Central Perk

joi, 15 noiembrie 2012

Having the Right Message During Difficult Times

Posted: 14 Nov 2012 06:47 PM PST

Two weeks ago, the tri-state area experienced the sheer force of Mother Nature as Hurricane Sandy slammed into the area. The aftermath of the storm left homes devastated and millions without access to basic essentials, such as electricity, heat, and water.

As a business, disasters are especially tough to navigate. Businesses want to show their commitment to their customers and demonstrate their support, but often times, it's difficult to know how to approach the situation.

Below are a few examples of how different companies from VC-backed startups to big brands displayed positivity in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In times like these, the following companies showed their dedication, passion, and commitment to their customers, their company, and to each other.

Startups

Value: Transparency and Commitment

Squarespace is a hosted content management system known for its responsive and design friendly WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) editor. As a result of Hurricane Sandy, one of the company's data centers in downtown Manhattan lost its power (even with redundant backup systems in place). The incredible part of thie story was that through this entire ordeal, none of their customers lost any downtime because of the dedication of Fog Creek, Squarespace, and Peer1 employees who banded together to save their generators by manually carrying fuel up 17 flights of stairs. According to Squarespace, these efforts received media coverage from prominent sites, such as The Verge, The New York Times, Fast Company, and many more.

Value: Community

Gilt is a designer fashion flash deals site. Gilt and other businesses across the country (from New York to San Francisco) built a partnership to launch the Donate Today, Save Tomorrow initiative. The donations received from this effort are donated to different business and communities that have been affected by Hurricane Sandy. Those who donate will receive vouchers from various participating businesses, such as Tumblr, AOL, and Virgin America.

Gilt Group Give

Gilt has also launched an API version of the website that would enable developers to participate in the program in other innovative ways.

Another example of a startup company that valued its community is Airbnb, a travel rentals site. They partnered with nyc.gov to develop a Donated Sandy Housing Directory that listed all users who were offering up free housing to others who were without power, food, and water. Both host and guest had all fees waived, while Airbnb still offered hosts insurance for up to $1 million. Airbnb's efforts were featured on Tech Crunch and the Los Angeles Times.

Airbnb Hurricane Sandy

Finally, Tumblr and Humans of New York (HONY) joined together to raise over $100,00 for Hurricane Sandy Relief. HONY is a popular Tumblr site ran by photographer Brandon Stanton as a visual census of New York City life. The photo blog demonstrates the power of photography in visualizing the human condition, as well as establishing an online community that binds people together through demonstrations of empathy, support, and kindness.

HONY Image

Image courtesy of Humans of New York

E-Commerce/Small Businesses

Value: Engaging with Your Audience

Skullcandy, a headphones and ear buds e-commerce site donated 100% of all proceeds from their November 10th sales to surf shops located on the New Jersey and New York coast that have been affected by the hurricane. The purpose was to get these coastal surf shops up and running as quickly as possible with full discretion to use the funds as needed.

Skullcandy and Hurricane Sandy

Big Brands

Value: Prioritizing Customers via Email Marketing

Chase Bank sent an email to all their customers located in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions letting them know that although hundreds of their branches and machines had been damaged by the hurricane, they were working hard to distribute portable generators, so that these machines would quickly function again. In addition, Chase announced they were also extending waivers and automatic refunds on several of their fees as a result of the hurricane, such as late fees on loans, insufficient funds fees, and overdraft protection.

Verizon also sent emails to targeted residents from specific zip codes offering free device charging regardless of whether the individual was a Verizon customer or not, as well as free domestic calling.

Image courtesy of Clickz

Kimpton hotels is a United States boutique hotel chain. This article on Return Path shows that because the hotel chain sent timely and targeted emails addressing people's immediate concerns, such as canceling reservations at no charge, their emails resulted in a very high read rate. In this case, it doubled the normal read rate.

