Money Back Guarantees

I was doing an SEO workshop in OMS  New York and one person asked me about guarantees. Their idea was to force the  person to sign up for a service for a year and they could only ask for a refund when the year was up. I said this was at best deceptive and that if they were offering a guarantee it should be as easy to apply for as possible and should be as easy to receive as it was for them to sign  up in the first place. I said if they offered me this guarantee and I tried to claim on it I would be furious I had to wait 1 year to get my money back. Once I learned this I would:

1. Blog what a horrible  company it was.
2. Do a charge back on my credit card so I got the money back
3. Tell everyone I know how horrible the company was to work with.

As a contrast let me tell you about the hotel we stayed in in New York. On the third day there my daughter had some bites show up on her legs, she lay in and woke up again with more bites. They could have been mosquitoes but given the number of bites increased after she lay in they may have been bed bugs. So we go to reception and tell them about the possible bed bugs. They immediately move us to a suite so they can eradicate the bugs. They offer to do laundry of any items that may have been exposed. They also had security take details and photos of the bites.  Given that we didn’t know for sure they were bed bugs  their response was amazing. You’ll notice I have left the hotel’s name out of this story. If they had reacted differently I would have blogged how awful the place was, along with reviews on every site I could find. Instead I use it as a story I tell my friends about how great the hotel is.

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Elixir Interactive – Fionn Downhill feautured speaker on OMS 23 city tour 2010

Fionn Downhill CEO of Elixir Interactive an internet marketing agency specializing in Online Reputation Management and Search Engine Optimization Services is a featured speaker at the OMS 23 City tour this summer.  Fionn will present a session in Phoenix, New York, Atlanta and Charlotte.    You can read more about the tour and see an interview with Aaron Kahlow CEO of OMS here.

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Avoid Inmotion Hosting

We have now had a site down since Friday and have still not managed to get it back up and today is Wednesday. This all started when our account was allegedly sending spam. Instead of informing us there was a problem so we could fix it they suspended the account. Now 6 days later and we have still not been able to get them to turn back on the account. Calling them results in being put on a queue forever. Chat with the support staff and they can’t re-enable the account. The problem is until the account is back on we can not go in and check what went wrong and why it was sending spam.

Now this isn’t the first time Inmotion Hosting has done this to us. The previous time took a few days to get back up but we had the original password so could pass their security questions. This time we didn’t have the original password or the credit card so its taking longer… much longer.

So, Inmotion Hosting, after 6 days and numerous tickets (3), phone calls (1), chat sessions (1), emails (many) our site is still not up. Luckily this is not a business critical site which is the only reason we put it with Inmotion Hosting in the first place.

Some of the previous times they brought our site down:

1. We were using too many server resources in a shared environment. OK but bringing us down seems a little harsh. We had to move to a VPS environment.
2. We were using too many server resources in a VPS environment. Why didn’t the VPS limit us? So we were brought down again, so we moved to a dedicated box.
3. Backups that didn’t exist. OK we moved from a VPS to a dedicated server and the VPS had backups, the dedicated server doesn’t by default. No one could be proactive and tell us that? Took losing a database table that we asked to be restored before we found out the backups were missing – too late!

All in all Inmotion Hosting are a poor hosting provider who are far too quick to turn off accounts rather than work with the owners to get whatever issues there are resolved.

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PHP Classes Constant Arrays

This is something I fought on Friday and got to the realization that PHP classes don’t support array constants. Not sure why not but sometimes you’re stuck with a situation and need a work around. In this instance I used static class variables in place of consts:

class AutoReport
{
// This should be a constant but PHP constants don't handle arrays


static $DelayTimes = array( 0 => 'Run Once' ,
60 => '1 Minute' ,
120 => '2 Minutes' ,
180 => '3 Minutes' ,
240 => '4 Minutes' ,
300 => '5 Minutes' ,
600 => '10 Minutes' ,
900 => '15 Minutes' ,
1800 => '30 Minutes' ,
3600 => '1 Hour' ,
7200 => '2 Hours' ,
14400 => '4 Hours' ,
43200 => '12 Hours' ,
) ;
}

And when referencing this:

AutoReport::$DelayTimes

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Google Maps Centering and Zooming

OK fought this for a while yesterday so thought I would share. The original objective was to display a Google Map with pointers for all the locations on the map, the map would then be re-zoomed and centered so all points show. Sounds simple! After hours of fighting the system the big problem is Google Maps wants to have the map centered and zoomed before adding any pointers. Here’s my take on this, BTW this was built from various other authors code snippets but the combination of them to make it work is my original code:

First off you need a div to put the map into.

