impaul.com

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed and newsletter. Thanks for visiting impaul.com!

WordPress permalinks are yet another opportunity to optimize your site for search engine results. Aside from writing good content, building searchable directory structures is an effective white hat SEO trick. WordPress and Dean Lee’s Permalinks Migration plugin make it very easier to implement a category - post structure that will strengthen your page rank case with Google. Special thanks to Allen of www.covertmetaphor.com who inspired this post.

For anyone who uses or knows someone who uses one of the built-in permalink structures (default, date and name based or numeric) it is not too late! You can and should consider changing your permalink structure right now. With the help of the Permalinks Migration plugin your old posts will automatically be redirected to the new permalink structure using a “301 Redirect.”

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Download the Permalinks Migration plugin, unzip/unpack and upload the files to your ~wordpress/plugins directory
2. Activate the Permalinks Migration plugin in your Wordpress admin console
3. In your Wordpress admin console go to Options -> PermalinksMigration
4. Enter your old permalink structure (ex: mysite.com/?p=123) then click “Update options”
5. Go to Options -> Permalinks, select “Custom” then enter your desired structure, recommended /%category%/%postname%/

Using the recommended custom structure /%category%/%postname%/ your post articles will appear in the following format mysite.com/category/postname. Properly named, your category and post titles are now more items for a search engine to crawl and better position your site on the web. SEO permalinks … what will they think of next?

Plenty of rich content, full of valuable insights and how-to’s, will prove to be your best viral and search engine optimization (SEO) marketing in the long run. Content is King and should be the primary focus during all stages of your web empire whether a fledgling website or an experienced internet mogul. Below are 7 great guidelines to follow for writing quality content thus maximizing your traffic and subscriber potential.

1. Keywords - the first 25 words are critical. Your article, especially the introduction, should be rich with keywords. The introduction, approximately first 25 words, is many times pulled by search engines as the article’s description. Thus the first few sentences can play a very important role with your article’s page rank.
2. Clear Description - Get to the point! You want people to find your site then once they get there you want them to stay as long as possible. A good introduction will not only ensure success with the search engines but always explain to the reader what exactly your article is about and compel them to read more. Expand upon your introduction and stay on point.
3. Use Links - effective linking within the context of your content can add value, increase your search engine presence and cross market other portions of your site. Three quick examples in context: let’s say your ChipIn campaign is related to your article. You can link to the campaign within the article. You can also learn more about using ChipIn here.
4. Relevancy - Let’s pretend your website or blog is on real estate and you spend two weeks writing about fly fishing with day traders. Do not be surprised if your feedburner.com subscriber list bottoms out. Write valuable articles relevant to your intended audience. Some may view a blog as being different than a traditional website where it is somewhat understood that the blog author may write about personal life events. This view is subjective and may or may not be shared by your entire reading audience. The best practice is to spend the majority of content related to your blog’s purpose or mission statement.
5. Frequency - depending on your online and organizational goals - whether every day, x number of times a week or quarterly - you should always be providing fresh content for your audiences.
6. Formatting - while there is no MLA or APA guidelines for blogging there are a few best practices.
   • Instead of paragraphs try to use lists
   • Lists size - at least 2 but no more than 10; 7 is a good number (7 Tips for Writing Great Content).
   • Use headings and sub headings
   • KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. Write short, concise sentences. People will read and remember more if you do.
7. PROOFREAD - proofread, proofread, proofread! Everyone has spell check. Misspellings and blatant grammatical errors stick out like a sore thumb. Worse, they can serve to discredit your article, authorship or website as a whole. Always proofread.

It’s time once again to transfer yet another domain name from Network Solutions to Go Daddy. Every registrar makes it oh so easy to transfer to their service but as we know it takes two to tango. The losing business registrar, in this case NetworkSolutions, will make this process let’s just say … Mission Impossible!

First why am I, like many others, switching their long standing relationships from one registrar behemoth to another? In my humble opinion, Network Solutions missed the boat. While Go Daddy offered much of the same service offering but at a fraction of the cost I became tired of my annual Network Solutions’ payments being gouged just so I can retain “VIP” status.

Once the decision making process began and quickly ended it was easy to initiate the transfer on Go Daddy’s side. However, when I came to the authentication code step of the process this is where the Network Solutions’ hurdles began. I searched their site from top to bottom with no mention of a howto or where to turn. I was not about to call their hot-line and be bombarded with business retention techniques either, I’m in sales and I have no taste for that stuff!

<sips bourbon>

Who comes to my rescue during this time of peril? The same entity which rewards me for dedicated subscribers such as yourself and consistent daily traffic. Ahh yes … Google. Firing up the old impaul.com Google sidebar led me to this wonderful resource which I want to share with everyone who has, is or soon will experience transferring a domain name from Network Solutions to Go Daddy or any other registrar for that matter.

Click here for the howto PDF. This document gives excellent step by step instructions on what you need to do in your Network Solutions administrative console to complete your domain transfer. Just a heads up, once you successfully obtain your authentication code from NetworkSolutions be prepared for a couple of emails such as the below. I mean come on, can they sell any harder against leaving their service?!

