Here is a little tip that I do to help get stuck websites momentum. You can find a similar report to what I am referencing if you visit your Google Search Console.

It is called Google Search Console query profiling.

This is a Do It Yourself tip.

In my circle and in agency land I keep hearing irrelevant references to topic entities and entity based SEO. The buzz word hype is real. 

But its real enough to take advantage of topics and user intent to help your website.

But do you know what your search console query diversity says about the scope of your content?

Did you know that missaligned terms at an exact URL level means the scope and theme of your content aren’t aligned well enough with focal queries?

Look at the relationship between queries by click and by impression.

To do this I dump out 16 months’ worth of URL > Query data in search analytics for Google sheets, then I will start to group queries together.

How I use Google Search Console (GSC) to Improve my SEO Content and acquire thousands of new website visitors: 

1. Sign up then into GSC.
2. Go to the “Performance” area.
3. Filter results for the “Last 3 months”.
4. Order Queries for Clicks then Impressions. 
5. Analyze and notice top performing keywords. 
6. Do the same for Pages. 
7. Click “Export” at the top for Google Sheets.
8. Open and freeze the top row. 
9. Sort by “Position” A to Z. 
10. Add a filter for “Position” between 5 and 25. 
11. Find the page ranking for those keywords. 
12. Create Upgrade Plan for each page. 
13. Publish the updates. 
14. Let Google do it’s thing. 
15. Check results after 1 month. 

Most client websites have a lot of potential money-making pages sitting between position 5 & 25 in Google but may not know this. 

My job when engaged as an SEO Freelancer is to help pluck these pages from obscurity and put them in Google’s spotlight. 

Any time you have keywords in striking distance of Page 1 position 1-5 you should make an effort to improve the pages that those keywords are on so you get higher rankings and in turn more website visitors.

Doing this could be the difference in 1,000s of new visitors. Thousands of new potential customers.

We’re often too focused on new content. 

My Advice: Don’t forget about the old content.

Only then you can start re-writing your content to have a more targeted topical alignment with the focus keyword. Your content becomes better optimised for the search intent and Google will see this and reward you with higher rankings.

*This is not set and forget. If your competitor has a SEO Freelancer working on their pages this creates a game of chess between Google, Your competitor(s) and you.

If you plan ahead and monitor your results you can get a market share of the search terms. It takes work and that’s why SEO is never done once and is a journey.

I know the above might sound a tad confusing – I am looking to put some videos together to show and explain the process.

This is the exact process I use to build more informative pages based on what I find inside Google Search Console. You can do this yourself just by following this guide.

Last week I had an interesting meeting with a client that was in a onboarding phase. The client has a newish brand with very little visibility online or history for this new brand that was launched in May 2021.

The client is subscribed to my SEO services and the meeting was to review the keyword targets for the service that I am delivering. An SEO discussion I had with a client:

From the Client: “Shaneo, we appreciate your keyword research buddy, but you’ve recommended we go after obscure terms with very low search volume? I’m not sure that tactic aligns with our objectives”

From Me: “We need to crawl before we walk, we then need to walk before we run, this is a new service you are offering and there are pages and pages of competitors who have years of history. You can compete but you cant do it overnight we need to think about this as a 12-month plan if SEO is your preferred method of growing the service. Or we can run paid advertising and show up today but for 4-5 times the cost of SEO. Its your choice how we do it and my choice how we get there’.

How To Assess Intent Based Targeting

1. Your domain has little history or authority, you are basically brand new in Google’s eyes.
2. Your site coverage is TOO thin to go after the terms you suggested and as part of the SEO strategy we’ll build those pages out within your budget and within the proposed scope of work and
3. The terms I suggested had VERY HIGH cpc’s which suggests that the conversion intent is likely to be MUCH higher”

Maybe in hindsight I should of led with point 3, oh well next time. I do try to help educate business owners when I present my strategy as not everyone understands SEO and the power it has in growing businesses.