<div id='FacilityMap' class='MultipleFacilityMap'></div>

I then added CSS to make the map the correct size:

#FacilityMap *{
border:none;
}
#FacilityMap a{
font-weight:bold;
}
#FacilityMap a.more{
font-weight:normal;
text-decoration:underline;
}
.IndividualFacilityMap{
width: 450px;
height: 350px;
}
.MultipleFacilityMap{
width: 650px;
height: 550px;
}

And then in javascript added the following code:

function createMarker(point,title,html) {
var markerOpts = { title: title } ;
var marker = new GMarker(point, markerOpts );
GEvent.addListener(marker, "click", function() {
marker.openInfoWindowHtml(html);
});
return marker;
}
// Set up markers with info windows
var markers = [];
var bound = new GLatLngBounds();
<?php foreach( $FacilityMap as $FacilityInfo ) : ?>
var posn = new GLatLng(<?=$FacilityInfo['latitude']?>,<?=$FacilityInfo['longitude']?>);
var marker = createMarker(posn,"<?=$FacilityInfo['FacilityName']?>",'<div style="width:240px"><a href="<?=$FacilityInfo['DRC_URL']?>"><?=$FacilityInfo['FacilityName']?></a><br /><?=$FacilityInfo['streetaddress']?><\/div>')
markers.push( marker );
bound.extend( posn );
<?php endforeach; ?>
// Display the map, with some controls and set the initial location
var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById("FacilityMap"));
map.addControl(new GLargeMapControl());
map.addControl(new GMapTypeControl());
var level = map.getCurrentMapType().getBoundsZoomLevel(bound, map.getSize());
var ne = bound.getNorthEast();
var sw = bound.getSouthWest();
map.setCenter(new GLatLng((ne.lat() + sw.lat()) / 2.0 , (ne.lng() + sw.lng()) / 2.0 ), level);
map.enableDoubleClickZoom();
for ( i=0; i < markers.length; i++ )
{
map.addOverlay(markers[i]);
}

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Seth on the sweet soda tax

Interesting take from Seth Godin on the soda tax proposed in New York http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/04/rights-and-responsibilities.html

I find it fascinating that companies can sell a product that’s (supposedly) bad for you, they have alternatives available (including diet, water, and other beverages), and yet won’t help their customers move to the healthier alternatives. This isn’t tobacco where there is no healthier alternative, you either smoke or you don’t – here they could help wean people off full HFCS sodas to diet without losing their market or their sales.

This seems typical big company head in the sand thinking – if we fight it we keep the status quo. But look what happened to the auto companies who fought change – they lost market share to competitors who did listen and respond.

After reading how the banks are still massaging their balance sheets i would like to (just once) see a large company do the right thing.

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SwiftRank By Optimizing Page Speed

Google algorithm changes are a big deal for all of us in the industry. They key is to be aware of all that is happening and be ready to anticipate, test and react. One of the keys to obtaining swift rankings is to ensure that your pages load quickly.

Site speed is always an issue. If your page is not loading quickly enough then it can create problems for your site. You can check your site speed using this page speed tool.  Use it by downloading the page speed add-on.  Page speed is part of the best practices of web design.

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PayPal Disputes

Once upon a time, PayPal disputes amounted to less than 1% of all transactions.  It wasn’t really necessary or desirable to have a procedure to handle your side of the dispute.

In fact, in our business, we used to simply refund them and inform them that they weren’t welcome to make any purchases in the future.

The economic downturn and other factors have sent PayPal disputes through the roof for many businesses though.  Our own current rate is over 6%.  We have customer who is experiencing a 26% PayPal dispute rate and/or chargeback rate.

