Why Shoppers Choose to Use Chat Features

 
Guest Post by Patty Whelan of Merchant Express.
Lauren Freeman, President of the e-tailing group (a niche e-commerce consultancy), published a white paper to share the findings of consumer rationale for using chat. Studies were undertaken to determine the “who, what, where and why” behind consumers’ choosing to use an online chat feature. Online retailers have much to be gained by implementing the best of the live chat experience into their business.
It can be concluded that the six core reasons online shoppers choose to use live chat are multi-faceted:

1.    Shoppers feel special and empowered when they use live chat

Strong expressed strong feelings of appreciation for chat’s availability to solve a problem when sought on their own terms. Knowing their problems and/or questions matter and that help is conveniently available is significant for many of the shoppers interviewed.

2.    Shoppers can multi-task when chatting

Busy online shoppers embrace technology that saves them time; freeing them up to accomplish other things. Live chat uniquely puts shoppers in a position to problem solve while still focusing on other tasks at hand. Not having to stray from their computers or pick up the phone (especially in a work environment) were significant reasons chat was favored.

3.    Chat provides instant gratification – getting questions answered in a timely fashion

For access any time of the day or night, live chat is hard to beat. These shoppers seek immediate answers to any and all questions and “get it done in 5 minutes versus having to call or go to a store.” Ultimately, the less time spent dealing with specific issues means more time for shoppers to do something else of their choosing.

4.    Chat works in multiple scenarios from simple service questions to complex product queries

Pre-order benefits are varying as the information gathered beforehand not only answers a question but saves having to return products. Alternatively, post-order lends itself to a different set of questions that can be just as valuable for saving time. Queries might seek general information but also benefit shoppers addressing processing challenges, returns and even post-purchase support.
Speed, efficiency and an ability to utilize live chat for almost every issue imaginable cannot be under-estimated. From basic service concerns to questions on the most complex of products including high ticket merchandise, all seem to be fair game for consumers.

5.    Chat allows consumers to avoid inconvenient or annoying alternative methods

The individuals that were interviewed outlined a multitude of reasons why chat is their preferred form of communication with the retailers they shop. Instantaneous responses in real-time are much preferable to the wait time of alternative email or phone options.

6.    Chat is like “good old-fashioned” customer service

Several respondents suggested that, “chat is like having a salesperson right there when you need them — and not (right there) when you don’t.” These chat interactions reinforce that retailers actually have people in place who understand the product and have valuable information to impart. This harkens back to times prior to this technological age when such knowledge was the rule of retail.
These key insights gained from consumers that appreciate a positive live chat experience should be taken into consideration for every retailer’s growth strategy.
•    Your live chat feature should be easy to find and easy to use.
•    Be sure that your customers are treated with intelligence.
•    Be helpful and don’t make the mistake of using chat technology as playing the role of a pushy salesperson.
Incorporate the best of traditional customer service interactions into your live chat feature to create a positive customer experience, enhance your company’s reputation and foster customer loyalty.      

About Guest Blogger

Patty Whelan is a seasoned copywriter with significant experience producing original content in all facets of online and offline marketing communications, with specialties in all aspects of Search Engine Optimization copy writing. Her work has covered a broad range of topics for varying industries and has been published in print and electronic media. The focus of her current work concentrates on the electronic payment processing industry and small businesses. You can connect here through this website : http://www.merchantexpress.com

   

Characteristics an Evil SEO Company

Do you what is ailing the SEO industry at this moment? No, no it is the Penguin or Panda updates. They are doing a great job by demolishing those common SEO myths that visibility can be achieved by doing some absurd tasks like directory submissions, article syndications etc. No, what is plaguing the SEO industry is the reputation. Its reputation is getting tanked everyday because of some people who are masquerading as SEO professionals and fleecing customers in the name of offering SEO services. These snake oil sellers are giving the entire SEO industry a bad name and creating loads of confusion among those who are in genuine need of online marketing services. So, it is becoming all the more difficult for small business owners who are looking for a genuine SEO company to get more leads from their website. Though there is no such hard and fast rule to tell which SEO company is genuine and which one is another Sneak Oil Seller, SEO sneak oil sellers have some characteristics that set them apart from the genuine service providers. Wondering what they could be, here they go:

You get a mail from an SEO Company

Great SEO companies never send you email or spam your inbox out of blue. They know how to market their products and for that reasons they know they will never resort to such menial things. So, whenever you get an email that says that your website is not listed in major search engines or your website is missing out on a large number of visitors, you should be apprehensive about the company and its intension. In majority of cases, you do not even have to submit your website to search engines; they are quite capable of locating your website.