Why I Recommend Intent Based Targets

NEVER put low search volume queries down, ever. In fact, some of my greatest achievements from an ROI perspective came from building out huge swathes of long-tail based on ZSVK (zero search volume keywords).

The longer-tail the search (the more specific it is) the more likely you are to generate a conversion. My plan is stack up a lot of long tail keywords and once we have the traffic we can start to move towards those higher search volume keywords.

My guide to types of keywords.

In fact, my SEO strategies usually work back to front in that I’ll shun high search volume terms for mass lower search volume terms where there are huge competition gaps, rich snippet opportunities and a chance to generate a MUCH higher ROI.

Generic search terms are often impacted heavily by localisation, device and obscurity when it comes to conversion value/intent.

My Own Analysis Informs The Tactic

I always do my own website audit to see what we have to work with and the analysis of opportunity or risks associated with competitors. A risk would be targeting things that a household name brand is targeting when you are a startup thats just a pipe dream. We have to target the long tails first.

That’s not to say I don’t go after bat-shit crazy competition keywords (I do) just, further into the relationship. It also depends on the client. If they have trust in me to get the small wins first and continue to trust me when it comes to the very competitive targets then we are going to succeed.

My large clients want big terms? and I go for them.
Large clients want huge volumes of long-tail traffic and I agree with this and go for it, having brand history, trust and authority in their category allows me the opportunity to do this at scale.
All I ask is my clients and prospective clients have faith in me to hit the targets we agree on, I do this every day I live and breathe it and I bring the client on the journey.

Smaller businesses just CANNOT compete on small budgets for high-value terms without a real concerted effort and patience/persistence (unless they are in some obscure industry with low competition).

NEVER discount low or zero search volume queries (ZERO doesn’t mean zero, it just means zero as per keyword tools but no ZERO in reality).

Low competition + high CPC + queries of 4 or more words = Goldmine.

If we are getting into the weeds around keywords and search volume I start to set some red flags with the client who I am happy to advise if they want to go after terms that they have set in their mind. But I still recommend the strategy thats the best for growth of the business.

There is a pattern emerging and partly due to COVID where you get a brand new “marketing associate” or “Account Manager” who was at university or was working at BP last month is the person who is telling you that your keywords need to be your band name only. Huge LOL from me but this is a reality from the big agencies.

This type of person does not have the in-field experience to give you business advice plain and simple. They can barely read and assess the changes in Google SERPs, changes that impact millions of businesses and websites daily.

The other problem you will face is the ex-agency freelancer (I am aware that is where I am coming from)  who was brand new at the agency, they got a taste of success and learnt/stole the agency process and decided to build their own 1 man band.

Pretty much this is a young hungry person who wants to carve out their own thing. They want the laptop lifestyle so bad they don’t really care how they get there. I’ve encountered enough of these overnight agency startups to know how to unbundle their business model.

Linkedin Job now showing [enter new freelance agency name] and status update “Hey guys, after a wildly successful run with [ABC agency] and I’ve decided to go out alone. All my hard work has paid off and if you could share my new business with your friends and any business owners who may need help with SEO”. This is the exact word-for word 5 out of the 6 people who did this used. L

They flash a new LinkedIn title weekly, they go from intern, marketing associate to expert and Guru then leader in a matter of weeks. The real danger is that these unqualified people actually have control of businesses’ marketing channels, leads pipelines and advertising budgets have never really done this A to Z before they only know letters D, E and F and flounder on week 3.

I also have to clean up the mess that they make when they take on an actual business. I have been cleaning up the mess they make with businesses by auditing and then reorganising the websites that these fly-by-night freelancers had the pleasure of working.i

Sadly this truth is real. This wildcard is now released out into the wild and will be advising businesses on how to spend their marketing budget and what direction to take their business objectives online.

I am having some post traumatic stress from cleaning up the mess of these people each and every week. There is no real business experience used in any of this. Its semi-automated research from spy tools that guides their every move. Never in any of their recommendations and strategies if you can call it that reflects the business objectives and in market behaviours.