Dear Network Solutions Gold VIP Customer,

We have received a request to transfer the domain name registration listed below to another domain name service provider. You should also have received an email from that registrar regarding this transfer request.

Domain Name: xxxxxx
Date of original request: July 11, 2007 1:46:08 PM EDT

In an effort to ensure that this request was not sent to us by mistake or in response to a “notice” sent to you by someone other than Network Solutions, we wanted to let you know that a number of our customers have informed us that they have received (and in some cases mistakenly responded to) notices they thought were from Network Solutions, but were actually from an unrelated third party. If you ever have any doubt or questions about a notice you receive, please contact us to verify its authenticity.

You do not need to transfer your domain name registration if you are only changing your ISP and/or hosting provider. In that case, you can login directly to Account Manager at URL and update your domain name servers (DNS) to match the DNS information provided by your new ISP or hosting provider.

IMPORTANT: Transferring a domain out of your Network Solutions account will result in the deletion of any other Network Solutions services that are associated with that domain.

If you have received this notification in error and do not wish to transfer your domain name registration we must hear from you before July 15, 2007 1:46:08 PM EDT so we may cancel this request. Please go to URL and follow the instructions.

If you do still wish to transfer your domain name registration, we hope that you will reconsider and choose to stay with Network Solutions. We value your business and would like to keep you as a customer.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please contact your dedicated Gold VIP Customer Service Team at goldvip@networksolutions.com.

Thank you for choosing Network Solutions®. We are committed to providing you with the solutions, services, and support to help you succeed online.

Sincerely,

Network Solutions Gold VIP Customer Support

I hope this helps. Please comment any related issues you have experienced and helpful tips as well.

In a world of limited lifetime warranties L.L.Bean takes the high road, less travelled, while wearing the latest in Gortex foot technology. They stand by their quality, life time guarantee and most importantly their customer service. Read on…

Everyday we analyze, compare, sort and search, Google, Yahoo, clip ads, flip countless pages and more just to find the right deal. But what happens when the “chosen one”, the best deal or simple transaction goes awry? Who comes to bat for you?

Customer service … or at least that’s the plan

MSN, the de facto home page for more corporate users than Starbucks abusers, reported the “Bottom 10 in Customer Service.” Big names you associate with price and product but not necessarily value show up on this list:

Bottom 10

1. Sprint Nextel
2. Bank of America
3. Comcast
4. Time Warner Cable
5. AT&T
6. Citibank
7. Wal-Mart
8. Verizon
9. Wells Fargo
10. DirecTV

Dishonorable Mentions

1. Dell
2. Circuit City
3. Best Buy
4. Home Depot
5. Sears
6. Macy’s

Notice any similarities? These are all household names that are probably responsible for the largest marketing expenditure in their respective industries. But why skimp on the customer service? Is a relationship too costly to manage? Of course it is! <author’s point to be lazy> If you Google (do you capitalize it when used as a verb? I guess so) “cost more to keep a customer” you will find multiple reinforcements to my statement.

The question now is why? Why go against the grain, invest in your customers, seek long term buyer-seller relationships?

I am sure there are countless answers to these questions - profits, image, integrity, ethics … loyalty (notice how I slide morally to the right). Now who is the champion of customer service and comes first to mind as far as customer loyalty is concerned? Well if you read the title of this blog and have been wondering when I was going to get on point now is the time.

Tested and true experience has shown me the pinnacle of customer service is L.L.Bean. When entering college they replaced the 10 year old backpack I had since third grade. L.L.Bean over-nighted a pair of gloves to my grand father on December 23rd because the post office delivered the original order to the wrong address. More recently, my wife and I through our infinite consumer novice ended up with three XL dog beds. At first we were going to replace just one bed. However, we soon found out XL was far bigger than what we imaged from the L.L.Bean website therefore we needed to return two of the beds.

I logged into my UPS account, put together a shipment and received whiplash from the sticker shock that slammed me with $65+ shipping fees!! I frantically voided my order and thought to call L.L.Bean for advice. This was 10:15pm PST. I pulled up their website, easily found their customer service phone number and next to the phone number I found a familiar friendly phrase I have never seen in the corporate world, “anytime.” Where 24/7 rules supreme L.L.Bean walked past the water cooler, beyond the Mantra Machine (the remnants of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse word of the day machine), grabbed a black coffee off the camp fire and replied, “Yea. Call us anytime.”

I dialed.

It rang once.

A woman picked up. It was like calling a friend.

She understood my plight and offered to send me a UPS shipping label for use with my return. I quickly and gratefully accepted the offer.

Total time to resolve my issue: 2 minutes

Total time I will be a L.L.Bean loyal customer: lifetime + word of mouth to family and friends = forever

So while I’ve had my countless run ins from the “Wall of Shame” the few times I have ever needed a success story in customer service, L.L.Bean has not only stepped up to the plate but to string along another baseball metaphor they hit it out of the park!

Customer Service Good Bad