The 5 Best Reputation Management Companies of 2020

Researchers at Womply analyzed 200,000 small businesses in every state, looking at a few dozen industries. 

They found that businesses with more than 82 total reviews earn 54 percent more money. It isn’t just about getting reviews either. Businesses achieved moderate to large jumps in revenue from the simplest tasks. Claim your profile on at least four review sites? You earn 58 percent more revenue. Businesses that reply to their reviews 25 percent of the time earn 35 percent more revenue. 

Here’s the problem many businesses run into. 

They don’t know what they’re doing. Most know how to ask customers for reviews, but they’re unsure how to handle the other important parts of reputation management. 

This is why it’s important to get help. 

If you have the right reputation management company, you’ll have the help you need to improve your company’s online reputation.

The 5 Top Reputation Management Companies in The World

Here’s a shortlist of some of the best reputation management companies in the world. You can use review sites like Clutch.co, HubSpot Agency Directory, or Sortlist if you’re looking for something more specific in the reputation management industry. 

1. NP Digital – Best for Local SEO and Reputation Management

NP Digital is my agency. If you’re familiar with my work, you know that I have a strong background in search engine optimization and digital marketing. I built an agency called Pronet Advertising more than 17 years ago, while I was still in high school. 

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been a marketer for more than 20 years! That’s given me a lot of time to learn how reputation management integrates with local search, content marketing, social media marketing, and advertising. I took all of the lessons I’ve learned from the companies I built — Kissmetrics, Crazy Egg,  Pronet, Quicksprout, NeilPatel.com, and now NP Digital.

My agency is a little bit different from other agencies. 

NP Digital ties all of our work back to revenue. It’s no different with our reputation management campaigns. If you’re going to put a dollar into your campaign, you want two dollars back, right? My agency focuses on driving real business results, so your company continues to grow; our work has to make money for your business. 

NP Digital’s client list includes:

• Facebook
• Viacom
• Google
• GM
• eBay
• NBC
• Thomson Reuters foundation
• TechCrunch
• Cheezburger
• American Greetings

2. Reputation X – Best for Reputation Recovery

Reputation X offers proactive and reactive services, but they lean more towards the reactionary side of reputation management. 

Proactive reputation management options include — content development (articles, reviews, news, blog posts, ratings, etc.). Reactive reputation management options include takedown services, including  — SERP removal, search result suppression, DMCA removals, reputation protection, and content suppression. 

Reputation X has more than 15 years of experience in the industry. What’s significant about their service is the fact that they’re comfortable working with organizations and individuals. 

“Confidential clients include Heads of State, Politicians, SMBs, Celebrities, Public Relations Agencies (white label), and just regular folks.”

 According to their website and marketing materials, they avoid pre-made campaign templates, which are common in the industry. They build each campaign from scratch, which makes sense when you realize that their service starts at $10,000. As expensive as their services are, they’re not for everyone. 

“The Reputation X client acceptance process is unique. Prospective new clients must be approved not only by management but by team members as well. That means many never become clients. In addition, prospective customers whose reputation management problems seem too tough to overcome are always informed of the fact. Alternatives are clearly explained, even if they never become a client.”

They’re pretty picky about the clients they choose and the work they accept.

Reputation X’s confidential client list includes:

•  Law firms 
• Healthcare organizations
• Fortune 500 executives
• Manufacturing firms
• Public Relations companies

3. Thrive – Best for Small Business Review Management

Thrive is a full-service agency that offers reputation management and reputation repair services. Thrive offers reputation management and repair services on their website; take a closer look at their website, and you’ll find that they’re really focused on the online review side of things. 

If you’re looking for a reputation management firm with the legal and takedown chops to protect your business Thrive isn’t the reputation management company for you. If you’re looking for an agency that can generate a huge amount of reviews, Thrive may be a good fit. If you’re looking for an agency that’s oriented around small businesses, winning new customers over or burying negative press Thrive is a great place to start. 

Thrive offers most of the services a full-service agency provides. If you’re looking for a Jack of all trades, their agency has experience in several areas; this works especially well for inexperienced small business clients who need help with multiple services. 

Thrive Agency’s client list includes:

• Nationwide Construction
• Ready Seal
• Bonds Ellis Eppich Shaffer Jones
• Max Mechanical
• Quick Roofing

4. Reputation Rhino – Best for Individuals

Reputation Rhino specializes in online reputation management; they serve small- and midsize businesses and individuals. Since then, they’ve expanded to create a range of brand management and internet marketing services that they offer to companies and individuals. 

