Tips on Preparing Your E-Commerce Website for Cyber Monday 2016

Cyber Monday falls on November 28th this year. it has become the biggest online shopping day of the year. According to comScore and IBM, total digital sales were $3.19 billion up from $2.59 billion in 2014.  Furthermore Desktop online sales were up 12% from 2014 totaling $2.28 billion and mobile sales were up 53% consumers from 2014 to $838 million.  According to Forbes, there will be a 9.4% increase in sales for Cyber Monday with sales overall being higher than 2015.  You can review the Forbes article here.

Small and medium sized businesses should be prepared for their biggest sales day of the year.  If you’re an e-commerce site, you are fully aware of this and rest assured that you’ve already prepared and stocked with merchandise to handle the traffic.  Here is a list of last minute tips to ensure that Cyber Monday runs efficiently and without a hitch for your business.

• Inventory: Make sure you can handle the severe traffic. Don’t over-promote items if you don’t have it in stock. If you’ve run out of an item, make sure your website is updated as soon as possible.  Use social media to advise customers of any changes to your inventory.  Social media is becoming an important avenue for companies and it only takes a quick tweet to inform your base that an item is out of stock.  It will promote goodwill with your customer on a long-term basis.
• Have your logistics department prepared: Get your shipping department prepared.  A meeting should be conducted prior to this all important day to ensure that products will be shipped and make it to customers prior to Christmas.  Always make sure that you give your customers the option for express shipping as some customers need to receive the time to customize to re-ship it out to final destination.  Troubleshoot any problems beforehand and have back-ups for employees that are absent due to unforeseen circumstances.
• Buy ads on Social Media-  Buy online ads. Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers are going to be looking for sales and discounts. In many cases, they will search for those deals on search engines or on social media.  You should offer serious discounts to items that you will have difficulties selling after Christmas.  Offers should be given to customers as well for these items.  For instance giving gift cards along with items that you are aware that there will be difficulties selling.  Gift cards could be as low as $5.  The consumer will appreciate the rebate and will use it on your website on another item if they find something that piques their interest.

These tips will potentially snare some sales for your business.  If you are on top of your game you can make the most out of this years Cyber Monday.  Good luck and Happy Holidays from Falcon Consulting & Marketing!!

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Using Online Reputation Management to combat Negative Reviews Online

In my lifetime the biggest company killer has been negative reviews of a particular company.  Whether it be online or newspaper reviews it is generally a huge issue to combat.  Also, it has become much easier for a potential customer to search your business.  The only thing that is needed is either a smartphone or laptop. With social media and the rise of review sites and Google reviews, it has been much more important to monitor your business’s reviews online.    I myself have had an issue with someone with my name that I have had to combat it in the past.  Small and medium sized businesses understand how difficult it is to generate revenue and maintain your place in the market.  They are certainly worried about how customers are reviewing them online.  The one thing that is most important is to be proactive and take charge of everything that is being said of your company online.  You have to take every comment seriously.  Your inability to do so will lead potential customers to believe that either the comments are in fact true or you do not care about your customers.  It can also lead to abuse by negative stalker reviewers as well.   Using my personal experience and having been a consultant for small businesses for several years on the topic, here are some ways to combat and even remove the negative reviews online using Reputation Management Services from Falcon Consulting & Marketing:

Erasing Bad Reviews From the Internet Entirely- There are times that you can delete bad reviews entirely from a review site.  However, this can most likely only happen under certain conditions that are set up within the company’s guidelines.  You should definitely read their Terms of Service to see under what conditions it is possible to have the entire review deleted. The erasure of the review is subject to the discretion of the review site.   What we have seen is that normally if you can show that the person is a fake reviewer or the review is completely wrong then the review can be deleted.  Also under some circumstances you will be able to have the review expunged if you can prove that it is your competition or an ex-employee that is reviewing your business.

Burying negative reviews so to make it difficult to be seen- If the review site will not delete the review then the alternative would be to bury the review so it is so hard to find that it lacks the ability to undermine your business.  How do you go about doing this?  Have your happy customers make positive reviews of you on the same review site, on your website and social media sites.  Don’t be afraid to ask your previous customers for reviews as it may come in handy at times when you are not expecting it.  You should take a proactive role and make sure that if there is a negative review, you have already put in a system in place.