Kimpton Hotel email open rate courtesy of Return Path

United Airlines also sent out a targeted email to customers outside of the tri-state area urging them to donate their frequent flyer miles.This provided another channel to engage existing loyal customers, as well as demonstrate some of the company's values.

Image courtesy of Clickz

Community Organizations/Non-Profits/Volunteers

We could never discount the work of community organizations and non-profits who continuously step up to the challenge and support their community. I was immensely touched by this story of how a local grassroots organization in the Lower East Side/Chinatown of Manhattan stepped up in a very desperate time of need for many people. After the hurricane, there weren't enough official federal and city resources to ensure that individuals in these areas had enough basic essentials to survive. CAAAV took it upon themselves to go door-to-door and ensure that the elderly, the sick, and others who were not as mobile had food, water, and heating supplied by the organization's own funds.The stream of volunteers they've received via phones, social media, and word-of-mouth was also heartwarming.

NYC Marathon Runners

NYC marathon runners volunteering in Staten Island. Image courtesy of USA Today

In addition, there are endless stories of amazing volunteers, such as NYC marathon runners who instead, took that Sunday to travel to Staten Island and volunteer in the community, as well as "Occupy Sandy" organizers who put together an Amazon wedding registry for supply donations. There is also a story about a young boy who donated all his Halloween candy to those who were unable to have their own Halloween.

Halloween candy for Sandy victims

Image courtesy of Mashable

Finally, there is Sesame Street, who on November 9th aired a very special episode where a hurricane swept through Sesame Street. Big Bird's nest was destroyed and all his friends came around to support him in his time of need.

Sesame Street Hurricane Sandy

All in all, delivering the right message to customers during their time of need is actually quite simple - be genuine, kind, and empathetic. When they need you, you're there for them and one day, they'll kindly return the favor. After all, we're in this together.

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You Asked, I Answered - Q&A from "You Probably Think This Citation Source Is About You, Don't You?"

Posted: 14 Nov 2012 02:27 AM PST

Posted by danaditomaso

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

First off, thank you to everyone who attended my Mozinar last week! I always find the Q&A portion of my talks to be the best part, and this blog post is going to answer all those questions that I either wasn't able to address or where I wanted to provide more information.

If your question still isn't answered, please leave a comment below and I'll do my best to help you out!

1. Please define citations.

I'd recommend reading getlisted.org's excellent wrap up of what a citation is, exactly. They also have a number of great resources if you're just getting started in the world of citations.

Basically, it's your business information (name, address, phone - the "NAP") on other websites. It doesn't need to include a link to your website, but it helps.

2. How long until Microformat/structured markup will matter for citations?

I think it already matters. I recommend using structured data on your own site, and other sites (such as Yelp, Yellow Pages) already do, although you don't have as much control over how it looks, for obvious reasons. If the site that you're placing the citation on allows for microformats, go for it!

3. Couldn't citations on sites such as YouTube and Flickr be flagged as spam?

Only if you're being spammy in your citation building. If the photo or video could contain a relevant address, I don't see an issue. For example, if the photo or video was taken at your business, then you're just saying (with a full NAP) where the photo or video was taken! I can't see how that would be considered spam - it's relevant information for the visitor.

4. How can local citations help if you are a company looking to be seen nationally not just locally?

I think that companies who are focusing on national strategies need to consider what portion of that is actually a local search. With the buy local movement, potential clients could be looking locally first for what you do, even if it's a service that can be provided across the country.

5. What if you use a virtual office?

Do you do work there? Could clients visit you there? Then you can use it as a real address. Be careful, though - changing addresses is a lot of work, so make sure that you and the virtual office provider are in it for the long haul. You'll also need to ensure that you have a unique phone number so that Google doesn't confuse you with the other businesses using that address.

One big no-no is using a PO Box as an address, even if it looks real, like from a UPS Store. The rule of thumb is "could people come to your location?" If they can't, don't use it as an address.