All of the services they now offer — SEO, PPC, Social media, Web development — they’re all geared around their reputation management services. 

It’s not as common, but Reputation Rhino offers clients a money-back guarantee.

They offer reputation management and repair services; One thing that’s surprising about their business is the fact that they’re able to remove negative reviews from online review sites like Glassdoor, Ripoff Report, Google Images, and more. 

Their agency is small but so is the price; campaign pricing starts at $1,000. 

Reputation Rhino’s client list includes:

• Colleges
• Reputation management companies 
• Law firms
• Local businesses 
• Retail storefronts
• Tech companies

5. Reputation Defense Network – Best for Reputation Management Specialist

The Reputation Defense Network specializes in one thing: Content removal. They focus their attention on deleting negative or malicious content, protecting client brand reputation, and identifying anonymous hackers, defamers, and attackers. They also include proactive reputation management services, but their focus is geared around takedowns. 

Here’s how they describe their service: 

“Reputation Defense Network is one of the fastest-growing Internet Content Removal companies in the US. We are the only company to offer guarantees on all of our work. We are not an SEO or marketing firm disguised as a reputation management company.  Our focus is your reputation, nothing else.”

They use their 27-point removal audit to remove negative content permanently. They focus first on removal, then suppression. One thing that makes their value proposition unique is the fact that they offer cyber investigation services. 

If you’re looking for a reputation management company with a significant amount of firepower and legal muscle, the Reputation Defense Network is a good fit. Their services are perfect for high-stakes reputation management — the kind that includes blackmail, fraud, defamation, etc. 

They provide performance guarantees on all of their work: “you don’t pay until we provide you with a favorable result.”

That’s $0 upfront, 100 percent (permanent) content removal with an average turnaround time of 72 hours. If you’re in a competitive industry and you’re dealing with confidential, high-stakes information, this agency is a good fit. The majority of their clients are growing, mid-market firms in the $10M to $1B range. 

They serve clients in the following industries: 

• Business services
• Healthcare and medical
• Education

4 Characteristics That Make a Great Reputation Management Company

When you’re vetting an agency, you’ll want to find a company that displays the right characteristics. The last thing you want is to choose a reputation management company that makes your reputation worse. When you’re searching for the right agency, here are some attributes to keep in mind. 

1. Their agency approach is proactive and reactive 

The industry has matured quite a bit since reputation management of the 90s. Back then, agencies were focused on simply burying negative content. That’s still doable, but it’s much easier to guide the conversation from the start. 

Asking customers to share their feedback via online reviews. Creating, claiming, and optimizing your review profiles; responding to customer feedback, these are all proactive  methods you can use to improve your reputation. Deleting or burying toxic, inaccurate, or misleading content, sending out legal takedown notices, and working with law enforcement are reactive strategies. 

You need both, but these strategies don’t provide a complete picture of online reputation management campaigns on their own.

2. They focus on building relationships

Old-school campaigns are focused primarily on silencing critics, enemies, and opponents. New-school agencies still have those skills if they need them, but they choose to focus their attention on building relationships with customers. 

• Helping you take care of your customers
• Requesting reviews from customers 
• Building reviews up on the right platforms
• Generating publicity and increasing visibility
• Responding to unfair attacks
• If you’ve made a mistake, they’ll help you earn a fresh start

You need an agency that understands both sides of reputation management. 

3. They realize reputation management is ongoing

This doesn’t mean that your agency is trying to lock you into an unnecessary contract. Customers feel reviews older than three months are irrelevant. Agencies realize customers want to see consistent proof that you’re still performing well. 

Reputation and reviews, they decay over time. 

Your agency should provide you with an ongoing service that’s optional; they should provide you with the people, processes, and tools you need to manage your reputation well. They should have a team in place to manage outreach with customers, publications, and press. 

4. They’re local search experts

Your reputation management agency should have experience in running and managing local search campaigns.

You want this because local searches are growing 50 percent faster than mobile search. As far as Google is concerned, online reviews are part of the local ranking factors that determine your rank and performance. 

When it comes to local search, your reputation management company should have expert-level knowledge. They should know how to increase search engine and social media visibility. The easier it is for them to integrate local search, the better your reputation management campaigns will perform. 

What To Expect From a Great Reputation Management Company

Here’s a shortlist of the things you should expect from your agency. 

