It happens.  Somehow someone was not happy because of some service or product they bought from you.  It sticks out like a sore thumb on your Google Business Profile (GBP), and it really doesn’t matter if it was simply a misunderstanding with the customer, they just had a bad day, or there was a mistake that you very much want to clear up with the customer.

You need to do something about it, you could be turning away potential customers/clients.

You have four options:

1. You can request that Google delete it.
2. You can reply with a sincere offer to resolve the problem.
3. Do nothing.
4. You can start requesting more reviews from your customers, past and present, to push that bad review down and out of sight.

Let me explain more.

Request that Google Delete the Review

That may or may not work.  If the review is obviously spammy, malicious or fraudulent, Google will probably delete it.  However, it could take up to six weeks for Google to get around to it.

In the meantime, you have this nasty review that shows up in Google Maps anytime anyone makes a local search in your business niche, and it could be turning away dozens, if not hundreds of potential customers.

There is no guarantee that a bad review will be deleted, it could be there forever.  So, you need to get more reviews to push that bad one down and out of sight.  More on that point later.

Reply with a Sincere Offer to Resolve the Problem

This is something that you must do.  First, it shows that you care strongly about customer satisfaction and that makes you look good.  Everybody also understands that some people just love to complain and will magnify the smallest thing to a big problem; your reply will go a long way to helping you look good in the process.

Secondly, you are indicating a very important thing to Google: engagement.  That is, you are responding to their post.  The process of engagement shows Google that you are a legitimate, quality service-product provider.  Engagement is a metric that Google uses to measure a businesses relevance.  With a greater relevance score you will be put ahead of other listings that have less or no engagements with customers.

Therefore, you should be responding to EVERY review on Google.

Do Nothing

This is the worst of all.  It creates bad optics for you and your business. It will seem like you don’t care about customer service or that you’re neglectful or behind the times with Internet matters.  It doesn’t help you with your Google rankings and getting any sort of organic new traffic.

Like it or not, Google is the new big boss we have to acknowledge these days.

Start Requesting More Reviews from Your Customers

Continually asking for reviews is an essential policy for you.  It pushes the bad review down and out of sight, and the preponderance of good reviews will give potential clients/customers a real picture of what kind of business you are.

It increases your engagement metrics and puts you in Google’s favor, therefore you get preference over other businesses that don’t keep up with their Google presence.

Some of the Things You can Do to Take Advantage of Your Google Business Profile (GBP)

• Send an email to past customers with a link to your Google profile and ask them to leave a review
• Put up a sign at your place of business
• Put on your sales receipts and business cards
• Leave it in the signature of your business emails
• After you do business with someone tell them verbally with a smile “Could you leave me a review on Google, it really helps?”

Don’t Offer Incentives for Google Reviews

You can’t offer an incentive to get good reviews.  That is, you can’t offer a discount in exchange for a good review, etc.  Google would penalize or perhaps remove your profile entirely.  So, don’t do it.  It’s always best to be straightforward and honest.

Conclusions

In conclusion, while it may be an inconvenience, monitoring and replying to reviews on your Google Business Profile is becoming the essential thing to do.  The GBP is what shows up on the search listings, it’s right there in front of their face.  So, you need to keep it clean, friendly and inviting just like the entrance to your office or business.

In doing so you get the added benefit of moving up in the search rankings for your diligence and striving to be a good service to the community.  The Google Business Profile is a part of the new business environment we live in, it’s best if we embrace the new tech.

The post I Have a Bad Review on Google, What Do I Do? appeared first on GrowthDev.

Your response is “What?”, “Review?”, “huh?”

It’s okay, but you should know that Google itself, created a special business directory listing of your business in its Google My Business system, or also called GMB.

It will also collect reviews that people leave on your listing and rank you above your competitors if you have more positive reviews.  It’s all free.

If you neglect your GMB listing, you are leaving money on the table.

To easily remedy this situation there are a few things that you need to do:

1. Claim your GMB listing.
2. Add some images and info on your listing
3. Update the hours of operation info
4. Generally encourage your customers to leave good reviews

Generally if you listing has not been claimed you’re going to see a “is this my business?” link.  Just click it and follow the directions and in about a week or sooner you will have full control over your listing.  Treat your GMB listing as gold.

