Posting a blog isn’t as simple as writing your content and hitting the publish button, there are many other things to keep in mind if you want your post to reach as many readers as possible. How the search engines will index your post, how social media services will display your post, and other features, like categorizing and tagging, are just some of the ways to help potential visitors find your content. (Read more…)
Many major websites now provide areas for users to comment on products and services being sold. Added to this, Google allows users to comment on companies through their Places page and import comments from other popular sites, all of which end up showing up in their search results. As a consumer, this can be very helpful in making a purchase or choosing a certain company who provides a service. As a company, this can be great, until you receive a negative comment.
Here are some tips for dealing with negative online feedback:
If there is a mechanism to respond to the comment, do so and respond honestly. If you refunded the customer, explain this in the response. If the customer is just venting, respond honestly and in a positive tone to the events that happened. Web users are more and more accustom to seeing feedback and they realize that not everyone can be satisfied. If you are honest and you maintain a positive tone to your response, people who view this feedback will recognize that.
Ask some of your best and frequent customers to leave positive feedback about your company. It won’t look so bad if you have 50 positive comments compared to a single negative one.
If the negative comment is abusive, threatening, or contains profanity, report the comment to the website administrators. Chances are they will remove it. If the comment is just “unfair”, don’t assume it will be removed from the website. It doesn’t hurt to ask but, again, take a positive tone in your email to the website operator and explain the situation honestly.
The Best Offense is a Good Defense
Encouraging customer comments on industry specific sites and in common web directories, such as Google Places, should be part of your online marketing strategy. Staying on the offence by doing a bit of work on this each month and getting positive feedback can save you a lot of hassle in the long run when you do get a negative feedback.
In addition, Google displays its comments in their search results and there is no doubt that positive and negative feedback on your company factors into search engine optimization. With this in mind, include online comments and feedback as part of your online strategy before somebody leaves you a negative response and you find yourself behind the 8-ball.
Google’s answer to Facebook’s Like button is the Google +1 Button.
Installing the Google +1 Button
Installation of Google’s +1 button is as simple as going to their +1 website and choosing the options to configure the button for your website. At the bottom, they provide the custom Javascript code for you to simple copy / paste into your website’s HTML.
The Benefits of the Google + 1 Button
Being the world’s leading search engine means that new features tie back into your search results. The +1 Button could be an important aspect of Search Engine Optimization where the more recommendations a site has, the higher it’s placed in certain keyword rankings. Google plans to start incorporating the +1 recommendations into their search results to help serve more relevant content and advertising. They have also clearly stated that the +1 Button is similar to “telling your friends, family, and the rest of the world ‘This is something you should check out.’” With the importance on SEO, online marketers will be quick to adopt the +1 Button on their websites.
Encouraging Visitors To Use It
It remains to be seen whether website visitors will use the Google +1. Facebook’s Like Button has the advantage of posting to your Facebook Profile for all your friends to see that you “like” something whereas the Google button simply acts as a counter. This fails to offer an incentive for users to click Google’s +1.
It’s clear that Google is not the leader in the area of recommendation buttons, coming a distant 2nd to Facebook’s Like Button. However, the +1 Button could become an important feature in search rankings and also if Google launches their own Social Media service, which is widely speculated.
Recently, I had noticed that the star rating system had kind of disappeared from Youtube. By kind of, it is still there in some places but it doesn’t seem like you can give videos a rating anymore. What happened?
Back in September 2009, Youtube posted on their blog an article about Five Stars Dominate Ratings. It seems as though people either like the videos, in which case they give the video 5 stars, or they don’t like the video and give it 1 star. So how about a system that offers only two choices, Like or Dislike? It appears that this is exactly what Youtube is implementing and following in the footsteps of other popular social media website’s functionality, such as Facebook.
This got me looking into Vimeo, another online video sharing website, that has already implemented a Like feature and has gone as far as including the functionality into embedded videos. If you embed a Vimeo video on your website, once the video has finished playing, an icon appears in the top right that you can click and ‘Like’ the video. Of course, you have to have a Vimeo user account and login to do this but this system allows for a user-friendly way for site visitors to offer feedback on videos you embed into your website.
Vimeo offers a user-friendly 'Like' button for embedded videos after the video has finished.
Youtube is on the right track with their form of Like / Dislike (Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down) functionality, although they have yet to extend the functionality to be included in embedded videos. I suspect it is only a matter of time before they do.
There is no 'Like' button on embedded Youtube videos... yet.
Responding to Negative Online Feedback
Here are some tips for dealing with negative online feedback:
The Best Offense is a Good Defense
Encouraging customer comments on industry specific sites and in common web directories, such as Google Places, should be part of your online marketing strategy. Staying on the offence by doing a bit of work on this each month and getting positive feedback can save you a lot of hassle in the long run when you do get a negative feedback.
In addition, Google displays its comments in their search results and there is no doubt that positive and negative feedback on your company factors into search engine optimization. With this in mind, include online comments and feedback as part of your online strategy before somebody leaves you a negative response and you find yourself behind the 8-ball.
Tags: google, google comments, negative feedback, Social Media, user feedback
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