1. They’ll show you the plan ahead of time: Your agency will provide you with an A to Z plan, outlining the macro and micro level components of your campaign. You should know exactly what you’re getting into — what your campaign costs, what their goals are, how long it will take to reach those goals and the reports they’ll provide. 
2. Openness and complete transparency: Your agency should answer all of your questions and concerns; this isn’t optional or negotiable. Your agency isn’t writing copy or designing a website. They’re working with your reputation, so the impact on your business is huge. You need to know exactly what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. 
3. Consistent communication: Your agency should provide you with constant communication, feedback, and reporting. You’ll need to provide them with the decision-makers and influencers who need to be part of the conversation. 

You should see evidence of this before you sign on the dotted line. If agencies hide behind proprietary software or secret processes, you’ll want to walk away. 

Conclusion

Reputation management is easier when you have the right company behind you. Many businesses don’t know what they’re doing. Most know how to ask customers for reviews, but they’re unsure how to handle the important aspects of reputation management. 

If you feel the same way, it may be a good idea to get help. 

Businesses that handle reputation management will see consistently large jumps in revenue. Completing simple tasks — claiming your review management profiles, responding to customers online, and requesting reviews — good reputation management leads to more revenue. 

Use our guide to find the reputation management companies that are right for your business. Set your values, expectations, and needs ahead of time, and you’ll find choosing the right company is easy. 

The post The 5 Best Reputation Management Companies of 2020 appeared first on Neil Patel.

source https://neilpatel.com/blog/reputation-management-companies/

A Quick Guide to Using Keywords for Better Amazon SEO

As the world’s largest e-commerce store, Amazon is a platform sellers can’t afford to ignore. But on a website selling over 12 million items, how do you help your products stand out from the crowd with Amazon SEO?

It’s easier than it sounds.

Why? Because Amazon isn’t just an e-commerce platform. It’s a search engine with its very own algorithm, A9. 

A Short Introduction to Amazon SEO

Just like other search engines, you can use SEO techniques to boost product rankings. You use certain phrases to boost your discoverability in organic searches, which can increase sales with Amazon.

Here are other ways Amazon acts like a search engine: 

• Customers type queries into the search box.
• The Amazon algorithm presents what it thinks are the most relevant results.
• If the results are good, customers won’t go past the first page. Why? Because they’ve found what they’re looking for.

Remember, the whole point of Amazon is to sell things.

Amazon wants to match customers and sellers. They want customers to be happy with the search results so they’ll become repeat customers.

While there’s no guarantee you’ll secure a first-page spot on Amazon, who wants to be on page 20? You’ll never reach your target audience that way.

Let’s look at using keywords for proper optimization of your product pages.

How Do Amazon SEO Keywords Work?

Amazon keywords are the search terms (i.e., words and phrases) that people type into the Amazon search bar.

If you don’t include the right keywords:

• Your target audience won’t find your listing
• Your conversion rate falls flat
• Your discoverability drops

Here’s an example:  

Someone searches for a “frying pan.” “Frying pan” is the Amazon keyword. If you’re selling frying pans, but you call them an egg pan, you’ll miss the target audience.

We can take this a step further. “Frying pan” is a good keyword, but it’s may not be enough to hit a first-page ranking. Why?

It’s really broad.

Chances are, customers want more than just a frying pan. Maybe they want one with a lid, or a non-stick pan or a cast-iron frying pan.  

Luckily, Amazon’s algorithm understands this. Whenever you type a key phrase into the search bar, other suggestions pop up. Amazon bases its suggestions on other customer search terms, just like Google Autocomplete.

For example, if someone searches for “frying pan”, the first predicted suggestion they see is “frying pans non-stick.”

That’s because other customers often search for non-stick pans…and guess what? You’ve just found yourself another keyword.

The more relevant Amazon keywords you use, the better your chances of reaching your customer base (within reason, but we’ll get to that.)

What have we learned here?

• Amazon keywords are search terms.
• To increase your discoverability on Amazon, you need to include the right keywords in your product listings.
• Some keywords are a little too broad on their own.
• Including a few specific keywords can help you reach your audience base.

Essentially, think of Amazon keywords as another tool in your digital marketing toolbox. Once you know how to use them, they can increase your brand awareness and potentially boost sales.

Is There Anything I Shouldn’t Do With Amazon SEO?

Actually, yes. You shouldn’t use “black hat” tactics.