They Guarantee You First page rank

Some SEO Sneak Oil sellers go extreme and they claim that they have personals associated with Google. Though it may sound ludicrous to you but some people do fall in prey. So be aware of these nonsensical claims. Sometimes, they claim that they can make your website top in the SERP in some competitive keywords. This is simply misleading. No SEO Company can claim that it can make your website appear in top in some premium keywords. Just stay away from them.

They are not willing to tell you what They are doing

If the SEO Company that you have hired is genuine, they will not mind sharing you all the details they are doing. But SEO Companies that employ unethical practices like creating doorway pages only for the sake of boosting the rank of the main money making website or stuffing keywords in the web pages, creating pages only for the sake of building links etc. You need to press them to show you what exactly they are doing.

They want to Insert a Link of their website

You need to avoid those SEO companies who try to convince that submitting your website in thousands of directories and article directories will eventually help your website securing higher ranking. Participating in link scheme is the last thing that you should do. Google has already waged a war against the blog networks and link scheme and therefore, there is no such reason why you should be making your website vulnerable to algo updates. And never agree to their proposal to add a link back to the SEO company from the footer section of your website.

Check where your money is going

Some SEO Companies are into the habit of misguiding people by combining PPC and organic web strategy. They try to misguide people by showing that they actually control the search engine by making their website at the top of some less competitive keywords in Google Adwords or any other marketing platform. So don’t fall prey to this kind of claims. You need to figure out where your money is actually going. Temporary top spot is not going to save you in one way or the other.

About Guest Blogger

Michael Evans is a passionate writer and he works for WebArts, a Cyprus Digital Agency.

Tips for Successful Post-Panda Internet Marketing

Panda and Penguin are close friends. They are tools of Google that designed to re-organizing Google ranking system, reduce the rank of low-quality website. Last two days, we have a post on how Google Penguin penalize a website for overdoing in SEO. This guest post will give you some tips to sucessful in new era of Google.

The last two years have seen some major changes in the world of internet marketing. Google's Penguin and Panda updates have altered the SEO landscape considerably. Here are a few tips to help you succeed at post-Panda online marketing.



Prior to the Penguin and Panda updates, it was possible to rank a website using spun content, directory submissions and automated link-building techniques. Those days are long gone and now you need to have high-quality content and a natural link profile if you want your site to do well in the SERPs.

Marketing Through Quality Content

Content marketing is not a new concept, but it is enjoying a surge in popularity at the moment. Before Penguin and Panda, many webmasters avoided content marketing because it seemed like a lot of work and they knew that they could see good results just by hiring an SEO company to do some automated directory submissions and submit a few spun articles to the popular article farms for them. It didn't make sense to pay more for good content and high-quality links if you could get the same results by focusing on quantity instead.

Now that Google has improved its ranking algorithm, those low-quality links are useless and every good SEO Company knows this. If you want your site to rank well today, you need to build a site full of useful and interesting content. Google appreciates unique content that is relevant to the topic of your website and will love your website even more if it is frequently updated. Not only will unique, fresh and interesting content get bonus points from Google, it will also be appreciated by your users. More important, good content will be linked to via social media sites and readers' blogs.

Organic Traffic and Links

Before Google changed its algorithm, link-building strategies focused on acquiring links for the purpose of increasing the target site's Page Rank and improving the site's ranking for specific keywords. Google now picks up on sites that have unnatural-looking link profiles with a lot of links that have similar anchor texts.

Instead of focusing on links for the purpose of page rank, it is better to focus on creating content that people want to link to because they think it is worth sharing. The traffic that your website receives from such links will land on specific pages rather than the home page. In addition, some of those links will be from sites with a loyal readership. Those readers will click on your link and hopefully enjoy the content on your site and choose to come back regularly.