Regularly take some photos of inside your business and upload them to your listing.  This shows Google that you are a thriving, interesting place that people will love to visit and they will reward you will greater prominence over those business that don’t understand what GMB’s value is.

It is important to exactly enter the NAP (name, address, phone) info exactly as it is listed on your website, down to capitalization, abbreviations, and punctuations.  This way Google will not confuse you will other listings, and potentially reduce your position in regard to other listings.

You can leave a sign at your checkout counter reminding people to leave a review.  Of course, you can’t try to incentivize customers to do this, such as “bribe” them with discounts, etc.  Google will not like that and may penalize you for trying to game the system.  Google is looking for a legitimate and actual customer comments as possible, and not “paid” ones.

Now there is more GMB optimization that you can do, but this should get you off to a great start.  You can go to Google’s own info page for more information.

We at GrowthDev also specialize with improving the GMB listing.  Call or email us about a free GMB consultation to see how we might be able to help you with this free and powerful resource.

The post Free Business Advertising that You May not Know that You Have appeared first on GrowthDev.

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Daring is self-initiative, not being told what to do because you “are your own boss” and you know what you’re doing.

Confidence is knowing that somehow, someway you are going to figure out how to solve any number of problems that stand in your way; as challenging or intimidating as they may seem.

Vulnerability is willingness to look like a fool, to make stumbling attempts, as many times as you need to before something gels inside of you about your plan and how you do it.

I think every day I have embarked on this little business-success journey of mine, I have had to pull those three qualities out of me from somewhere.  The more times I call upon these essential qualities, the more I become competent and powerful in what I do.

Daring. Confidence. Vulnerability.

Every day is a new beginning.   A new dragon to slay, another miracle I have to perform.

I never stop learning in this game.  To be in a job, profession or business where I can “coast” seems a lazy man’s dream; but not a happy one.

So, while I may have actually had a coasting feeling through many years of my life; there’s no better time to stop coasting like right now.

The post Daring, Confidence, and Vulnerability appeared first on GrowthDev.

Making a website interesting isn’t hard either.

The person visiting your site (from any number of traffic techniques: organic searches, social media post, or paid ad) needs to see that there is a PERSON behind it who has a STORY to his/her life, and therefore they are in fact INTERESTING and maybe somewhat SIMILAR IN NATURE to the person visiting your website.

These elements are much more interesting than expensive design, sophisticated video production, or high-priced search engine optimization.  Don’t get me wrong, they can help, but if there isn’t a REAL PERSON at the center of it, the site visitor is likely to move on to another site because of simple lack of RESONANCE with the site/business owner.

What is resonance? It’s the fact that two people come together, a buyer and a seller, and they are both human, are not perfect, but that they have hopes and dreams and they desire to make things better for themselves, their families, and the world in general.

You can always buy something from Amazon, but is Amazon someone you can talk to personally, who can answer a simple question to help you, or to even consider is your friend at some level?  Most certainly not.

So, when I’m helping a business owner with their websites, marketing or just helping them to get started.  I always need them to craft their “story” and to somehow include it in their sites and business promotions.  People are STORIES with legs, infinitely interesting, and they can smile also.

It’s not just about money, it’s about relationships. When they know that you are a real person, this is your ace up your sleeve with your more experienced and funded competition.  People are willing to give you a chance because we always root for the underdog; they can see themselves in you.

In many ways the Internet is an algorithm-driven, detached computerized place; but the human-factor is nearly irresistible in the business success system.  You’re not perfect yourself, but you are real and that is enough in itself to drive many people to you and to grow a business with.

The post Accessing Your Greatest Selling Point, You. appeared first on GrowthDev.

The answer is, not really.  Fixing a hacked site is not necessarily expensive, but what is expensive is losing business through a compromised website.

No, having a hacked site, is not fun.  I should know.  You get that helpless anger feeling, and you don’t know what to do.

But, I got everything fixed and I put a few precautions in place.

