Encourage Readers To Leave Blog Comments

I found this great comment tool from expert Suzanne Falter-Barnes. It’s a fun web 2.0 tool used to encourage readers to vote on your posts instead of or in addition to leaving written comments.

I’m going to test it out for a while and see how it works.

If you want to test it as well, the site has really easy to use installation instructions for most blogging platforms.

If you use wordpress, like me, all you have to do is upload the plugin to your blog’s plugin folder and then activiate it under the plugins section in your blog’s back office. Then like magic — it’s under every post:)

Sign up for free at: http://www.postreach.com

wordpress plugin

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Writers Block When Blogging

I get quite a few emails about new bloggers (and old:) getting stuck with writers block when it comes to adding new content to their blogs.

I think a lot of that is based on the fact that it is necessary to post often to gain decent exposure for your blog — and some of us just weren’t born chatterboxes!

Well - I have a few ideas for you that I have worked for me and few of my clients. They aren’t rocket science — but they are probably things that you may take for granted or forget about.

1. Blog when listening to music. Believe it or not - the right music can instantly lift a person’s mood and creativity (we also recommend this in psychotherapy:). You will be amazed at how the creative portion of your brain will kick in when you remember to turn on the itunes, ipod, cd or radio.

2. Remember that just because you know your topic backwards and forwards, doesn’t mean that your readers do. In fact, if they are even bothering reading your stuff at all –they are interested in either your information or your opinion on your information. So if it’s related to your topic - write about it.

3. Use google alerts. All you have to do is put keywords related to your topic or perhaps another expert’s name in the google alerts tool and you will start to get email alerts on what is new in blogs, the news, or other web pages on that keyword. You will get a ton of ideas from using this tool.

4. Write an opinion piece. Some bloggers get trapped with only writing about “information” or “news”. But what brings readers back is your particular writer’s “voice”.

5. Write about new things you are trying with your business while you are trying them. Don’t wait to see the end result. Readers will want to follow the results.

Have any ideas on beating blogger writers’ block? Please share:)

Google, writers block

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Why You Should Submit Your Articles To Newsvine

There are oodles of websites out there that you could submit your articles to. You can find many of them included in the article submission software products on the market. Or you could simply do a google search for places to submit to. The question always is though –what websites are WORTH submitting to?

Fortunately, I have done a lot of research on this over the years, and I make it my business to stay as current as possible on what websites should be included in my article marketing master list and which ones may have fallen out of grace.

One site which I think is worth the trouble is Newsvine.com — I like this particular site for a few reasons:

1. The pagerank of this site is great. PR7. It would be great to have articles deep linking to several different pages on your website from here. Remember - the better your pagerank - the more likely your articles and site will show higher in search engine results under your keywords.
2. The site allows you to recommend existing articles - much like Digg. BUT it also allows you to submit your own original content directly to the site - much like an article directory. In fact, you can create your own news column which could point to both existing and new articles.

3. You will find a great mixture of topics and top stories on this website. You really don’t see domination of one genre. You may find a hard news story about the war in Iraq and a story on better SEO tactics in the top 5 stories of the day.

4. There are also groups to join or you could create your own group based on your topic. And unlike some of the other web 2.0 sites, these groups seem to be really active, which means more exposure for you.

I highly recommend using Newsvine in your article marketing campaign. But remember, that you need to use Newsvine “naturally”, like all the other news sites you may submit articles to. Which means submitting other articles and blog posts which you have found helpful or interesting - along with your own content. Do both - and you will do fabulously!

In fact, you can start now by naturally linking to this post by clicking on the link below. It will give you a chance to start looking around and getting familiar with the process of seeding links you like - as well as your own content. Have fun!

Seed Newsvine

article marketing, article submission, news sites, pagerank, submit articles

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Satisfaction Finally!

After another phone call made to customer service at 1-800-flowers, I finally saw a refund in my paypal account today.