Black hat SEO is when you deliberately try to manipulate your page rankings using less than ethical strategies. These strategies include:

• Keyword stuffing
• Buying links
• Spam
• Leaving negative reviews on competitor pages to lower their page ranking

Sure, you might get a short-term boost in rankings if you use black hat techniques. But the drawbacks aren’t worth it.

Black hat strategies violate Amazon’s Terms of Service. If Amazon catches you manipulating the algorithms, they could:

• Lower your position within the search results
• Remove your product listings from the search results completely
• Suspend or permanently close your account

I’m very much a believer in sticking to “white hat” or fair SEO practices.

If you’re in this for the long game, then I suggest you do the same.

How to Make Amazon Keywords Work for You

When you’re selling products on Amazon, you want to avoid overusing keywords to diminish the user experience and a high bounce rate.

The high bounce rate metric measures when someone clicks on your listing, takes a look around, and leaves pretty quickly. This action tells Amazon that users aren’t finding what they’re looking for from your product. The outcome? Your discoverability drops, and your product is shown less in Amazon SERPs.

Here’s what you need to optimize to avoid keyword stuffing and a high bounce rate:

Product Title

Always put the most important keyword(s) in the product title. If you’re selling a vacuum cleaner, make sure “vacuum cleaner” is in the title.

The title should include:

• The item’s brand name (this is a super important keyword, by the way)
• A description of what the item is, such as “vacuum cleaner “
• The product color and size

There’s no need to go overboard — remember, you don’t want to keyword stuff.

Backend Keywords

Let’s be honest…sometimes users misspell product names. Or maybe they want a product like yours, but they don’t use the exact key phrase.

You still want these people to find your listing, but you can’t include all these potential keywords in your title.

What do you do to ensure people still see your product?

You put these Amazon SEO keywords in the “backend” of your Amazon Seller’s account.

These are ‘hidden’ key terms added to your listing when you create it. You only have about 250 characters, so use them wisely.  

Brand Name

Sometimes people are looking for a specific brand, such as Levi jeans or a Lodge frying pan. For sellers, this means you must include an accurate brand name on your product page.

A bonus? Even if you’re a relatively new brand or seller, you can increase your brand awareness among your target audience by using brand names for the products you sell.

Remember to spell brand and product names correctly; you don’t want people missing product listings because of incorrect names they aren’t searching for.

The Product Listing Description

The product description is where Amazon keywords count. If your descriptions don’t convince people to buy, they’ll bounce off the listing which can naturally decrease your conversion rate.

How do you make the most of this space?

• Bullet points: Use bullet points in the “Technical Details” section. You’re answering FAQs preemptively, such as what makes your product unique? What are your product’s key features?
• Product description: Write a concise, snappy description, including some key phrases you didn’t use in the title. You’re telling buyers why they should move your product into their cart.
• Research: Check out how your competitors write their descriptions. What works, and what doesn’t? Use what you learn for your listings.  

How to Pick Amazon SEO Keywords

So you’re ready to list your products online. How do you find the right keywords? And how do you identify the most important keywords?

Here’s what I recommend.

Amazon Keyword Research Tools

Keyword tools do the hard work for you. They pull data from Amazon websites and provide you with various keyword and key phrase options. All you need to get started is a single keyword, such as the product type.

Sonar is a user-friendly, simple option to help you get started — and it’s free to use. You could also check out Keyword Tool for Amazon or Ubersuggest.

Amazon Search Bar

Don’t dismiss the Amazon search bar itself. Simply type in the search term and see what suggestions come up. You can use these keywords in your product listings.

Similar Products

People looking for one product often scope out similar items. Have a look at competitor pages and see what items customers frequently buy in the same transaction. You never know, you might find some keyword ideas.

Google Rankings 

Have an e-commerce store outside Amazon? Then check out the popular keywords on Google, too.

Plenty of people start their product search on Google, so why not make sure you’re hitting your SEO from all angles?

Again, tools like Ubersuggest can help with Google keyword research. Just like with the Amazon search box, you can input search terms and see what products come up. This data will help you work out which keywords rank best on Google for your product.

How Does PPC Relate to Amazon SEO?

When it comes to Amazon keywords, we should touch on one other thing: the sponsored product listing.

Here’s a look at the top of the search results for frying pans — see the word “sponsored” in the lower right corner?

That means sellers have paid to have their Calphalon pans show up at the top of the search results.

They’re known as pay-per-click (PPC) listings.