Respond to negative reviews online-  It is always best to attempt to respond in a positive way to a negative reviewer.  Try not to be forceful as you have to remember the public will be looking on how you are conducting yourself.  Your attempt to remediate the situation can sway your public perception if it is thoughtful and rational.  Maybe your attempts to fix the problem will have the result of the reviewer removing the review entirely.  In the alternative you will have a record for the world to see how you handle complaints and you take them seriously.

Please note that these methods are not exhaustive and there are other ways to combat negative reviews online.

Online Reputation Management can be a stressful and time-consuming project.  If you are an expert or novice at it, there are many pitfalls to responding to reviewers and/or attempting to erase the review altogether.  If your business is serious about customer complaints and worried about revenues decreasing as a result of the reviews, you can hire a professional to assist you with your Online Reputation.  Falcon Consulting & Management is a digital marketing agency located in New York City that has expertise in Online Reputation Management.  If you are in need of these service feel free to call us at 855-445-9530 or e-mail at sales@falconconsultingandmarketing.com.  We handle one client at a time and have helped many small businesses in your situation.

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Duplicate Content and What to Do With It

Duplicate content is content that appears in a search engine’s index or through page results more than once. Content can be duplicated either  intentionally or mistakenly.  The most common duplicate content mistake we have seen is when business owners design their website and in a rush to put up content cut and paste from other websites.  As a matter of fact it is said that 29% of pages have duplicate content.  Although by doing this you can finish your project of getting your website up the long-term damage to your website may be pronounced.  Specifically the search engines penalize duplicate content and sends a signal of poor creativity or downright plagiarism.  Your search engine rankings will suffer and your SEO campaign can be in jeopardy.

What the search engines do is when they crawl the vast amount of pages on the web, they determine whether the content is the same as something else out there.  It is the general consensus that the original content producer would be the person who hits the web first or the first article that is indexed first would not be considered duplicate content.

Although Google can penalize you for duplicate content there are ways to safely use material that is already out there on the web.  The best way is to give credit to the original producer of the material and put quotations around the material that you are using from the article.  It is not advisable to use the entire article as a quote but the common way of using the material is exemplifying or expounding on the premise of the article.  Also critiquing the determination of the article and using content from it is perfectly fine if you use the quotations.  The reason being is you will be using the material to further your original idea.

Also, try not to use material from your competitors.  Should Google crawl your page and decide at any time that you have duplicate content or attribute it to them, they will get all the credit and your business none.  There is not any benefit in producing this type of content as you will be losing time and effort to your fellow businesses in your niche.

The best advice anyone has ever given me in any walk of life is to be original and yourself.  This is what you should be attempting to do with your content.  Although you certainly should read what is already available for research, your goal is to write original content to communicate to your audience.  They will appreciate it more and you won’t ever have to worry about being penalized for a pure mistake.

If you are having trouble with duplicate content or need more original content produced for your business then Falcon Consulting & Marketing is the company for you.  We are a New York based digital marketing agency assisting businesses one client at a time.

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What is Rankbrain and how it affects SEO?

Since the beginning of internet marketing we have wondered what affects a company’s ability to be seen on the search engines.  It was easy to manipulate rankings in the dawn of SEO but now it is becoming more complex.  Google has put in safeguards in order to prevent internet marketing professionals from “rigging” the rankings.  Google has indicated to Search Engine Land that there are more that 200 factors that are used in the Google algorithm.  These factors also have over 11,000 variables that must be considered when measuring the algorithm.

Recently Google has confirmed the top 3 factors in determining the rankings on Google.  The three most important factors are.