This all started in October of 2008 right when the stock market crashed.  It was simultaneous with a large change in the Glyphius database and a huge blip of absolutely no sales in the businesses of several of our customers for a solid two weeks in October.  We also experienced reduced sales during that time.

Perhaps you experienced the same thing.  Perhaps you needed to put into place a program to start disputing the PayPal disputes and chargebacks for no other reason than to protect your PayPal account from being shut down.

It’s actually a very simple procedure in the end.  PayPal makes it very easy for vendors who meet just a few criteria to win every single PayPal dispute.

First, let’s break down disputes into the two categories that PayPal uses:

1) Significantly not as described.

2) Not received.

Your customer (or thief in this case since they really aren’t customers… they are trying to rip you off) has to choose one of those two reasons.

The first reason is the easiest to dispute and win.  You simply enter the UPS tracking number of the item being disputed and click the “escalate to a claim” button.

The dispute will be automatically judged in your favor and closed immediately.

The reason is that PayPal does not put itself in the position of deciding if an item is described properly in your sales letter.  They really can’t do that.  That’s up to enforcement from the F.T.C. and/or civil remedies in courts.

Of course, you must follow the law and describe your products accurately in the sales letters.

And also, of course, there is no reason to feel guilty about winning the dispute.  You describe your items accurately so the “customer” (ie: thief) has just filed a fraudulent claim with PayPal trying to steal from you and get your PayPal account shut down.  Winning a dispute with a thief is a good thing, not something to feel guilty about.

The other reason is “not received.”  The action to take is identical.  You simply enter the UPS tracking information and escalate the claim.  This one won’t be closed immediately.  It will take some time for PayPal to look at your tracking information and make sure the item has been delivered.  However, once PayPal looks at your claim, it will always be found in your favor.

Once again, the “customer” (ie: thief) has placed a fraudulent claim pretending that they have not received the item you shipped.  PayPal trusts UPS because UPS simply doesn’t lie about delivery.  In fact, they get a signature if your product is over $100 and you buy the insurance.

That brings us to the details of how to use this extremely simple procedure to win every single PayPal dispute with less than one minute of work.  Here are the steps:

1) Ship something with every order.  If you are offering a service, still ship a CD or something with a copy of the results of your service.

2) Always use UPS.  USPS has tracking, but some percentage of the time they simply say they lost the tracking information.  Use UPS and you’ll always get a delivery confirmation that PayPal loves.

3) Always buy insurance if your item costs more than $100.  This gets you the signature confirmation that PayPal likes to see if your customer paid more than $100.

4) Always require shipping information when setting up your PayPal buttons so that you have the address to ship to.

5) Instantly refund any order that doesn’t have a confirmed address or uses a P.O. Box.  These are extremely likely to result in a dispute by a con-man after they receive the item.  You won’t be able to win these disputes because PayPal only offers seller protection for shipments to confirmed addresses.  You can’t send via UPS to a P.O. Box.  It is best to simply refund them and not ship to these con-artists at all.

That’s it.  Enjoy winning 100% of the disputes.  Also be sure to tell every con-man that disputes a transaction with you that they are not welcome to do business with you in the future.

Some percentage of them will go out on the forums and complain about your policy.  That will warn off other con-artists which is a very good thing.

The author is the creator of TestiVar, the world’s most effective multivariate testing solution.  MuVar completely automates the task of optimizing your sales letters for more sales.  Check it out here:
http://www.TestiVar.com

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Android 1.5 SDK Available

Android announce preview of SDK 1.5. The new o/s contains a bunch of enhancements – see http://developer.android.com/sdk/preview/features.html

I love the Android phone but have two issues:

• Doesn’t sync to Exchange without 3rd party software
• Battery doesn’t last

Otherwise it’s pretty brilliant.

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Image with title attribute

It’s a very common problem that tags have a title attribute set. This is against the W3C standard and so should be avoided – use the alt tag instead.

SiteCara.com has had the site audit functionality changed to include checks for this issue on all pages checked. If you want a swift rank or ranking at all you must comply with all standards

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