PPC lets you bypass other product listings. Whenever someone clicks on your sponsored listing, you pay a fee, but you get a prime spot for a specific keyword in return.

Of course, there’s no guarantee buyers will click your listing, but some sellers use this technique alongside their organic search strategies.

We’re not focusing on PPC in this article…it’s a whole other beast.

But you should know that it’s available on Amazon just like other search engines, and that it’s responsible for the sponsored product listings you find in the search results.

Conclusion

Understanding Amazon keywords and Amazon SEO is critical if you want to be a successful seller on Amazon.

Keyword tools for Amazon can help you find the top keywords for your product listings, and they’re fast and straightforward to use.

You can always get started by searching for products like yours and see what keywords and listings come up.

How are your Amazon product listings performing now they’re optimized for SEO?

The post A Quick Guide to Using Keywords for Better Amazon SEO appeared first on Neil Patel.

source https://neilpatel.com/blog/amazon-seo/

Overcoming Blockers: How to Build Your Red Tape Toolkit — Best of Whiteboard Friday

Posted by HeatherPhysioc

Have you ever made SEO recommendations that just don't go anywhere? Maybe you run into a lack of budget, or you can't get buy-in from your boss or colleagues. Maybe your work just keeps getting de-prioritized in favor of other initiatives. Whatever the case, it's important to set yourself up for success when it comes to the tangled web of red tape that's part and parcel of most organizations.

In this helpful — and still relevant — Whiteboard Friday episode from autumn 2018, MozCon speaker Heather Physioc shares her tried-and-true methods for building yourself a toolkit that'll help you tear through roadblocks to get your work implemented.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

What up, Moz fans? This is Heather Physioc. I'm the Director of the Discoverability Group at VML, headquartered in Kansas City. So today we're going to talk about how to build your red tape toolkit to overcome obstacles to getting your search work implemented. So do you ever feel like your recommendations are overlooked, ignored, forgotten, deprioritized, or otherwise just not getting implemented?

Common roadblocks to implementing SEO recommendations

If so, you're not alone. So I asked 140-plus of our industry colleagues the blockers that they run into and how they overcome them.

• Low knowledge. So if you're anything like every other SEO ever, you might be running into low knowledge and understanding of search, either on the client side or within your own agency.
• Low buy-in. You may be running into low buy-in. People don't care about SEO as much as you do.
• Poor prioritization. So other things frequently come to the top of the list while SEO keeps falling further behind.
• High bureaucracy. So a lot of red tape or slow approvals or no advocacy within the organization.
• Not enough budget. A lot of times it's not enough budget, not enough resources to get the work done.
• Unclear and overcomplicated process. So people don't know where they fit or even how to get started implementing your SEO work.
• Bottlenecks. And finally bottlenecks where you're just hitting blockers at every step along the way.

So if you're in-house, you probably said that not enough budget and resources was your biggest problem. But on the agency side or individual practitioners, they said low understanding or knowledge of search on the client side was their biggest blocker.

So a lot of the time when we run into these blockers and it seems like nothing is getting done, we start to play the blame game. We start to complain that it's the client who hung up the project or if the client had only listened or it's something wrong with the client's business.

Build out your red tape toolkit

But I don't buy it. So we're going to not do that. We're going to build out our red tape toolkit. So here are some of the suggestions that came out of that survey.

1. Assess client maturity

First is to assess your client's maturity. This could include their knowledge and capabilities for doing SEO, but also their organizational search program, the people, process, ability to plan, knowledge, capacity.

These are the problems that tend to stand in the way of getting our best work done. So I'm not going to go in-depth here because we've actually put out a full-length article on the Moz blog and another Whiteboard Friday. So if you need to pause, watch that and come back, no problem.

2. Speak your client's language

So the next thing to put in your toolkit is to speak your client's language. I think a lot of times we're guilty of talking to fellow SEOs instead of the CMOs and CEOs who buy into our work. So unless your client is a super technical mind or they have a strong search background, it's in our best interests to lift up and stay at 30,000 feet. Let's talk about things that they care about, and I promise you that is not canonicalization or SSL encryption and HTTPS.

They're thinking about ROI and their customers and operational costs. Let's translate and speak their language. Now this could also mean using analogies that they can relate to or visual examples and data visualizations that tell the story of search better than words ever could. Help them understand. Meet them in the middle.

