If you are looking to the internet to market your business, product or service you need to be found.  There is no  point in having a fantastic website with amazing graphics and the perfect wording, yet no one can actually find your website in the first place.

How do I help Google find my website?  How do I get my website listed on the first page of Google?

Google is like the Yellow Pages of old.  When we are looking for a business or a product, we are turning to Google to help us find it.  We know that a website will contain a contact phone number, details of the business and the products and often a lot more.

To get Google to notice your website and list it for your potential customers to find, there are many tips that can help you get there.  In future posts I will attempt to go in to these in more detail.  But remember, often a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, no use using an axe when a scalpel is required!

Help Google find your website:

1. Optimise your title tags
2. Write relevant and unique content
3. Get a balance between what your user wants to read and what Google needs to see
4. Give people reason to link to your website. Quality inbound links are seen as votes for website by Google and will help you rise in the rankings.
5. Inbound link text is important - if you have a say in what the words are that are used in a link from another website, try and have them relevant to your keywords you are targeting
6.  Nothing beats age.  If you are getting promised the world by a young SEO specialist, don’t trust them.  If it sounds to good to be true, it is.

When it comes down to it. Good search engine optimisation is all about trust.  If Google trusts your site as legitimate, a good source of information and worthy of it’s users time, then you will climb the rankings and remain in them for the longer term.  When spending the time and effort getting listed and listed well in Google, the last thing you want, is to be a splash in the pan.  Seek and invest in good advice that sets you and your business up for long term success.

Surprise your customers with over the top service! They’ll appreciate it and may just brag about you to others!

Recently I engaged the services of an interpretive service. I needed a simple translation of ten English words in to Vietnamese for a promotional banner stand. What I didn’t expect was the level of service Kate from Chin Communications gave.

From my initial contact, she was professional and courteous, only to willing to help, even if it was only 10 words. She spoke using my name and made me feel like I was talking with a long lost friend, rather than someone I had not spoken with before.  Her follow up phone calls to check if we were going to use their service, as well as to check if we were happy with final product continued to impress me.

Finally, the clincher that brought me to the point, where I could no longer resist telling others about the excellent service I received, was the final closing of the transaction.  In the mail, a day after receiving the translation, I opened a letter from Kate, thanking me for our business, an invoice and a bag of exotic tea.  While I don’t drink tea, I gave the tea to a colleague and bragged to him about just how good my experience with this company had been.

Will I use Chin Communications again in the future? You bet. Why? Because Kate went above and beyond, she astonished me with her high levels of customer service and genuine care for my project. Don’t underestimate it, good customer service does not go unnoticed.

There was a customer who was continually bothering the waiter in a restaurant; first, he’d asked that the air conditioning be turned up because he was too hot, then he asked it be turned down because he was too cold, and so on for about half an hour.

Surprisingly, the waiter was very patient, walking back and forth and never once getting angry. So finally, a second customer asked why didn’t they just throw out the pest.

“Oh, I don’t care,” said the waiter with a smile. “We don’t even have an air conditioner.”

One of the best sales people I have met is also one of the best customer service professionals I have met. I’m talking about my real estate agent. Don’t underestimate the good feeling that engulfs a customer when they realise that you remember them, that you remember the small details. Are you in business, and looking for a point of difference? Are you looking for a way that makes you stand out, attracts more business, keeps its current customers?

Our real estate agent Read the rest of this entry »

Are you looking for a way to inspire your staff to provide a custom customer service experience to each and every customer they interact with? The book “The Simple Truths of Service” by Ken Blanchard and Barbara Glanz is exactly that inspiration. Based on the story of Johnny the Bagger, a boy with Down Syndrome who changed the culture of his workplace forever, it is a book that will remain in your thoughts and cause anyone to look at customer service in a new way. If you are looking to inspire your employees to give more than the customer expects, then this is a brilliant way to illustrate it. The Simple Truths of Service is available to purchase from nightingale.com.

Ever noticed how you react when you receive good customer service? You feel good about the experience, you think to yourself, I think I’ll come here again, buy this product again, use this service again. Good service will keep you coming back. Excellent service will not only get you back, but also get you talking about your experience and sharing it with your friends, colleagues, family, anyone you meet. Unfortunately, so will bad service. We love to share good bad service stories. We’ve all heard about that steak that wasn’t cooked right, how rude the waiter was, how long we were on hold to our telecommunications company, how we were ignored by the shop attendant.

As a customer service provider, how do we combat this?

How can we turn a piece of bad customer service in to a positive experience?

Simple. Make it right. I was taught this simple principle when Read the rest of this entry »