1. Content- as we have articulated in many of our articles, content is king.  It is important not to skimp on quality when writing on your blog.  Google is now looking into not just hitting the necessary keywords but whether the material is valuable.  It is important to now take your time and research the material you are to write about.   Although you may be in a technical field, it is always important to write for the everyday man.  Keep sentences and phrases simple and easy to understand.
2. Link building- These are links pointed to your site.  Link building involves several sets of skills in that you have to be a content creator, salesperson, and psychologist if you want other people to consistently link to your site.  It is an arduous process for many and that has led to black hat methods.  Methods such as spamming has become prominent in the last few years but now Google has cut down on the practice by penalizing websites that use such methods.
3. Rankbrain- Rankbrain was thrust upon the masses in October 2015 as one of Google Hummingbird’s key algorithmic factors. It is Google’s evolving AI that helps refine search results and deem the most relevant pages.  Rankbrain attempts to find patterns among keywords and resolve issues with unclear queries.  It also looks for compelling content and determines how relevant it is for the particular search.  This means that writing valuable content is becoming necessary if not mandatory.  The days of keyword stuffing and having fluff articles will be less significant to Rankbrain and because it is an learning AI, it is always looking for material that answers the queries directly.

So what does this mean for content marketing and SEO?  From the 3 major factors it looks like Google has been making major attempts to curtail abuse by black hat SEO companies.  The best and legitimate way to increase your rankings and have a successful SEO campaign is to write valuable content.  Writing content that has long term benefit to the user is more beneficial than writing on current developmental news.  Of course, it surely doesn’t hurt in the short term to write about current trends in your business niche.  Especially if your company is involved and referenced in it.

Google is making it much more difficult to manipulate rankings.  The only way to legitimately have a successful SEO campaign is to invest in valuable content.  You can do that by doing the work yourself or hiring an in-house person to assist with your content marketing needs.  This can be become pricey to bring someone on and if you should decide to do it yourself, you will be spending plenty of time away from managing your core business.

In light of this it can be beneficial t0 work with a digital marketing agency that understands all of the factors that affect SEO that will be updated with new trends that will affect your online marketing campaign.  Falcon Consulting & Marketing is a digital marketing agency that can help any business with these needs.  We are a New York City based digital marketing agency that assists businesses one client at a time.

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Inbound Marketing For Doctors and Healthcare Practitioners

Let’s face it.  Obtaining new patients and the right price point has been difficult for the last 8 years more than anytime before.  Whether it be for urgent care centers or a reduction of choices due to buyouts of small healthcare practices it has become much harder to compete in the marketplace.  For some of the smarter savvy physicians, they are aware that internet marketing and inbound marketing in particular is a helpful tool in getting more potential patients.

To make it simple, inbound marketing is the opposite of traditional marketing has been. Think of the older strategies of marketing to include billboards, TV commercials, radio ads and direct-mail campaigns.  Inbound marketing, though, works by targeting a specific audience that’s already interested in your services. You bring this audience to your website, convert people within the audience into legitimate leads and thereafter make them patients.  Here are some great techniques we have noticed work well for healthcare practitioners to use in order to gain more patients

1.   Your website will be the foundation you need to implement a successful inbound marketing strategy. Having strong visual appeal and it being easily accessible are two main factors you must have on your website.  Also, we have seen that the consumer is going mobile.  According to new reports by 2017, 75% of internet usage will be through mobile and therefore you should have your website mobile friendly.   Remember, your website is the first impression to the patient.  The patient decides within the first second whether they want to purchase from you.  Therefore you must put your best foot forward.

2.  Putting up content on your website is critical.  Depending on where you are with your practice, you most likely have a website.  Although it is great to have the patient have a great first impression, you must have content to drive traffic to your website.  Your website is an organic aspect of your practice.  You have to treat it like that as you have to nurture you website with great content that is both informative and visually appealing.  Maintaining a blog helps with your SEO as Google crawls websites constantly looking for unique content to add to their database.  The more they find that you are a reliable authority, the faster your website will soar in the rankings leading to more leads.

3.  Using social media to increase your brand awareness-   Using social media is another important aspect that must be used by the practitioner these days.  Not only does using social media inform your patients and prospects on what is new with your practice but it is a tremendous tool in having your website rank higher with the search engines.  Google checks to see how many followers, likes, comments you have in your Facebook, Twitter etc sites and may increase rankings depending on it.  Social media can be about day-to-day interactions, as well as big ideas and awareness campaigns. You can create a Youtube channel which can focus on surgeries or have illustrations of how surgery can be performed.  Videos are amazing as they are sometimes used as illustration purposes by fellow physicians and that can assist you in becoming an authority in your field.