3. Seek greater perspective

Now let's seek greater perspective. So what this means is SEO does not or should not operate in a silo. We're one small piece of your client's much larger marketing mix. They have to think about the big picture. A lot of times our clients aren't just dedicated to SEO. They're not even dedicated to just digital sometimes. A lot of times they have to think about how all the pieces fit together. So we need to have the humility to understand where search fits into that and ladder our SEO goals up to the brand goals, campaign goals, business and revenue goals. We also need to understand that every SEO project we recommend comes with a time and a cost associated with it.

Everything we recommend to a CMO is an opportunity cost as well for something else that they could be working on. So we need to show them where search fits into that and how to make those hard choices. Sometimes SEO doesn't need to be the leader. Sometimes we're the follower, and that's okay.

4. Get buy-in

The next tool in your toolkit is to get buy-in. So there are two kinds of buy-in you can get.

Horizontal buy-in

One is horizontal buy-in. So a lot of times search is dependent on other disciplines to get our work implemented. We need copywriters. We need developers. So the number-one complaint SEOs have is not being brought in early. That's the same complaint all your teammates on development and copywriting and everywhere else have.

Respect the expertise and the value that they bring to this project and bring them to the table early. Let them weigh in on how this project can get done. Build mockups together. Put together a plan together. Estimate the level of effort together.

Vertical buy-in

Which leads us to vertical buy-in. Vertical is up and down. When you do this horizontal buy-in first, you're able to go to the client with a much smarter, better vetted recommendation. So a lot of times your day-to-day client isn't the final decision maker. They have to sell this opportunity internally. So give them the tools and the voice that they need to do that by the really strong recommendation you put together with your peers and make it easy for them to take it up to their boss and their CMO and their CEO. Then you really increase the likelihood that you're going to get that work done.

5. Build a bulletproof plan

Next, build a bulletproof plan.

Case studies

So the number-one recommendation that came out of this survey was case studies. Case studies are great. They talk about the challenge that you tried to overcome, the solution, how you actually tackled it, and the results you got out of that.

Clients love case studies. They show that you have the chops to do the work. They better explain the outcomes and the benefits of doing this kind of work, and you took the risk on that kind of project with someone else's money first. So that's going to reduce the perceived risk in the client's mind and increase the likelihood that they're going to do the work.

Make your plan simple and clear, with timelines

Another thing that helps here is building a really simple, clear plan so it's stupid-easy for everybody who needs to be a part of it to know where they fit in and what they're responsible for. So do the due diligence to put together a step-by-step plan and assign ownership to each step and put timelines to it so they know what pace they should be following.

Forecast ROI

Finally, forecast ROI. This is not optional. So a lot of times I think SEOs are hesitant to forecast the potential outcomes or ROI of a project because of the sheer volume of unknowns.

We live in a world of theory, and it's very hard to commit to something that we can't be certain about. But we have to give the client some sense of return. We have to know why we are recommending this project over others. There's a wealth of resources out there to do that for even heavily caveated and conservative estimate, including case studies that others have published online.

Show the cost of inaction

Now sometimes forecasting the opportunity of ROI isn't enough to light a fire for clients. Sometimes we need to show them the cost of inaction. I find that with clients the risk is not so much that they're going to make the wrong move. It's that they'll make no move at all. So a lot of times we will visualize what that might look like. So we'll show them this is the kind of growth we think that you can get if you invest and you follow this plan we put together.

Here's what it will look like if you invest just a little to monitor and maintain, but you're not aggressively investing in search. Oh, and here, dropping down and to the right, is what happens when you don't invest at all. You stagnate and you get surpassed by your competitors. That can be really helpful for clients to contrast those different levels of investment and convince them to do the work that you're recommending.

6. Use headlines & soundbites

Next use headlines, taglines, and sound bites. What we recommend is really complicated to some clients. So let's help translate that into simple, usable language that's memorable so they can go repeat those lines to their colleagues and their bosses and get that work sold internally. We also need to help them prioritize.

So if you're anything like me, you love it when the list of SEO action items is about a mile long. But when we dump that in their laps, it's too much. They get overwhelmed and bombarded, and they tune out. So instead, you are the expert consultant. Use what you know about search and know about your client to help them prioritize the single most important thing that they should be focusing on.

7. Patience, persistence, and parallel paths

Last in your toolkit, patience, persistence, and parallel paths. So getting this work done is a combination of communication, follow-up, patience, and persistence. While you've got your client working on this one big thing that you recommended, you can be building parallel paths, things that have fewer obstacles that you can own and run with.