There are no short cuts when it comes to successful internet marketing. Yes, it is possible to buy traffic and see impressive numbers in your statistics, but that traffic will probably consist of bots, or visitors who are not actually interested in your site. If you want to get quality traffic and have people read your posts and buy the products you are selling, you need to work hard. Today, quality content and regular site updates are the secret to success.

About Guest Blogger

Mary  is an online marketing expert and technology enthusiast. She has been using the internet since the days of Usenet and the AOL walled gardens and she founded her own SEO Company in the late 1990s. Away from the computer, she enjoys horse riding and fly fishing.

How Google Penalize Website with Penguin Update

Seven months ago Google rolled out Penguin update to fight against SEO spammers. A  roactive step from google to clean search engine ranking results from aggressive search engine optimizers trying hard to improve rankings in Google through building the low quality links.

The aftermath of Penguin was a total disaster for small business owners who relied heavily on Google. Recently, a month ago, two small business owners who shut the office down forever. Even after I promised in helping to recover from penguin, these SMEs forced to close business as the nature of business was not allowing run the trade with lack of time limit.

The sole intention behind this post is to educate business owners on the main causes of penguin hit to the websites. The below points answers what tactics and techniques lead to penguin penalty.

Keyword Resemblance in Anchor Text, Title Tag and Web Page:

There is a classical misconception about Penguin update: getting low quality links of same anchor text. Google goes one step further by analyzing the keywords between anchor text and title tag. The co-occurrences of same keyword in web page and anchor text. It’s quite simple for the Google spider to analyze the above. For Example: If you are targeting the keyword Real estate agent in California and the same keyword is mentioned in title tag and repeated many times in web page as well as got many anchor text of the same phrase through low quality sites. Then it’s easy for Google spider to find the pattern of spam.

Not just repeated phrases or keyword stuffing in the web page alone leads to penalty. Keyword stuffing in the web page indicates Google that website has shallow content. But aggressive search engine optimization is more than that. Here search engine optimizers are playing hard with the rules set by Google and not for visitors.

Google won’t penalize the website by analyzing one side of the story. If a webmaster made an offence in all the three aspects: repeated phrases in title tag, web page and anchor text means web master is not ignorant of search engine optimization. Webmaster is well aware of SEO and deliberately optimizing for the sake of ranking. Hence the combination of all the above techniques leads to Penguin penalty.

Usage of Same Content in link building:

This may include one of the panda characteristics but not a panda update. Google won’t manually penalize penguin update for millions of web pages. Google spider must follow a process to identify the certain patterns of fraudulent techniques incorporated by seo. One of the common factors is using same content in multiple websites. And classical example is submitting the title tags and meta description of web page in various directories. This is an easy way for Google to automate for finding the low quality links. 

Even seo professionals have used different content other than existing content in web page but same description in many directories is definitely a link building form for the sake of rankings. 

One more common spam technique is article marketing. 500 words or same article submitting in many article directories. Here it is easy for Google to find out the same content and same resource box with same anchor texts. It is fine same anchor texts with same bio but articles must be different. With different articles in other websites webmaster is contributing to visitors and in return he is getting links which won’t come under the radar of Penguin penalty.

Google is always smart. But Google also has weakness. It cannot rank manually every websites or cannot penalize every websites. Google need to automate. Once web spam of Google team identifies the common abuse followed by SEO industry it will come up update. Follow the best practices of link building and on page optimization and learn process of the new updates.

About Guest Blogger

Shwetha Ramesh started to work as Content Manager in YSS SEO Company India lately working SEO projects related to Chennai clients from our seo company chennai office.

Image credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sidereal/76724710/

How To Become An Expert In Your Industry

One of the keys to growing your presence online, is establishing yourself as an expert in your industry. This can be done in a number of different ways, but all of these ways require networking of some sort. You become an expert, by getting other experts to acknowledge that you are in the same class as them. You can establish yourself as an expert in your own industry by creating high quality and insightful content, answering questions about your industry around the web, and also releasing your own webinars and seminars on a variety of subjects that are related to your overall niche. In doing these things, you prove that you have the knowledge within your industry to become an expert, and are able to establish credibility through the sharing of other information.