When you work with me you work with a fellow business owner, I have employees, I pay taxes, I have deadlines and customers just like real business owners. I have been in business for over 20 years and I can relate to your objectives of making more revenue while decreasing operational expenses.

Have faith in the process. I will find you the best keywords, the best targets, the best customers, audiences and gaps in the market to build momentum online. That is my pitch and thats my ethos on doing good business. The choice to work with a gimp in a fancy suit or a real-world tactical specialist who understands business is yours. It starts with filling in a form here.

I love working on websites, a little too much but every now and then what should be a smooth website experience can turn into a technology panic station all hands on deck the ship is going down scenario.

My reoccurring nightmare is one where the alarm clock displays 6 AM as it violently wakes me up. I have a tight project deadline to meet, only to find the dreaded text website not available contactwebsite administrator for support. ARGH!!!! no not today and then I wake up in a cold sweat.

Welcome to my life. Dreaming about work on the weekends. Web design is a passion so I guess it is not that bad.

Resigned, you let the update do its thing. Interrupting it would just make it worse. Half an hour later, your computer finally reboots…and it no longer works. Looks like the update messed up your system.

We’ve all been there, and it’s no joke. Updates always happen at the worst possible time. Understandably, we’ve all developed a serious resentment and fear towards them on our computers, phones, and websites – WordPress is no exception.

Updating your WordPress plugins can be problematic. The whole site can go down, the theme can get messed up, or page loading can slow down to a grinding halt. 

As much as we avoid hitting the “update” button, we need updates or we’d be stuck with virus-prone sites from the GeoCities era. In this guide, we’ll show you the right way to safely install your WordPress updates. You’ll learn how to minimize the chances of site downtime, keep your WP site functional even after installing a bad update, and find out about a secret weapon that serves as a time machine for your WP site.

Why is updating WordPress plugins necessary?

It’s a chore, we know. Plus, you’re afraid that updating will break something on your site. Frankly, it can. However, updating brings about more positive changes than negative ones. And as far as breaking something goes, well it happens 50% of the time.

I can tell you that even when i felt that it was going to be a simple update that was low risk, I have had to go code red and do my best to save the website from breaking after something unforeseen and not even logically relevant breaks and I have to scramble to fix the problem. 

In my experience auditing websites I have seen some huge security flaws and website design problems that actually decreased the visibility and ability to make sales. These numbers were in the millions because the section of teh website affected was 1/3 of the websites product listings that were not showing meaning they were losing sales because the plugin update had caused massive issues.

Compatibility

Developers tend to focus more on the future than on the past. They may take backward compatibility into account, but there comes a time where they’ll simply block old software. That means even your favorite theme might not be able to run with their latest code if it’s outdated.

Old and new things go together to some extent, but at a certain point, you won’t be able to just slap on another coat of fresh paint – you need to upgrade.

Functionality

Good, frequently maintained software continuously evolves. New features are added, the interface improves, and user feedback drives those changes. While you may think that the version you have is “the best one for you” and never needs an upgrade, try to embrace change. It’s usually good for you, and you may be pleasantly surprised by some of the new functions an upgrade brings.

Security

Last but not least – security. Who wants their website to get hacked? Believe it or not, keeping WordPress up-to-date is the best way to keep a website secure. Bad people love outdated software – go figure. Hackers prey on sites using old versions of WordPress and old plugins. Why? Because they have known security issues that are easy to exploit. It’s just a matter of finding such sites. Don’t let stubbornness towards change make you a victim.

How often should I be updating WordPress plugins?

There’s no short answer to this question. WP core, plugins, and themes are updated in irregular intervals, and updates become available on any day of the week and at any time.

Checking your site once a day is not realistic for most people. However, we’d recommend checking for updates once a week. If you do it less than once a month, you run into a severe risk of using plugins and WP core with known security issues. 