They may not be as high impact as the one big thing, but you can start to get small wins that get your client excited and build momentum for more of the big stuff. But the number one thing out of all of the responses in the survey that our colleagues recommended to you is to stay strong. Have empathy and understanding for the hard decisions that your client has to make. But come with a strong, confident point of view on where to go next.

All right, gang, these are a lot of great tips to start your red tape toolkit and overcome obstacles to get your best search work done. Try these out. Let us know what you think. If you have other great ideas on how you overcome obstacles to get your best work done with clients, let us know down in the comments. Thank you so much for watching, and we'll see you next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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source https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-seo-blockers

Contact Us Page Tips: Move From Blah to Yeah!

A visitor hits your website and wants to talk to you. What does that person start searching for?

Your Contact Us page.

It’s a page on your site that pushes visitors from browser to buyer.

Contact Us pages are among the most underutilized and misunderstood resources on the web today.

Some companies don’t use them at all, and those that do have them often push these critical pages to the back burner during website revision projects.

That stops today.

I’ll share a step-by-step plan you can follow to strategize and revise this lowly web page. And I’ll use plenty of examples to spark your creativity.

Let’s get started.

What Is a Contact Us Page?

Think of a Contact Us page as a sort of digital business card. Sure, it’s short and concise. But if someone wants to reach out to you, they’ll use this page to do so.

Contact Us pages often get lumped in with other critical website resources, including:

• About Us pages: Use this resource to explain your company’s history, goals, and direction. If someone wants to know how you became a leader in your field, the data is ready to go.
• Help pages: Customers with critical product or service questions lean on this page to get their answers.
• Employment pages: Job seekers need private, protected spaces to learn more about open opportunities.

A Contact Us page is different because you’re telling people more about getting in touch with you.

Your page should also embody your brand and entice that click. If your Contact Us page is the blandest one on your website, you’re not alone. The best contact us pages contain some value proposition, even when they don’t have a lot of text.

Do You Need a Contact Us Page?

A Contact Us page can’t be skipped because it is a trust signal. Share location information and highlight your phone number and email, and you’ll demonstrate to wary consumers that they can reach you at any time.

Trust and transparency matter in marketing. Contact Us pages start the process.

Five Key Contact Us Page Elements

You know you need a Contact Us page. But you have no idea what to put on the page. Push past the writer’s block, and follow this recipe for success.

A converting Contact Us page contains these critical pieces:

1. Your company name: Don’t beat around the bush. Use your full company name.
2. Your physical address: This can get tricky for multi-location companies. Maps often solve the problem (and more on that in a minute). If you share only one address, use the one associated with your corporate headquarters.
3. A map to your location: Google Maps hold immense power for marketers. When customers know where you are, even when they’re looking at a mobile device, your conversion rates can skyrocket. Boost that power by adding a Google Map to your Contact Us page.
4. Your contact information: Include a phone number, email address, and a quick data-collection form. Customers need plenty of calls to action. Fight off spam with a CAPTCHA as well.
5. Links to relevant pages: If you know customers have product questions, show them to your Help page. If you have plenty of job seekers, highlight that Jobs page.

Don’t be tempted to clutter up the page with more details and data. Keep things clean and streamlined with this list.

Build the Perfect Contact Us Form

If you’re looking for a way to streamline customer conversations, forms are key. If you build forms correctly, routing questions is a snap.

Your form could include several fields, including:

• Name
• Location
• Current customer (Y/N)
• Question
• Email address
• Phone number

You might be tempted to add all of these fields to your form. The more data you have, the better, right?

Not always.

When customers face a sea of questions, they tend to click away. Form completion rates and added fields are inversely related.

To keep those conversion rates up and deliver exceptional user experience, only ask critical questions.

10 Exceptional Contact Us Page Examples

I’ve talked a lot about what should and shouldn’t go on a Contact Us page.

These ten companies have lessons anyone can apply.

Streamlined and Simple: Scorpion

Scorpion offers internet marketing services to law firms, hospitals, franchises, and more. The company shows off robust design skills on all other web pages. But this one is remarkable in its simplicity.

Customers answer one simple question with a dropdown. The answer routes them to an appropriate secondary form.

Customers can also skip the hassle of forms altogether, call the number in the top-right corner of the screen, or visit one of three locations listed at the bottom of the page.

Brand Promise First: BarkBox

A subscription service for happy dogs should have a dog’s photo on a Contact Us page. And that dog should look happy. BarkBox has that element covered.