There are many other inbound marketing techniques that we have used to assist doctors and other healthcare practitioners that we have not covered, however we think the three above are the fastest to implement.  All our methods assisted with our clients achieve their goals of reaching more patients and generating more revenue and increasing brand awareness.  If you are a healthcare practitioner and need assistance with your inbound marketing needs, Falcon Consulting & Marketing can assist you with your needs.  We are a New York City based digital marketing agency that assists small and medium sized businesses one client at a time.

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3 out of every 4 Searches Will Be Mobile. Is Your Website Prepared?

A recent report by Reuters seventy-five percent (75%) of internet use will be mobile in 2017 according to media buying agency Zenith.  This is up 4% from 2016 as more people are using smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.  Zenith also predicts that by 2018 mobile advertising expenditures will exceed $134 billion.  The report also indicates that in only 4 years internet usage in mobile has gone from 40% to 70%.

So what does that mean to the small business?  You have to make sure that your website is adapted to mobile. You are missing many opportunities if your website isn’t mobile compatible.  Furthermore, your rankings suffer if your website is not mobile friendly as a recent release by Google in March of 2016 suggests.  Businesses should be mindful if they are running an SEO campaign in that it will not get the results desired if their website is not mobile friendly.

All growth in internet usage is in mobile, however most people are still using a laptop or desktop in order to purchase items via E-commerce sites.

With all this information, it is imperative for E-commerce and all websites to be mobile friendly.  For the E-commerce site it is  much more important as the vitality of the business depends on it.  Meaning you have be seen and ranked higher in the search engines to create more sales.

Hiring a digital marketing agency that understands what it entails to create a mobile friendly site is key to the startup.  If you have an existing website, you should consult with an agency to determine what changes need to be made in order to convert to a mobile friendly site that will not affect any marketing campaigns (SEO, PPC, SEM, Online Reputation Management) that you have going presently.  Falcon Consulting & Marketing is a digital marketing agency based in New York City that assists businesses one at a time with these needs.

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Why Social Media Marketing is a Tremendous Tool to Generate Business

Businesses today are realizing that it is not enough to have a beautiful interactive website. You need a social media presence in order to keep engaged with your customers and prospects. Social Media is a group of mediated tools that allow people, organizations, groups, and businesses to communicate with one another through the exchange of information, interests, ideas, and pictures.

Social media works in two great ways for your business.  For one, it has now become the go-to word of mouth tool.  In fact, a business’s reputation can be directly affected by what is being said of them by people following them online.  Because of the anonymity of posts, companies are either getting honest opinions or are being stalked by people that have an agenda.  If is important to monitor what is being said and respond to negative comments being said of your company.  It is always a good idea to show that your company is responsive to complaints or suggestions.  Your brand will only become more familiar and friendly once you implement this strategy online.

Social media is often an exact reflection of what people are thinking in the real world as well.  The reason this is the way is because a large majority of people are now spending time on social media and it has become the fabric of our culture.  Because of this, businesses need to be responsive to what is going on there.  It is how we will be connecting with people for some time.

Social media is also terrific for improving your SEO. This is because Google searches for signs of authority.  Google looks at social shares, comments, likes and traffic. Being higher on the google searches and providing people alternative ways to find your business besides your website will bring more people asking for your services. A social media presence gives you another way to engage with your audience and build relationships. You’re not only more available to them through messages but also through posts, reviews, and tweets.

Engaging with your followers brings you a whole new light to your market. You will grow a better understanding of who your customers are and what they want. Even large corporations are taking advantage of social media.  That is because they appreciate the immediate feedback from their customers and can respond quicker to complaints.  Large corporations have hired an entire digital marketing staff to not only market their products but to also respond to their customers and troubleshoot problems with products immediately.

Building your social media presence should be done intuitively and straightforward.  It should reflect the values of your company and brand.  By being authentic it will not only help you in your ranking and SEO but also will allow you to build long term relationship with your clients that will generate business for you on a recurring basis.

Building a social media presence takes time and effort.  If you or your company do not have the resources or manpower to work on your social media then hiring a digital marketing agency would be a great idea.  Falcon Consulting & Marketing is a digital marketing agency located in New York City that can assist.  We help small and medium sized businesses with not only putting up post but also engaging your customers with content that will be SEO friendly.

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