High Quality, Insightful Content

The first thing that you need to do to establish yourself as an expert within your industry is to publish high-quality, insightful content on the subject. This content, should not be published on any of the other websites, and should be completely original in nature. Try to analyze the subject as in-depth as possible, and an effort to display the level of knowledge that you have on your industry. The higher-quality the content, the more believable it will be that you are an expert within your industry. Also make sure that you are participating on other websites that are publishing insightful content as well. By linking to insightful content, you not only prove that you can identify worthwhile content to your visitors when you find it, but it allows you to make connections with others that are considered experts.

Answer Questions Where Available

It should also be your goal to answer questions where available. There are number of questions and answers websites online, such as Yahoo Answers, or other industry-specific question and answer websites, in which you can create an account, and answer questions that individuals have about your industry. In doing so, you will build credibility with a range of different people, and have proof that you have been able to help dozens of people with questions about what you do. You can also answer questions over social networks, which can be an excellent way to gain traction with others, as they can see exactly what you have answered.

Webinars and Seminars

nother excellent way to establish yourself as an expert, is to hold either seminars, or online seminars, known as webinars. This allows you to put your knowledge on full display, and also help others to learn information about your industry. Try to plan ahead, and an effort to create as good of a webinar as humanly possible. Make sure that you are answering any common questions are misconceptions that people have about your industry in a straightforward and professional way, and also look for opportunities in which you can promote your website or service through these webinars.

Establishing yourself as an expert in your industry can be very difficult, but with the little bit of hard work and determination, you can prove that you have the knowledge to be considered one, by providing high quality information and helping others to gain knowledge as well.

About Guest Blogger

Charles Dodgson writes for WL Marketing Link Building Company – one of the most affordable SEO service providers delivering a full range of strategic Internet marketing solutions for businesses and professionals.

4 top web design trends of 2012 to pep up your website

One of the most important elements of a good website is ‘spectacular design’. Earlier, websites were static and design elements played almost no major role in them. But with the emergence of Web 2.0 and the new web tools and technologies, websites have become more dynamic with design playing a vital role. Today, you can use your website(s) to interact with your users, engage them and prompt them to take a call to action easily. However, there are many fine points to consider while designing a dynamic website that is in sync with the changes in WorldWideWeb. Let’s go through four such web design trends of 2012, which will help you pep up your website and make it an instant hit with the end-users.

Responsive Interface

It is no secret that most of the users nowadays access the Internet from a number of mobile devices due to speedier connectivity and unlimited data plans. Since most of these mobiles are touchscreen devices, clicking on various elements on a web page has become redundant. Today, web designers provide users with websites that sport responsive interfaces.

You can use dropdown menus, large buttons, search boxes, breadcrumbs and other such elements and make your website more responsive for your end-users, so that they can easily browse, navigate and use your website irrespective of their devices.

Infographics

Infographics are the latest sensation. They are commonly found in various social media sites and for good reason; they provide important information and put them together in a way that is easy to read and comprehend at one go.

You can use infographics on your websites to present interesting facts, statistics or anything and everything under the sun (as long as they make sense). More importantly, infographics can be shared on social media sites (and accessed on various mobile platforms as well), which will help increase your website’s visibility online.

Parallax Scrolling

Parallax Scrolling combines static images and scrollable text. This new method enables users to scroll website elements in different and more interesting ways and is particularly useful, when you want to show more information on a single web page and yet, maintain a clean, uncluttered and user-friendly layout. To get a clear idea about Parallax Scrolling, you can search for some of the best sites that have used this method on their web pages.

Minimalism

Small is the new big and less is the new more. Today desktops with 10 inch screens or laptops with 14 inch screens are making way for 7 inch tablets and 4 inch smartphones. This calls for minimalistic web design, where only relevant information is displayed on each web page and any sort of clutter is totally done away with.
These sites have a clear design; display only the important links; contain simple backgrounds and big fonts; use a color palette with 2-3 colors at the most; are easy to navigate etc. In a nutshell, minimalistic websites provide information to the site visitors clearly without distracting them with unwanted design elements and wasting their time.

To Conclude

These were some of the latest web design trends on 2012. Use them on your website to make it more attractive, engaging and last but not the least, interesting for your target audience. This in turn will help you increase your conversion ratios and also increase the footfalls on your site.

About Guest Blogger

Alan Hall is a Los Angeles based Website Design with PLAVEBAPPS and has worked on numerous successful projects for his company. He also likes to research and write on various technical topics for guest blogging platforms when he gets the time.