customer support and search visibility
TRANSCRIPT
Proactive Search MarketingVMware and Customer Support
Barbara C. CollCEO, WebMama.com Inc.
“Search Engine Marketing”
Support Comes in Different Flavours
Help I can’t install the product!
Help I can’t install the product!
Looking for Customer Support
Looking for Customer Support
I already know what I am looking for but I can’t find
it.
I already know what I am looking for but I can’t find
it.
Can I talk with somebody
please?
Can I talk with somebody
please?
Has anybody seen this problem today?Has anybody seen
this problem today?
Give me information
now!
Give me information
now!
• Answer the customer’s cry for help/support
• Minimize Service Requests (in the millions per year)
• Be proactive• Keep customers happy
• Multiple support resources• All pages indexed• All pages highly visible• All relevant content
But what does VMware want searchers to see?Where do they want to direct searchers?
VMware Internal Survey
• What would you like to see show up in a searcher’s results if they used these search keywords?– Can’t find the company vSphere license– How do I install the fusion update– My VMware server just crashed– VMware support phone number– Download VMware fusion– VMware tech support
Choices• Website content (CMS)– Support centers – Product information including documentation, release
information– Technical papers
• Knowledgebase, usually a different technology platform• Tweets (outside)• Community, usually a different technology platform• Education, Training
• Multiple support resources• All pages indexed• All pages highly visible• All relevant content
• But what does VMware want searchers to see?
• Where do they want to direct searchers?
Success Metrics
• Service Request #s• Support phone calls• Website stats– Visitors to contact us page
• KB searches/reads• Retweets• Peer Responses on communities
Influencing the Engines
Regardless of what you call a search engine you need to be wherever people are looking for you,
your category, your products
• Categorize the searches by type using referring keyword stats (internal and external)
• Decide the path you want searchers to take (i.e. away from the contact/support phone number page)
• Decide when peer-to-peer responses are best
Optimization Tactics• Matching Content to category of query– Static web content– Title tags– Meta description tags– URLs– Real-time content– User-generated content
• Internal Linking– Tell the engines what you want to have visible
• i.e. don’t point to contact at every given point
Get Visible
Dominate the search results
Barbara C. Coll, CEOWebMama.com Inc.
webmama.comblog.webmama.com
Twitter: @webmama