You need to understand that a website gets hacked because of various holes that it has.  There are security vulnerabilities, which the average website owner is simply ignorant about:

• A very easy password and username to crack
• Viruses in your own local computer that get uploaded to your site as you’re updating it.
• Old code on an un-updated website.
• Or the use of an unsafe or bad plugin or script on your site

There are the solutions to those “holes” above in sequential order.

Usernames and Passwords

For your site usernames and passwords do not, do not, do not use “admin” and “123abc”.  Use a random password and username generator, that uses a good string of 10+ numbers, letters and symbols, and changes them periodically.  You can also get a password manager like LastPass, which can generate and help you keep track of different passwords for your various user accounts, including your banking and financial information; you just have to use one master password.

Viruses on your own computer

Viruses are less likely, but you also want some version (even a free version) of anti-malware software installed on your computer like Malwarebytes, and run them at least weekly, or every couple days. Yeah, I know, inconvenient, but how inconvenient is it to see your website and/or computer hacked?  Don’t click indiscriminately on any link or banner ad, you might see regardless of how provocative it might me.

Old code on an un-updated website

If you have a WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal website (called CMS’s, or content management systems) you need to regularly (at least once a month) update them. You can usually do it will a simple click of a button.  These updates come out for an important reason, to plug or fix any security holes.

Unsafe plugins or scripts.

Don’t fall for that plugin that claims to turn your website around, and make it do wonderful things, magically making your tons of new visitors and customers.  Chances are it is made by some fly by night, developer who just wants to make a quick buck and it’s shoddily written and/or it’s abandoned a few months later, causing security vulnerabilities that some roving hacker-bot can seize up and make your life a living nightmare.  It happens.

Make backups, a good website host will make daily backups of your site in case something happens.

So, Update, Monitor and make Backups of your site.  A good host will help you with auto-backups and even security monitoring and fixes; but always keep everything updated on your website.

Hire a web-guy (or -gal) let them handle the details.  Call us at GrowthDev, we can fix it for you, turnaround time is about 24-48 hours.  Put our 20 years experience on the web at your disposal.

The post Getting Your Website Hacked, Well that Sucks, or Does It? appeared first on GrowthDev.

Takeaways:

1. Your business needs to have a website, optimized for local searches
2. Your business website needs to be mobile-compatible.

If you don’t have these two things, you are leaving “money on the table” as they say.

As of 2018 Google has started to pass over websites that are not mobile-compatible (or mobile-optimized).  Handheld devices are taking precedence over “traditional” desktop or laptop computers, and it is important that businesses understand and adapt

Google is also requiring that all websites that will be indexed need to be secured, that is they have an SSL certificate.  In plain-language-speak that means that your website address needs to begin with “https”, rather than “http”.  Most any web development firm can easily do it for you.

Gone are the days when you needed expensive yellow pages ads and newspaper ads, those are becoming more and more extinct by the day.

At GrowthDev, get a free consultation by emailing or call us.  We can show you in simple and clear terms how you an bring your businesses online presence to the latest standards.

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Does your website really need one?

How come you’ve never heard about this and why is it important?

If all these questions run through your mind, you’re on the right track to protecting your online presence. A website needs to be secure at all times, and an SSL certificate is what makes your website safe to begin with.

What is an SSL certificate?

There’s no need to be an internet guru to notice all website addresses begin with a specfic syntax. Some websites begin with “http://”, while others begin with “https://”.

This is what you DO NOT want to have as your website is browsed

An extra letter might not seem important. After all, your website works just fine! But in reality, the “S” stands for Secure!

Each time a user enters their credit card information or any other kind of personal data, they need to make sure the website is safe first. This is where an SSL certificate comes into play.

The term SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. It’s a technology developed back in the 1990s, that helps to safely encrypt your data.

HTTP vs. HTTPS

Whenever you see the syntax HTTPS, you now know it stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure. The “S” is an extra precaution, known as the internet standard for secure communication online.

This is what you DO want to see on your site

The SSL security layer makes sure only your browser and the server accessing your data are able to decrypt the information. Although you can’t literally see this, what goes on behind the scenes is what protects your visitor’s sensitive data.

SSL certificates are no longer just a trend. If you care about your data and your clients’, you should definitely aim to make your connection secure.

