

Here are my top tips to getting local placement for smartphone and desktop searches.

Make sure that your phone number is in text at the top of your website page and not in an image.

2. Make sure that you have your full address and phone number in the footer of all of your pages.

3. Put your phone number and city location in the meta title tag of your home page.

4. Make sure that you have your city location in your h1 and h2 tags on your page.

5. Start working on great customer service and start building reviews. If you have reviews on your website, make sure they are coded for Google using Rich Snippets.

6. When you blog, blog with purpose and cater to your local market with city or state names positioned prominently.

7. Hire a savvy expert who will assist you in crafting a content strategy to boost local positioning. At McCord Web Services we provide consulting to help you position your website to place in your geographic location.

Don’t flounder around anymore, get the help you need to start placing locally in your city and state.

April 20, 2016April 15, 2016

Google Positions Itself as a Venue Unto Itself

Need help getting your site visible on the Web?

Here’s just another release from Google that points out again that the Big G’s plans for the future include boosting their own brand and creating stickiness of their own site; all at the expense of organic listings.

Here’s a short detail, “Google Posts are a new element to the search engine that is currently in the experimental phase. The feature allows businesses and people alike to develop content to be posted directly on Google. The content then appears highly ranked in the SERPs in a carousel format. ” Full article is found at SiteProNews.

The key takeaway on this announcement is that by providing the information that you want and need, you will soon have no reason to ever even leave the Google search page or a Google owned property. All the better for Google, as this allows them to serve you ads while you are digesting quality content and finding the relevant information you need without even leaving their site.

Think about your shopping experience on Amazon, do you need to shop elsewhere for anything at this point? Amazon sells it all. Both Facebook and Google are now in a race to become “Amazons” in their own way. This strategy is making it difficult for small businesses to only count on being found in the organic results as a way to grow their business exposure as both platforms work to greedily keep readers all to themselves.

If you need a boost in visibility and are concerned about the shrinking landscape of organic results, it’s time to get on Google AdWords. Find out about our Quick Start services.