6. Any recommendations if your business is about to change offices?

Start finding all your citations now and get all your log ins ready in order to make updating easier. The moment you have the ability to receive mail at the new address, start making the changes. I'd also recommend reviewing getlisted.org's information about local search data providers, as this can help prioritize your efforts.

7. What about using different trackable numbers across different citations? Likewise dynamic numbers on your website?

Don't. The canonical information is Name, Address, Phone, so it's key to have a single phone number for all your citation data. I know this makes it harder for you to determine where a lead comes from, but you could try a coupon code or similar to track the call.

As for your website, avoid using dynamic numbers in content that's indexed. If you're using PPC, you can use dynamic numbers but make sure that your landing pages aren't indexed.

8. What would this look like for an organization with 500+ locations?

It's still a lot of work. I know that if you have that many locations, you're looking for a way to make that scalable. I recommend recruiting your local representatives - store managers, franchisees, owners - and working with them on these initiatives. Many times, they're already involved in organizations, sponsorships, and other good causes that are great for local citations - they're just not sharing that information as there isn't a good way to make your head office aware of it. Get them invested in what you're doing and explain to them why and how it will help grow their business.

9. I'm changing my website name to a new one, will I lose all my rankings?

You should be fine, but follow 301 redirect best practices. SEOmoz has a nice overview on how to do this.

10. I need a business to show up in Apple Maps, but can we use something other than Yelp? My clients really don't like Yelp.

It depends on what country you're in, but you might just have to make nice with Yelp, unfortunately. Andrew Shortland just started a new blog about Apple Maps. I'd recommend reading it over, especially this post on data suppliers by country.

11. How do you go about local search when you have multiple locations for the same company in the same city? For example, if you have both a retail store and a distribution/pickup centre in the same city?

If you want actual people to go to the retail store before they buy anything, then that's the location you'll be working on, not the distribution centre.

If your business has several retail locations in the same city, then I'd recommend treating them all equally as far as citation work is concerned. One thing you can do is find out if the locations are in a named neighbourhood. If it's a large city, people will often search by neighbourhood, such as "snow tires Edmonton downtown" or "snow tires Bonnie Doon" (a neighbourhood in Edmonton). Google will usually figure out what you mean. I'd recommend doing a few test searches with neighbourhood names and see what comes up.

12. Google+ Local let me put in two phone numbers, so we put in both a 1-800 number and the regular number. Should we remove the 1-800 number until we are sure that we won't be penalized for it?

I'd recommend putting the "regular" number as the main phone, and the 1-800 as the alternate phone number. Or, just don't use the 1-800 at all. Consider this: if the visitors seeing that phone number are locally-based, why do they need the 1-800 number? Seeing a 1-800 number can sometimes turn off a potential customer from calling as they may think that they're being directed to a call center as opposed to the actual retail location.

13. If I run two businesses from the same address, could I simply add a suite number to differentiate?

Yes, but you'll also need to have different phone numbers for each business, even if it's just a forwarding number. Google uses phone number as their unique identifier for the business so they will merge businesses with the same phone number and assume it's a data error instead of two separate businesses. I have seen this happen with clients in the past, and it just can't be fixed without two different phone numbers.

14. What tools/software would you recommend for finding citations? What do you recommend for finding directories that have citations?

We use Whitespark's Local Citation Finder. They also offer a citation building service, but the tool is for people who'd like to build the citations themselves.

We also use Google Alerts quite a bit - toss in your key phrases, set up Google alerts, watch the potential citation sources come to you!

But that's really just the foundation of the citation building campaign. Once you've done that, start going through the ideas in my presentation to level up what you already have.

If you'd like me to write out a more detailed post about how we use Google Alerts for citation building, please leave a note in the comments and I'll put it together.

15. This reminds me of normal link building. Do you value these citations as much as links?

It is very similar in many ways. It's only the content that varies - I want that full NAP in there, and ideally a link if we can get it.