Once your SSL certificate is installed on your server, you and your customers can be sure your website is safe. This not only will protect your visitor’s data, but it will help them trust your brand even more.

Why are SSL certificates important for a website

Today, the internet plays an important part of all our lives. It’s crucial that all our data be safe!  From virtual attackers to intrusive internet service providers, anyone can sneak a peek at our sensitive data we share on the World Wide Web!

Since many small businesses communicate with clients online, having a safe environment to do so is important for both parties.

SSL and ecommerce

A professionally designed website allows visitors to become familiar with your business. But when it comes to encouraging your visitors to take action, you need to let them know they can do so, in a safe way.

If you run a small business and would like to build your brand, you need to find a way to communicate and interact with your clients.  Some businesses sell their products and services directly on their website. Small online stores are well known for allowing their clients to safely purchase the products they need.

But when it comes to entering your credit card information, can you guarantee your client their data is safe?

SSL certificates don’t just affect e-commerce websites. Any information you may collect form your clients is subject to risk if your website isn’t safe.

From phone numbers and your customers’ address, to simple email databases, all information is subject to risk. Securing your web forms is always important, even if think your website’s too small to be hacked.

But privacy, data integrity and security is not all.

Last, but not Least

An SSL certificate can, potentially, determine your website’s search engine ranking within Google search.

Any small changes in your website’s structure can have an impact on your SEO factor. While there’s only a small percentage of websites that haven’t made the switch, other are already ‘milking’ some SEO benefits!

Although not all websites are required to install SSL certificates, those that do should expect a small boost in rankings. With Google adding HTTPS as a possible ranking factor, it may be safe to say installing that extra layer of protection should definitely be made a priority.

Call us today to find out how to change your site from http to https, it’s very affordable.  920-771-0048

The post What is SSL and Why is it Important appeared first on GrowthDev.

Before I got into the web business, I always thought of SEO as a complex and intimidating process, that I would never understand.  However, as I started to investigate, what is SEO, it’s not that difficult to understand at all.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is correctly setting your site up so that the search engines (Google, Bing, and a few others) can easily see who and what you are, what you do, and what you’re selling, if anything.  When you can understand that, you’re on your way to being able to profit from it.

The other important concept is that of KEYWORDS.  Since Google can’t read your mind, it has to find the keywords, which are the key phrases that people use when searching for different things.  If you have those keywords, such as “Green Bay dentist” in all the appropriate places, such as the titles of articles, pages, and web-addresses, and given the right amount of accentuation (such as heading tags, bold and italicized) then Google will know that your website contains the information (products, services, etc.) that the searcher is looking for.

That’s it.

Now, that’s not really it, because there are other factors that come into play such as:

• Location
• Relevance
• Authority
• Mobile-friendliness
• Fresh content
• And about half a dozen more….

…. that truly optimize your site, and put you ahead of the competition, that is, on the first page of Google, as we like to say it.  SERP’s are the search engine results pages that you want to at top of on page number one.

Locally, that is, for a specific city or town, this is relatively easy.  Truth is, if you put any amount of time, money, and energy into search engine optimization, it is only going to set you ahead as far as your name brand awareness, accessibility, and your profits.

SEO is not an over-night process, but it’s not that slow either.  You can have your site optimized and climbing up the SERPs in a relatively short time, a few weeks to a few months, maybe sooner.

Posting ads, such as on Google, Facebook and YouTube, can be effective; but, they stop working the minute you stop paying.  This is the key feature of SEO, optimized pages come up to the top for years and years.

Ads are great, don’t get me wrong, but they are what is called interruption marketing.  They come up when you’re scrolling through Facebook when you’re bored, when you’re trying to watch cool videos on YouTube; they interrupt your entertainment, as it were, like a commercial.  We’d much rather be watching our show than the commercials.

SEO is key when the potential client is looking for specific information, products or services.  HE WANTS WHAT YOU GOT RIGHT NOW.  This is the best type of search to aim for.

At GrowthDev, this is the type of website optimization that we do for our clients.  Of course, you should never put all your eggs in one basket, a good portfolio of SEO and other marketing, including ads, is the ultimate goal.  A good combination is going to deliver ten times your expense.

The post What is SEO? appeared first on GrowthDev.