Spaces on the Wall

What NOT To Do

Asking every possible question before you've even exchanged information is counter productive. Go here to see what I'm talking about.

Feel a bit overwhelmed? Who benefits from all these questions? Certainly NOT the customer.

I think there's a simpler way to question.

1. What's the goal?
2. How can we work together to achieve this goal?

These core questions get the to the heart of the matter and demonstrate real conversation (for both seller and buyer). That's how you build real rapport.

How can I remove negative online comments about my company?

If you belong to a reputable company that encounters inaccurate or unflattering comments in the search engine results, here are two tactics to consider in order to clean up your company’s good name.

1. Sign up for a Google Webmaster Central account, and present your case directly to Google using their automated tools. Be aware, Google will not remove listings based on your opinion, but rather on technical guideline violations. Fortunately, many of these “negative review sites” engage in such violations (i.e. paying for links to artificially boost website authority). Once exposed, the power that this website once had over your company is lost or removed from the Google index entirely.


2. If your dealing with review sites like Yelp – there is hope. Yelp offers business owners the opportunity to Claim Their Business Page. Setting up your business owner account is quick and painless. You’ll know how many people viewed your business on Yelp, engage in private customer messaging, and quickly update your business' facts. Sure you won’t be able to remove those unflattering reviews, but at least your taking proactive measures to listen and respond to frustrated customers. Doing that alone goes a long way.

Drop me a line and let me know if these tactics end up working for.

My rankings have dropped significantly from Google. What happened?

Assuming your not deliberately spamming the search engines, there are many legitimate reasons why a website loses its position and ranking. Recent website redesigns, direct abuse of Google’s guidelines or engaging in deceptive practices are typical causes for sites to be re-evaluated or penalized by Google.

We recently engaged with a company that had been doing quite well with their organic optimization efforts until the big drop - nearly a thousand percent decline in unique visitors overnight.

This is where we take into account Forensic SEO - A practice in which site owners must investigate possible signals like incorrect XML sitemap structures, broken inbound links, questionable on-page code tactics, and improper page redirections. The trick about Forensic SEO, is that you must be able to separate SEO fact from SEO fiction.

By making only four minor SEO modifications, we were able to restore this company’s traffic patterns back to normal in just 3 short weeks. I’m curious to know if you’ve encountered such events and what you’re doing to restore your position.