Customers have three different contact options sitting below that big image. They can search FAQs, start a live chat, or send an email. It’s a simple, streamlined interface made for busy dog lovers.

Personality Plus: Kick Point

This Canadian marketing firm kicks off the About Us page with a chatty, conversational tone.

Keep scrolling, and that clever voice keeps speaking. When you reach the bottom of this page, you know just how these employees talk and write.

The cleverness doesn’t impede clear communication. You’re told the company’s address, email address, phone number, and more.

Crisis Communication: Powell’s Books

Powell’s puts customer communication front and center on this Contact Us page. Timely content about shipping delays comes first. Keep scrolling, and you’re taken to email addresses and phone numbers.

Typically, converting Contact Us pages are short. But you can break the rules when the unexpected happens.

Arresting Graphics: Parker Lee

People hire Parker Lee to design logos, websites, and other branded elements. He puts those skills to work on this visually arresting Contact Us page. The page begins with a brand statement, but scrolling past that is a snap.

A simple form with just four fields appears, and a clever map rounds out the page.

Forms Do the Hard Work: Six Leaf Design

This company emphasizes sales on this Contact Us page. A three-field form, with a tiny multiple-choice quiz, gets potential customers a price quote.

A blue button for anxious customers leads right to a 20-minute consult appointment. For companies hoping to emphasize lead generation, this is a smart model to follow.

Friendly Faces: Byte

Who will customers talk to when they reach out? Byte answers this question with photos of real-life customer service reps ready to respond to questions.

Choose from multiple contact formats, including text, email, Facebook message, and email. All of this data is streamlined, so white space surrounds the page.

Product Photography: Freshly

Freshly offers meal-kit delivery services, and an enticing product takes up about half of this Contact Us page. Putting the product first could attract customers to jump into a purchase.

The contact box is the clever bit. Customers can chat, call, text, or skip to email.

This is a simple, friendly interface that puts the product first.

Multi-Location Mastery: Wendy’s

How do you handle inquiries when customers have dozens of locations to choose from? Wendy’s handles this question with a “Find Wendy’s” button at the top of the page.

Customers with questions can text or call a number displayed in big, black text. It’s nearly impossible to miss. A clever, short form rounds out the page.

Short and Sweet: My Own

I put best practices to use on my website’s Contact Us page. I use a drop-down to route questions, and I ask customers to fill out just three fields.

I keep the branding light on this page, but the colors remind my guests that they’re still on my site.

I also link to relevant social media sites to follow me through those platforms. My digital marketing consulting contact form is similar. Short and sweet with just the information I need to know.

Contact Us Page Do’s and Don’ts

We’ve walked through several examples of pages that convert. And we’ve shared quite a few tips you can put to use right now.

But there’s more to learn.

As you’re working on your Contact Us page, be sure to:

• Be a good journalist. Put the important stuff first. Your visitors are there to connect with you. Make those opportunities easy to find and deliver an exceptional user experience. Save the rest for last.
• Promote your page like a pro. Put a link to your page in your email signature and link it to your social media accounts. Make sure customers know you’re interested in a connection.
• Link to your page. Customers look in the top-right corner of a page for Contact Us links. Make sure each page on your site connects to that critical page.

Before you publish your Contact Us page, be sure to avoid:

• Cluttered design. Don’t fill the space with tons of graphics, jokes, or text blocks. Respect what your consumers are there to do – contact you.
• Overconfidence. Use A/B testing to find the design your customers want. Don’t be overconfident about your design prowess — you might be surprised by what works!
• A desktop-first mentality. Test your site on mobile devices. Try out the form fields. Plenty of customers will visit you on the go; make sure their experience is a good one.

It takes time to design a Contact Us page that converts. Don’t be afraid to slow down, test, and head back to the drawing board. You can’t afford to make mistakes on such an essential piece of your website.

Conclusion

Your Contact Us page is one of the most critical assets on your website. People head here when they want to reach you. Make that communication as quick and painless as possible.

Publish with confidence, and watch those conversion rates. If you don’t see the response you want, change it!

With experimentation and vigilance, you can develop the right Contact Us page that works for your customers, your company, and your community.

Is your current Contact Us page lacking? What can you change to make it more effective?

The post Contact Us Page Tips: Move From Blah to Yeah! appeared first on Neil Patel.

source https://neilpatel.com/blog/contact-us-page/