I do value these citations just as much as links. I also find that many of these citation sources have real people who read them and will check out the business as a result. I try to avoid building links for the sake of links - our goal is always to get a link or content piece where an actual human being will see it and hopefully check out the client's business.

16. I have 3 addresses for my company, but one main office. What is the best thing for me to do?

Depends on what those other addresses are. Are they actual places that people can go? If no, don't use them and try to clean up any citations you already have. Focus on the address where real people can go.

17. Does a citation need to be in any special format? If it's listed in a blog post, can it just be Company Name, Address 1, City, State, Zip in line in the text?

That's all you need! Just make sure that the NAP corresponds to your "master" information, including commas, dashes, number signs, St vs Street, and so on. Consistency is key with citations.

18. For more "old school" clients in older industries who don't believe in social, for example a construction equipment rental company that is B2B, how have you gone about actually selling any of these strategies to them? To suggest sponsoring a bull, setting up a webcam, getting listed on a parade page, etc. would probably get me thrown out of their office. Should the focus then just be on the easy citations and the local Chambers? Nothing too fancy?

I'd say start there until you have their trust. Then you can suggest some of the wacky stuff. If you have clients who are more open to doing different things, use these ideas with them, write up a case study, and present it to your old school client.

I also find that the old school clients aren't resistant to new things - they just want to be sure that these things will work for them in terms of growing their business. It takes time and trust.

19. We have multiple offices and we have local office pages as well as our overall website. The detailed office page is more directly tied to the local information (specific addresses, phones, etc). Should we list the detailed office page as our main URL, or the main website?

Use the detailed office page, especially if you have hundreds of locations. Then the potential customer who follows that link is taken right away to the location information that's right for them.

20. Another situation I have found, is a client that only uses one phone number for multiple locations. I have created six physical Google+ Local pages for his six different locations, but all used the same phone number. Google and Bing don't really like this.

No, they sure don't. You'll need to get separate phone numbers for each location as soon as possible and change your citations to reflect the change. As I said earlier, phone number is the unique identifier and if multiple locations (especially in separate cities!) have the same phone number, you're going to have a difficult time.

21. What if your address and name on ALL sites are consistent but different from postal service?

As long as the changes aren't so different as to cause confusion for visitors or map markers you should be fine.

For example, many addresses in Montreal are formatted differently due to language differences:

3927, Rue Saint-Denis (on the website)

3927 Rue Saint Denis (Google's information)

While both look the same, the differences in the comma and dash could potentially cause issues. If you already have a Google+ Local page, look at that address and use it as your NAP information.

22. If I have multiple versions of my NAP already listed. Do you have a quick method of finding them?

Just lots of searching. Search for your business name, address (formatted as many different ways as you can think of), phone number etc. Once you find a "bad" citation, set up a Google Alert for the bad information in case more pop up later.

23. Is it still important/as important to build citations to businesses that are service area businesses? (Plumbers, etc)?

It's the most important thing you can do, especially for businesses like plumbers.

Thanks again for all the great questions! I hope I was able to help. If you still need information or have a question that I haven't addressed here, please leave them in the comments below.

The President Holds a Press Conference

Your Daily Snapshot for
Thursday, November 15, 2012

The President Holds a Press Conference

Yesterday, President Obama held a press conference to answer questions and lay out his plan for the country. He made one thing clear: his job is to help American families and small businesses get ahead in the wake of the recession.

The President said there's one thing everyone agrees we can do right now to provide a foundation for a solution that helps the economy and gives American families more certainty: prevent taxes from going up for the middle class.

Find out more about the President's press conference.

President Barack Obama is introduced as he enters the East Room of the White House for a new conference, Nov. 14, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Content strategy for Christmas and the New Year

Posted: 14 Nov 2012 05:31 AM PST

Whether you’re decking the halls, or trying to pretend it won’t happen this year, Christmas is fast approaching. For marketers of all kinds, it’s a topic that’s impossible to avoid if you want your content to appear timely and relevant to your readers.

