by Mike Moran

When my friend called me, there was a little panic in his voice. He owned a successful, customer-friendly small business, and was generally an easygoing person. But he didn't know what to do. A long-time and loyal customer alerted him to a savage review of his business on an Internet Yellow Pages site. And so now he was turning to me to find out what he could do about it.

I asked him for the details and he ruefully related the story. When he read the review, he immediately knew who the unhappy client was, recognizing some details in the story. He told me that this client had been impossible, constantly changing her mind about what she wanted with no notice, and although he did his best to satisfy her, at the end he had to tell her that he had done all he could for what he had been paid.

Image via CrunchBase

He would have understood if she had honestly expressed her disappointment in him in the review (even though he felt she was expecting way too much), but what irked him no end was that her review attributed egregious bits of behavior to him that were completely made up from whole cloth. He had objective proof that some of her comments were lies.

This isn't an isolated case. Although most reviews are factual, and some small businesses have it coming, there's nothing stopping dissatisfied customers from responding in extreme ways. And the services that post such reviews, such as Yahoo! Yellow Pages and Yelp, don't want to be in the position of having to discern who's telling the truth, letting the "wisdom of crowds" sort things out.

So, what's a small business to do? First, treat your customers well, remembering that they have more power than you think. Encourage your happy customers to post reviews online, so that the wisdom of your crowd is in evidence--that will dilute the power of any one negative review. (Yesterday, I posted some small business social media success stories that you can emulate.) When someone posts a bad review, consider engaging that person online to try to make amends.

Unfortunately, it might require that you develop a thicker skin, because the rudeness of some online reviews might be more than you can bear. One San Francisco bookstore owner was arrested for battery after responding to a Yelp reviewer.

But that's no reason to accept outright lies. When it clearly goes beyond a difference of opinion, and you can prove you've been wronged, go to the review site and plead your case. Show them that it's a lie and ask them to remove it.

That's what my friend did, and Yahoo! Yellow Pages, to their credit, did remove the dishonest review. But my friend learned form the situation. Now, he solicits good reviews and he works harder to satisfy even the nut jobs. It's a different world out there, so make sure you know how to make your way through it.

by Stoney deGeyter

The following series is pulled from a presentation I gave to a group of beauty bloggers hosted by L'Oreal in New York. Most of the presentation is geared toward how to make a blog more search engine and user-friendly, however I will expand many of the concepts here to include tips and strategies for sites selling products or services across all industries.

Core Term Qualifiers

Optimizing your website for core terms is only part of the optimization process. The vast majority of searches are performed using longer, more specific phrases. When it comes to keyword research, these phrases are really nothing more than your core terms with key qualifiers added to them.

Using your keyword research tools you can find dozens or even hundreds of qualifiers for just about every core term. Each of these new phrases must be carefully analyzed for appropriateness for your site, whether it targets what you offer and fits with the page's content for which that core term has been applied. Those that don't can either be discarded or set aside for optimization to other pages.

Some qualifiers are merely the same core term in different form such as plurals, past tense, active tense, etc. (run, ran, running, etc.) Other qualifiers qualifiers provide additional context for the core term but don't do anything to affect the meaning of the phrase. Other qualifiers will change the meaning of the phrase and may not be appropriate for optimization with the primary core term or page.

If adding the word "discount" doesn't apply to you then that's a qualifier you don't want. If most of what you offer is not discount but you do have a section where you list certain discounted items, then that is a phrase that is better optimized on a different page from the actual core term. Every qualifier added to the core term must be carefully considered to ensure it belongs with that core term or not.

Some qualifiers will also come in direct contradiction with each other. When speaking of Jewelry you don't want to use "cheap" and "vintage" on the same page. There are many considerations like this that must be accounted for before just throwing a bunch of related core term qualifiers on the page.

Segmenting Keywords

There are four distinct keyword segments each representing a different phase of the searcher's buying cycle. After going through the process above you should be left with one or more groups of keyword that can be optimized into a page or several pages. The next step is to take each group and segment them even further based on those keyword segments.

Research: Researchers are at the very beginning of the buying cycle and generally don't know what it is they want. They go to the search engines to find very general information to help them narrow down their options. These are generally the core terms with no or very basic qualifiers. These terms will be optimized into higher level category pages.

Shop: Shoppers have moved to the next phase of the buying cycle having narrowed down their query to the product category level. Searchers are looking at different features and variances between products and deciding on which features they want. These keywords can easily be optimized on product category and comparison pages.

Buy: Searchers who are ready to buy have at this point figured out exactly what they want and now they are just looking for the right place to buy it from. They are looking for the store that meets all the right criteria for a purchase such as brand trust, price, warranties, shipping policies, refund policies, customer service, etc. These keywords can be optimized into product pages.

Info: Info queries are generally the "how to" search terms. These are people not looking to buy but looking for information and education for themselves. These queries are best optimized on blog and article pages. They don't bring in direct customers but they do help you build a strong resource website that draws links and a loyal audience.

Keyword segmenting for information only sites and blogs is a bit different than sites selling products or services. In informational sites all keywords can be used to develop content so it's a matter of determining what kind of keyword content you can produce and what keywords can be targeted together.

Using the same process of elimination from above you can segment all the keywords into three distinct groups.

