You may have heard in the past that any press is good press. If a company is getting flack in the news, it is getting publicity one way or another. While I do agree that any publicity is good, it is only good if you do the right thing about it.

Let’s say someone is not saying nice things to you in a public forum, a blog post, or their own website. It would be a great public relations move for you to respond to the negativity and turn it into more business opportunities. Sign up for that blog post so you can comment. Sign up for the forums where you see your good name tarnished. Very politely and with respect ask more details about the problem. Show true concern for that individual and let them know you value their opinion. Tell them you want any type of feedback good or bad to thrive as a company. Tell the person you would like to help them.

Then, email or call them if available and do whatever you can to fix the issue. Make sure afterwards you can get them to respond with an update to their situation. Have them place it exactly where the original rant piece was. Do not have them take he negative comments off, so you have the transparency of helping everyone you can. Your customer service is impeccable and it will speak volumes for you.

Now, I am not saying to be a kiss up. Most people will read right into it and make the situation worse. Also understand no matter what you do, you may not be able to please that person no matter what. Do not give everything away. Use this time to plead your case and let everyone know how good your customer service really is.

A few links this Wednesday morning. Seems that when you launch an eBook the amount of emails you get per day triples! I am slowly getting through the emails, and should have the last responses replied to by the end of the day. Now, onto the links!

How To Be Continuously Productive

This is a really great article by Robert Dempsey, an entrepreneur who really knows how to properly manage time. He explains how his work process is, no matter where he is. He always has his iPhone and pen and paper ready, and when inspiration hits him, he is always ready. This is kind of how I work. If you do not see me with my Moleskine, my iPad is an arms length away. I work whenever I can, when a great blog post hits me, or some keyword ideas for a client, I always work out the thoughts in these two devices wherever I am. Thanks Richard!

25 Important Search Engine Optimization Mistakes to Fix Right Now

No matter what website I am working on during the initial phase of SEO Consulting, I get at least one of the mistakes listed in the post on that website. Before you start seriously working on Internet Marketing, look at the site. Find this glaring mistakes and fix them first.

Off to my inbox now, then will post one of my accepted guest posts sometime today. If you have not yet, please download the Niche Blueprint eBook I launched today. It is an easy read, and a really good primer for getting more income from the Internet. Take a look!

Most Google ranking tips deal with getting incoming links (or backlinks as they are also referred to) to your website. And for good reason. The more quality incoming links (determined by the rank of the site that the link originates from and the relevance of the keyword) you have, the higher your Google Page Rank will be and the more visible you will be to your prospects and/or customers. Here are some tricks to build your incoming links.

Submit your site to search engine directories. some directories charge a fee but many of them are free. If you’re on a tight budget, stick to the free ones. These can get you some free links back to your website. Sign up with as many as you can. The more links you have into your site, the better your page rank.

This is one of the most overlooked but best of Google ranking tips. Join forums that are relevant to your industry. When you participate in forums and include the link to your website in your signature, you will get links back to your website. This is a very effective way to establish your reputation in your industry and raise your page rank at the same time.

Take advantage of article marketing. If you can create (or hire someone to do it for you) articles that pertain to your business, with your website information at the bottom, and submit them to article directories, you will get more traffic and links.

Ask for links from other related sites’ webmasters. This is a rather “old-school” tactic but is still effective, albeit frustrating and time-consuming. Find sites that are related to your industry and write to their webmasters requesting that they link back to you. Some will not answer you. Some will say “no”. Some will ask you to link to them as well. And others will just link to you.

You have higher chances of getting the results you want with this if your site contains valuable information. While your ultimate goal is to have high-rank sites linking to yours, you can start out with any rank (as long as the content is valuable and relevant to what you have to offer). As you bring in more links, your rank will go up as well and you will be able to attract the higher ranking sites.

Create a newsletter. Taking the time to create a newsletter that you can send out to subscribers is definitely worth it. This keeps your visitors up to date with what you are doing and brings them back to visit your website on a consistent basis. You can also submit your newsletter to an ezine directory which will link back to your website and give you more free incoming links.

Hopefully these five Google ranking tips will help you achieve the ranking and traffic you’re aiming for.

A/B testing has been around for quite some time, and it is really a great tool. It was a tool used to determine market trends by comparing data with other data to observe and record possible outcomes. Market research companies all over the world have done it. There are of course many ways to look at A/B testing, in fact some people have even compared it to a baseball match where you put your slugger against many pitchers and then see how he fares against each one of them.

But now it has been given an online makeover as many websites, large and small, use this form of data for their marketing. Big name websites such as Amazon.com, Google and even eBay have known to use this service, and you should too.

Online Makeover – The Use of AB Testing Online

A lot of sites have started to use this testing procedure because it allows them to make educated decisions on everything from banner advertising, page design and functionality, site branding and so on. For example if you have an eCommerce website that typically deals with online purchases – this form of testing can be very useful. You can test out functionality of a site by comparing two versions of a particular page, which is an important page in the process and chose the most effective one.

When a user selects several items into his cart but leaves the site because he cannot properly click on Proceed to Checkout because of its location or the way the page is design; in this scenario, you can create two versions of the cart page and serve up the new version to certain select users while continuing the old version with the rest of the users. One can easily look at statistics which functionality allowed users for a faster and more appropriate check out procedure. This is a classic example of AB testing.

The advantages of having this form of testing are that it is a low risk approach. In case we look at our example, if the second version does not fare well with the selected group of users, other solutions can be looked into, rather than making expensive changes. Therefore it is more cost effective and certainly gives the right data to make informed decisions.

Google offers their own A/B testing method with their Website Optimizer. This is a great starter tool because the coding involved is very basic. If you have installed Google Analytics on your website, or even a small widget, you will have ZERO problems running an A/B test.

Now, once you have a good test set up, and start tracking the data, start putting that data to action. If you do nothing with the information you get from these tests, you have failed. This is a valuable tool to increase conversions, sales, and readership.

Real short day today. Finishing up 2 websites at the same time. Both are due tonight/tomorrow morning and I plan on taking the little one to a baseball game tonight. I hope your day is as fulfilling as mine.

7 Visual Tips for Creating a Great Blog Post

I try to incorporate at least one of these items in each main post I do. Some great stuff here.

5 Steps to Build a Twitter Marketing Strategy

I believe that Twitter is an invaluable tool for every business. It really helps to keep your customers informed on what you are doing, what you are selling, etc. Actually, I was using Twitter this afternoon to check and see if the local Minor League Baseball game was happening due to the rain here in NJ. They have a great twitter feed that lets you know whats happening. As of right now, it’s baseball time tonight!