But if you want to cash in on the Christmas rush, you can’t wait until the turkey’s in the oven to start publishing festive content on your website. Not only that, but you need to be equally ready to move quickly once it’s all over, in order to get your website ready for the new year.

A website that's still Christmassy by January is sadder than an empty tin of Quality Street.

Content strategy is a matter of careful planning at the best of times, even if you factor in the ability to respond quickly to developing trends in your traffic and customer base. Christmas is probably the fastest-moving time of year, particularly for retailers carrying festive products or gifts.

Within the world of ecommerce, there are unavoidable delays due to your distance from your customer. While you can do plenty to overcome this with next-day or same-day delivery (particularly of virtual services, rather than physical goods), it’s still worth thinking about whether your customers might be leaving 28 days for delivery when they place their orders. That shows just how early your Christmas content needs to be live.

There’s no more important time of year than Christmas to take this into account, as even last-minute shoppers will be keen to avoid disappointment, and many people will think of the Royal Mail ‘last date’ for sending cards and parcels as being the cut-off point for online orders too.

Effective content strategy can overcome this – either by explaining that private delivery firms are used for guaranteed receipt in time for Christmas, or simply by making sure orders are placed well ahead of the cut-off dates.

Know Your Trends

First, know when people buy. A Christmas 2012 poll by ICM Research for Retail Week found the following:

5% of people had finished their Christmas shopping by the end of September;
12% more expected to have finished by the end of October;
36% expected to complete their shopping in November;
28% planned to finish in the first half of December;
9% would leave it until the last minute, and shop in the final weeks before Christmas.

That leaves 8% of people with no clear idea of their shopping schedule, and 3% who were not intending to do any specific Christmas shopping at all – proving that, even at Christmas, you can’t please everyone.

A good content strategy, then, might reasonably target these groups separately, with early-bird offers for those September-October shoppers, a mass-market approach to the November rush, and last-minute gift ideas for December laggards.

Know Your Keywords

It’s important in any search-focused content strategy to know which terms are likely to perform best for your site and generally. For instance, Google Trends data consistently shows that more people in the UK search for ‘Christmas gifts’ than ‘Christmas presents’.

Long-tail keyword knowledge can help you to reach even more relevant customers too – for instance, Google Trends shows that while ‘gifts for men’ is a fairly popular query, its female equivalent is not ‘gifts for women’, but the less direct ‘gifts for her’.

Analyse and test keywords throughout the festive period to ensure your content and your paid search content are delivering the most customers they can.

The Perfect Year

Learn to view the New Year period not as the end of one year, or as the beginning of the next, but as a joined-up stage in your content strategy.

In particular, make sure you recognise all of the different possibilities for winning customers out of your festive search audience.

These could include:

shoppers with Christmas gift money (or gift vouchers, where relevant) to spend
shoppers keen to make the most of January sales
shoppers already planning ahead for next Christmas (a small but legitimate niche audience)
revellers keen to keep the party spirit alive into the new year
committed New Year’s Resolution-makers (especially in traditional markets like gym membership)

Depending on your niche, you might have further specific opportunities that are worth targeting. Analyse last year's click and sales information carefully to see what will work well for you.

Reaching Your Audience

Finally, while your Christmas content strategy is likely to be dominated by product descriptions, special offers and posts about the best Christmas gift ideas, you’ll probably want to change things slightly as you move into the New Year.

If you’re targeting New Year’s Resolution-makers, make your updates motivational, or write how-to articles to take the stress and planning out of maintaining a resolution for as long as possible.

One of the most important watchwords to keep in mind is simply ‘mood’. For most people the festive season is a time of celebration. If your content strategy is able to tap into that, and keep the feeling alive for as long as possible after New Year’s Eve, there’s a lot of positivity around that you can benefit from quite cheaply.

Image credit: DeaPeaJay