Broad Topics: People looking for general information have a general topic that they want to learn more about. You must start them with the most general information as these searchers typically are not looking for a lot of detailed specifics.

Specific Desires: These searchers are looking for a answers to questions that they might have. They may be looking for a solution to a problem or the best way to get a desired result.

Immediate Concerns: These searchers are looking for solutions that meet a very specific set of criteria. It's not enough to provide broad, all-encompassing answers, they are looking for something that much more specifically can be applied to their situation.

Keyword ROI

When deciding which keywords ultimately get optimized into your site, you want to keep ROI foremost in your mind. The chart above shows a very general rule when it comes to determining which keywords produce the best ROI.

Phrases with one or two words can often produce a lot of traffic but the conversions from those keywords is often pretty low. That can be made up for with the mass quantities of traffic the keyword brings, but more traffic also means more resources consumed, including answering calls and emails.

On the lower end of the spectrum are five and six word phrases. The convertability of these phrases is very good, but there isn't a lot of traffic so total conversions is very low. These are keywords you want to optimize for but not spend a lot of time on, otherwise you lose any value from the sales they bring.

The happy ROI zone is with the three and four word phrases. These bring in good traffic and have good conversion rates. Focusing the bulk of your efforts here is where you're going to get the most value.

Keep in mind, though, keyword length isn't the only factor that matters in keyword selection. You want to make sure you select terms that are targeted for your audience produce the most profitable sales.

by Jennifer Laycock

While millions of people and tens of thousands of businesses have flocked to Twitter over the past few years, many companies are still standing in the doorway wondering if they should step inside. Their biggest concern? How much time will they spend and how much benefit will they reap.

After all, if you talk to anyone who has invested heavily in Twitter, they'll tell you just how much time it can take. It's easy to get sucked into the conversation and it's not uncommon to log in, then glance at the clock a few moments later only to learn hours have passed.

With that in mind, it's important to establish a realistic timeline for yourself to make sure you're only spending the time you need. If you're just getting started, here's a quick five step timeline to give you something to work with.

The idea here is to spend a bit of time at each stage before moving on to the next. Keep in mind, the minutes per day is total, not per activity. This timeline is designed for your average do-it-yourself small business owner who is looking to put a bit of extra effort into social media to see if there are any returns. Ultimately, you shouldn't be spending more than an hour a day on Twitter, unless it's one of your primary marketing channels or you've got a staff dedicated to your outreach efforts there.

Breaking Down the Timelines

If you're just starting out, you'll want to spend more time in the earlier stages of the scale before you move ahead. If you've been using Twitter for awhile and are simply looking to get your timelines under control, then consider moving quickly through the early stages and focusing on breaking your Twitter time into more manageable chunks with specific goals attached.

Stage One: 15 Minutes per day
Primary Goal: Following

In the early stages, you don't need to spend more than 15 minutes a day on Twitter. Run some searches based on keywords and geographical searches and find a few new people to follow. Many of these will follow you back, giving you a starting point of followers to work from.

Stage Two: 20 Minutes per day
Primary Goal: Listening

Once you've found a few hundred people to follow, increase your time to about 20 minutes per day, most of which you should spend scanning the postings of the people you follow and running keyword specific searches for topics related to your business. The idea here is to find out what people are saying so you can begin to prepare a strategy that appeals to them.

Stage Two: 30 Minutes per day
Primary Goal: Offering

After a week or two, you should have a feel for Twitter and what your followers and the community are interested in. This is when it's time to start investing a half an hour in the morning or afternoon. You should still spend most of this time listening, but you can also start to share links to blog posts you're reading or resources you're finding.

Aim to start by sharing a handful of links with your followers each day. For a stronger impact, make use of a Twitter scheduler like the one built into HootSuite to share your links over the course of the day instead of one solid chunk.

Stage Two: 45 Minutes per day
Primary Goal: Sharing

After another week or so has passed, kick it up to 45 minutes. At this point, you may want to break it into three 15 minute chunks a day instead of trying to invest all your time at once. Check for direct replies at least twice a day and respond to any of them that require attention.

Keep finding people to follow, running your searches and sharing resources, but kick it up a notch and start offering more thoughts and opinions on things or news about your business as well. Continue to make use of a Twitter scheduler to allow your thoughts to be broadcast throughout the day instead of in one solid chunk. This will allow you to reach more followers by targeting different times of the day.

Stage Two: 60 Minutes per day
Primary Goal: Engage

Unless Twitter is the absolute core of your marketing strategy, you're likely going to top out at a maximum of around an hour a day. At this point, you're going to do everything you've already been doing, but you're going to add in the goal of being more engaging. This is where you want to start communicating directly to other Twitter members. Offer feedback on their thoughts; thank them for their links...whatever it takes to get them engaged.

Consider checking in for around twenty minutes in the morning, afternoon and evening and make use of the Twitter schedulers to sprinkle your posts throughout the day when you're feeling kind of wordy or have a lot of links to share.

Keep in mind, it's likely not realistic for you to spend an hour per day on Twitter unless Twitter becomes a core part of your marketing strategy. That's ok. Think of these stages as a guideline to expanding your presence and track the results of your effort to determine how much time you can justify spending on the site.