“The traditional telephone directory books are getting a bit old these days and people need a quick answer.”

“They’re going to the internet, Google and the like, to search for services,” owner Drew Davies is reported as saying.

If you are operating a niche business and have a limited marketing budget, especially in these uncertain times, then the use of low cost, highly targeted online marketing could just be the right thing for you.  Just like Drew Davies you too could be driving new customers to your website and towards sales in no time.  So many aspects of Online Marketing still remain untapped and can offer high yields to those who act now and gain first mover advantage.

You can read the full Age article here: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/biz-tech/google-keywords-unlock-sales-20090629-d2g9.html

What will this change mean for businesses that operate online?  What will it mean for your current ranking?  The sandbox test allows you to have some indication of the effect these changes are likely to have.  Should change scare you?  No.

If your website is listed in Google and you are not doing anything underhanded to get that ranking, you only really have something to gain from this new update to their search engine.  It would be detrimental to Google to upset it’s users, this change is because they want to increase the relevance and speed of the results they produce, so I personally do not think this will change the game drastically.

I am certain that Google will stick to these simple rules, when it comes to SEO and your website:

1. Your website should have quality content that is unique

The content on your website should not be copied and pasted from somewhere else, it should really be your own content.  Why would I as a user visit a site about a site on SEO in Ringwood, when I could go to the direct and original source?  Same question Google asks when deciding on where to place you in the search engine result pages.

2. Google bases it’s search engine results on trust

Show Google you are trustworthy.  Your site should have quality sites linking to it, links that accumulate over a natural time frame (not 10oo’s of new links in a day if you are a small and new site).  You want Google to trust you?  Provide quality content that visitors enjoy / find informative, that they want to share, by linking their own website to you, or bookmarking you etc.

Why is Google going Caffeine?

It could be because the guys working on this new project are working way to many hours and need a lot of coffee?

There is speculation across the internet as to why the sudden decision to release a new way of Google searching, however it would be reasonable to assume the recent combining of Microsoft and Yahoo in an effort to become a healthy competitor with Google would have something to do with it.

Rumours of a launch and of course a launch will give Google some great publicity to squash the recent activity around the ‘other two’ players in search.  However, Matt Cutts, a respected member of the Google team says on his blog “I think the best way for Google to do well in search is to continue what we’ve done for the last decade or so: focus relentlessly on pushing our search quality forward. Nobody cares more about search than Google, and I don’t think we’ll ever stop trying to improve.”

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/caffeine-update/

Looking for SEO services in the Ringwood area? Give us call for a no-obligation chat to assess your needs and SEO goals.

When Dave Carroll had his favourite Taylor guitar broken by less than careful United Airlines staff, I’m sure he thought it would be an easy fix… that the airline would replace the damaged item and apologise.  When this was not the case, Dave simply wrote a song and made sure it was publicly available…. to 2.5 million viewers… so far!

Lesson:

Listen to your customers and appease them quickly if you can.  Dave was apparently waiting months with no guitar after what seems to be a blatant mistake on behalf of the airline.  If you don’t, no longer may you see ten of your customers closest friends talking negatively… you may have 2.5 million You Tube viewers,  Twitterers, Facebook users or some new social networking site spreading your worst public relations nightmare at lightning speeds.

To United’s credit, they are now playing Dave’s You Tube clip to their staff as a way of training them on how to provide better customer service.  We all make mistakes, it’s how we learn from them quickly that will determine our future.

If United play this right, they may actually do quite well out of this.  They now have a huge public awareness of their brand!  Just a shame it isn’t necessarily positive.

Be fair to your customers, that they may be fair to you.

However… my elation soon turned to dissapointment when I discovered that Optus is looking to charge for tethering.  Tethering, the ability to connect my iphone to my laptop and use it as a mobile modem, allowing me to effectively access the internet anywhere on the go, no longer restrained to the office, is a very handy feature and one I used often with my previous phone… for free… with Three mobile.  Most providers and many phones already provide tethering as a free service.

Why then would Optus charge for such a feature?  Seriously.  Why?

Already Optus charges exhorbitant amounts of cash if you go over your monthly internet download limit with your Iphone, so surely it is actually in their best interests to actually allow customers free tethering and allow us to use up our internet quota… and pay extra.  For some reason this isn’t enough for Optus, they seem to want to double dip, charging $9.99 just for the privilidge.  I’ll be interested to see their reasoning behind this move and see if customers talk with their feet as Vodaphone and Three provide free tethering.

Lesson here… When you have customers in the realm of elation, an excited frenzy because of a new product launch, provide them with better value, not worse.  Then sit back and watch the groundswell of positive word of mouth bring you more business…

The worst thing you would want on the same day is a headline in on a national paper like: Optus iPhone tethering comes at a price!

a) knowledgeable in their field
b) has proven results that they are willing to demonstrate
c) someone local

Sure, you could entrust your most valuable marketing to some unknown from India, or even to a large corporate in the inner city of Melbourne or Sydney.

But… do they know your business?  Do they know your customers?  Do they honestly know how your customers use the internet to search?  Or are they just taking a guess?

Custom Service is located in the Yarra Valley, in Melbourne’s Eastern Suburbs.  We service our local area,  including Lilydale, Ringwood, Mooroolbark, Croydon, Kilsyth, Mt Dandenong, Healesville and everywhere in between.

Many companies apply the same rules and strategies to every business they deal with.  At Custom Service, we don’t!  We seek to know you, to know your business and your strategic goals.  Together we work out what it is you are trying to achieve and if that is within your budgetary limitations.  The results are measured and tangible and there is no lock in contract, so really you have nothing to lose… unless of course you are crippled by inaction…

Remember: You want things to remain the same, continue to do the same things.  Willing to be on the cutting edge and see just how effective internet marketing can be?  Contact us now!

At custom service we have some pretty amazing technology at our fingertips.  It allows us to do what other companies may take days to achieve in minutes… this is a cost saving to YOU!  Don’t hesitate, give us a call, there is no obligation… there’s not even annoying follow up calls, or selling your details on to others. Wow!

Hope to speak with you soon.
Matt

Contact us for help with search engine optimisation in Ringwood, Lilydale, Croydon or in Melbourne East

Oxley College is one of many christian private schools in Melbourne’s East

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.

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.

Our real estate agent, Anne Leith from Methven Professional (Australia) was originally recommended to us via friends of ours. They gave a glowing report on how she had found them the perfect house and had always been extremely helpful in all their dealings they had with her. Now, I’m sure Anne probably uses some sort of customer relationship management software or a database of some kind to help her remember the detail, but who really cares? From day one, Anne remembered my name, the name of my wife and who had referred her to us. Not only did she go on to find us the house we wanted, but now she keeps in touch with us every few months, just to touch base and see how we are doing. With each call she remembers something from our last interaction. Recently she rang and discovered we were having a baby. ‘Oh, wow, thats fantastic and so close to your friends also’. We were blown away. She still remembered who we were, who our friends were, and was showing that she’d obviously recently been in contact with them also. Anne followed this all up with a card when she heard our baby was born.

Now you know, and I know that she is wanting my business. She obviously is looking to sell our house for us when the time comes, so wants to make sure she keeps in touch and that her name is on our lips when that time comes. You know what. She has won and earnt that business. Not only that, I recommend all my family and friends to her if I hear they are looking for a house. Why? She gave us a custom customer service experience. Anne continues to make us feel like we are an important customer. She remembered the detail, and to me that is the point of difference, its the reason why she will continue to recieve my business and my recommendation.

Remember the detail. Your customers will remember you did!

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.”