This particular customer service agent said that it was actually on paypal’s end - and that they take a long time to post a refund from their company, for some reason. Why - they didn’t know.

While this could be the case with their company, I have been able to process refunds to my customers (only a few of course:), immediately to their paypal accounts. And vice-versa for other things that I have bought and returned for some reason.

But honestly — this is not really the point. The point is that I wasn’t really given enough information about their return process once I requested it — and they DID NOT communicate with me at all during this process via phone, email, mail etc.

So again — the point of this is to remember that communication with all of your customers is key. Because when it’s time to buy flowers again, I will not use their company, due to my experience with them.

Value all your clients and customers - even when they return - because your reputation is key to maintaining the business buzz in your marketplace.

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Still No Refund!

This is an update on my customer service issue with 1800flowers.com - Still no refund in my paypal account. It has now been 9 days.

I haven’t received one courtesy phone call, email, letter, smoke signal! Nada.

Interesting thing…there are no credibility seals on the website. No BBBonline. No Truste. No Honeste. Not one place to complain to - except directly with the company itself. But I ordered based on perceived credibility. Something perhaps not so smart on my part - but great for this company.

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How Bad Customer Service Can Destroy Your Buzzworthiness!

My husband and mother-in-law share a birthday, and of course our lives being what they are–some years we forget to order the “really nice” flowers and have to resort to a last minute option. This year we tried to use 1-800-flowers.

I went online and ordered a half-decent bouquet of flowers and purchased them using my paypal account. I feel pretty confident with this type of transaction, because I use paypal pro as my credit card processing system for all my websites.

I find out about an hour after ordering that my mother-in-law went to Atlantic City for her birthday, so I needed to cancel. This is where customer service is crucial, but fell flat…

Problem #1 - I called an 800 number, spoke with a nice man, and he told me to call back because the order wasn’t in the system yet. (This was an hour after the order)
Problem #2 - I call again and cancel my order, but they have no system in place for issuing you a transaction # or id to confirm that you indeed canceled. (So all the next day, I’m worried that the flowers will still be delivered to an empty house.)

Problem #3 - I don’t receive a confirmation of the cancellation via email nor do I receive a confirmation of the flowers perhaps being delivered. So I assume that they were not delivered and my order was indeed canceled.

Problem #4 - I notice 2 days later that there is no credit to my paypal account. And once again I haven’t received anything saying that it is being processed. So I write an email to customer service.

Problem #5 - No email response on day 3.

Problem #6 - On day 4 I call customer service after several attempts to navigate my way through the automated customer service line and finally speak to a pleasant young lady named Ashley. But while pleasant, she has to put me on hold a total of 3 times to speak with the person who really knows something about “cancellations”.

Problem #7 - The whole holding on the line thing was annoying, but she came back with a final reply that paypal credits take several days to process (I canceled on July 30 and this is August 2nd), and that it may take about 2 to 3 more days (about 7 days). But that it will be processed. I asked for some sort of confirmation of that - and she couldn’t give me one.

Problem #8 - After that I asked for a manager and I was put on hold for 15 minutes. I knew what they were doing - making me sweat it out - so I tried to hold on as long as I could. But the kids were calling:) So I had to jump ship.

Bottom Line — I received horrible customer service from a company that is suppose to be quite reputable in it’s market. I’ve had better customer service from internet marketers! And I’ve received returns to my paypal account in 24 hours by other merchants. OR if they were going to be slow about processing my transaction, they could have been a lot more communicative during the whole thing.

So while I do not like to invest a lot of energy into matters such as this - I do believe that it is my DUTY:) to tell everyone I know to avoid using this company.

The key to building buzz for your business is to not just provide a great product, but to also be just as fantastic if someone decides that they want to return it.

I have returned several things that were not “for me”, but because I was treated amazingly during the return process - I not only bought from them again but I recommend these companies/owners passionately to others.

paypal account

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