Call Center and Customer Care Strategies Now Power SEO, Web Traffic and Lead Generation We are in the age of brand advocacy, social media and hyper fast product design and production schedules. If our products and customer service delight customers, the news goes viral. If not, we hear angry customers in public forums almost instantly. Customer care professionals are finding themselves at ground zero of a whole new world. These new approaches to customer care show up in a bevy of new titles, from “Head of Customer Experience” to “VP of Happiness.” One aspect that surprises some customer care strategists in this new era is that they have a fresh role: that of SEO specialist, web traffic generator and even as a source of sales leads. My company, MindTouch, provides a platform that makes customers happier. We do this through our advanced social help system that creates more loyal user [...]

Because of the insane success Pinterest has had over the past year, it’s not a huge surprise to see dozens of other startups trying to replicate some of that same success. Over the past 6-12 months several dozen “pinterest clones” have started up. Some more funded and more developed than others. Pinterest Clones = More places to build links When it comes to SEO… this can be a good thing! It gives us SEO’s more places to build links. Again like always I am not in any way advocating spamming or Black-hat techniques. I don’t recommend going to pinterest clone sites and just posting a bunch of crap in order to get a few links. Rather if you are interested and willing to take the time to understand the niche of these specific social sites and post content that will be potentially interesting to each respective user base, then these [...]

WARNING! THIS IS NOT A RECOMMENDATION FOR HOW LINK BUILDING SHOULD BE DONE. THIS IS MERELY AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SOME OF THE BLACK-HAT, DANGEROUS LINK BUILDING THAT IS CURRENTLY GOING ON IN THE SEO INDUSTRY. USE AT YOUR OWN PERIL! Fiverr.com is a web-workers best friend. The ability to get tasks completed for you for a mere $5 makes Fiverr a very popular tool for Internet Marketers and more specifically SEO’s. The following are 10 common Fiverr orders that SEO’s are currently making: 1. Pinterest Repins and Likes search query = “repins” Tip: look for offers where they repin either a) a specific pinterest url or b) a specific webpage of your choosing. 2. Facebook Likes to Your Facebook Page & Website search query = “facebook likes” Tip: look for offers where they “like” your specific webpage or your actual Facebook page. 3. Thousands of Forum Profile Links search query [...]

Very quick and simple guide I wanted to put together for you today… setting up your Authorship Markup for Google with your Squidoo profile. If you publish on Squidoo frequently than you want to make sure that your name is being associated with those articles in Google Search Results. This is simply a quick guide to show you how to accomplish this. For a better understanding of what Authorship Markup is as well as how the rel=author and rel=me tags work I recommend checking out this article ‘How to Create Your Digital Footprint with Links.’ Step 1: Add Google+ Profile Link to Your Squidoo Profile Once logged into Squidoo go to My Settings >> Profile and scroll down to the Profile Links section. In order for this to work you need to add your Google+ url. Yours should look similar to mine = https://plus.google.com/100855738696349859796?rel=author Step 2: Add Squidoo Profile Link [...]

We all know Magento is a great option for an open source shopping cart. But one thing few people bring up is how unfriendly it is when it comes to on-page SEO efforts out of the box. Which is why I’m writing this. I recently worked on a Magento Ecommerce website for my Home Theater Screen Paint site and experienced some serious pains that I hope to eliviate you from with these 10 quick tips for on-page Magento SEO optimization. 1. Setup Search Engine Friendly URLs Go to System >> Web >> Search Engine Optimization and select “yes” under Use Web Server Rewrites. 2. Install Yoast’s Canonical URL Extension The Canonical URL extension for Magento built by Yoast sets your Magento site up with the Canonical tag for every single page. This is very important to install because Magento sets up all URL’s without a trailing slash. This tag notifies [...]

First… Who Are We Talking About Here? There are all types of search engines on the web today. Big ones. Small ones. Search engines covering specific niches and industries etc. But when we’re talking about SEO we’re talking about the major ones. These include: Google: the behemoth. The search engine of all search engines. Bing: ran by Microsoft. Claimed by many to be gaining some serious market share. Yahoo!: acquired by Microsoft but is still used by many across the world. Why Search Engines? Just to review something you probably already know… search engines provide a HUGE value to the web as we know it today. Here are a few main points to take note of: User perspective = As a user you have the ability to find anything you want as well as having complete control over what it is you want to read/view. Take search engines out of [...]