Tips for Safe Updates

Don’t be trigger happy

One of the most common causes of problems with updates is installing unstable, untested, and generally problematic updates. How do you know if an update is bad? Sadly, you can’t! You didn’t make the update, and it’s unreasonable to expect anyone to analyze the new code whenever there’s an update.

Instead of investing resources into testing a new update, let others do it first. Wait a day or two after the update becomes available and then install it. During that time, enough people will install and test it, so you don’t have to be the guinea pig. If it’s a bad update that causes problems, the developer will be notified immediately. By the time you install, a new, better update will become available.

This tip should be followed for plugin and theme updates as well as for core ones. Just be patient for a day or two, and don’t be update-happy.

Update things one by one

Sure, it’s convenient to click “update all.” But after you update everything and find yourself staring at the notorious white screen of death, it’s nearly impossible to know which plugin caused the problem.

Install updates one by one. After each one, open your site and see if everything looks OK. You don’t have to spend half an hour testing. Simply invest a minimal amount of effort to see if the update caused any noticeable issues.

Have a safety net

I’m sure you’ve heard multiple people stress the importance of keeping backups to you. If you still don’t believe in creating them, I’d instead urge you to have any kind of safety net.

Perhaps your hosting company keeps backups – that’s one thing you can rely on.

Maybe you keep all your posts in DOC files on your computer. Sure, it’s far from ideal (and I wouldn’t recommend it), but you do have a copy in the worst-case scenario.

I am pretty confident on teh front and back end of websites but even I get bamboozled by some plugins after updating them to see they have conflicted or broken somewhere. A lot of the time its out of version or code function request issues but the golden rule I have is always be safe.

Websites  shouldnt be hard to manage but they are. Sometimes they run smoothly but theres been times I have had to really rethink how to best manage a website based on what legacy code or plugin functions are installed.

If you would like to speak about the best options for managing your website please contact me and Ill provide my recommendations for website management providers and top notch developers that can help you.

The process I recommend for selecting a new CRM platform. In my line of work I assist hundreds of businesses with the marketing software and how to roll them out across teams and departments. One question I answer a lot is about the selection process when I am choosing the software to recommend, today Ill show you how I narrow down my choices in a logical method. 

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of CRM platforms to choose from. As a technology consultant I won’t be recommending any specific platforms as I believe there are different solutions for different businesses and Ill give a fair shout to the ones I believe are value for money.

The Too Long Dont Read Recap:

1. Make a list of what you want in your CRM.
2. Ask for free trials of different software.
3. Find out what kind of training is available.
4. Get references from friends, colleagues or business associates.
Conclusion: With so many different CRM tools on the market, it can be hard to choose the right one. Keep these tips in mind to help you make the right decision.

Start with a brief

As with most projects, it’s best to start by writing a brief. Outline all of the problems that you believe a new CRM will solve, and all of the features and benefits that you hope this new CRM will bring to the table.

As well as give you a reference point when conducting research, it can act as a proposal document to get the new platform approved by your CEO, director or manager.

Once you’ve compiled the document, I recommend you take the features that you’ve identified and list them in a spreadsheet. Make a note of whether they are nice to have, or non-negotiable.

A few things to consider that some people neglect are;

• How much support is there in the onboarding process?
• What level of support is provided ongoing?
• How does the cost change as you add more team members?
• How does the cost change as you increase the number contacts or emails?
• How does it integrate with the rest of your tech stack?
• How much tech or developement support will you need to set it up?
• Do they invest in creating new features?

These are all questions you should consider on top of your unique requirements for a CRM.

Research the platforms

Now it’s time to see what’s out there. There are plenty of well known CRMs that you should take the time to check out, but also search for CRMs that are specific for your industry.

At this stage of your research, you are just looking at what’s available and so you don’t need to speak with a sales rep, just spend 5 to 10 minutes looking at their websites. You should jot down which platforms you’ve looked at, whether or not they look like they meet your criteria, and an estimate of the price you will need to pay.

Free trials are your friend, I often see a new software that looks like it does everything on teh website sales page, but when i log in with a free trial I can tell in minutes that this will not be a good fit for the client based on the use of the software.

Sign up for a free trial.

I usually grab the 5 or 6 known softwares that help a clients specific problem, list them down in a spreadsheet and note their features, pricing models and limitations so I have a baseline to review.

My Most Used CRMs:

1. HighLevel
2. Shopify (Ecommerce)
3. Active Campaign
4. Click Funnels
5. WishPond
6. 10XPRO (full marketing suite)
7. Zoho

Book a demo

With so much new tech emerging even I cant keep up with all the new players in the CRM space. Theres almost 1 a week starting up all doing one thing slightly different from others. In this case I may reach out to the software and request a walkthrough of their platform.

Now it’s time to get into the nitty gritty and set up a time for a demo with each platform on your shortlist. Most companies will ask you specifically what you want to see so use your brief document to help guide the demo and come up with questions.

If you feel comfortable doing so, send the brief to the person providing the demo before hand. This can help them get a better idea of what you’re looking for so they can deliver the information that you need to make a decision.

It’s likely that the demos will uncover features and benefits that you hadn’t considered. These can be great but don’t let them distract you too much, make sure you don’t compromise on the features you identified because they’ve promised something shiny and new.

Take notes of all your demos so you can keep track of what was discussed and then go back to your spreadsheet. You should now be able to list which platforms are able to deliver on all of your required features. If not, go back to them and ask more questions until you are comfortable that you have all the information you need.

Another note you might find useful is that of your friends and colleges. Reach out to your Linkedin network and ask them what they use for a CRM and what their experience is. This can help you provide me with a short list of software that you thnk is a good fit for your business.

Select the platform that is right for you

The next step is harder than it may seem. The truth is, it’s unlikely that any platform you choose will be able to do everything that you want, and fit within your price range. You will probably have to compromise on some features or the price so bear that in mind when evaluating your options.

Have a look at your spreadsheet, which is now a selection matrix, and evaluate all of your options. Are any of them unable to deliver non-negotiables? Did you dislike the interface when going through the demo? Was there something about the process of the demo that you didn’t like? This should rule them out immediately. The rest is up to you.

Provide feedback to the platforms that you’ve decided not to go with and they will often come back to you with alternative ways to get the features you’re looking for. Also, let the successful company know why you decided to go with them, and what their perceived shortcomings were so that they can provide a better onboarding and ongoing experience to you.

You’re likely to be paying this company every month for a number of years so it’s worth trying to make a little extra saving, especially if you’re compromising on some of the features or price. The bigger your account the more wiggle room you’ll have to get a better price but it never hurts to ask.

If you want help with software and technology for your business you can hire me for projects based work.

That should give you everything you need to select a new CRM but don’t rest yet. The hard work of actually implementing it starts now. This is particularly the case if you’re transferring from an existing one so good luck.

Small businesses can benefit from automation as well and this blog post will discuss what you need to know about how it could work for you!

Why automate your small business?

Automating your small business can be a great investment. It  save time and money, both of which are precious resources to any owner or manager!

One often-overlooked advantage is avoiding mistakes. If you spend your days typing customer information into different systems, sooner or later you’ll make a  mistake. That mistake could cause anything from embarrassment to a bodged delivery of even legal jeopardy – depending on your industry. Automation software makes sure repetitive tasks get done exactly the same way – correctly every time.

Finally, automation is a must if you’re scaling your business. Sure, you can always hire more people to get admin work done, but there will come a point where it’s simply cost-prohibitive, or there will be so much that even an army of workers can’t handle it in time.

How much time can automation save your business?

Businesses worldwide are realising that automation can save costs, eliminate boring tasks, and allow employees to focus on higher-value activities. But navigating the complexities of automation can be difficult for businesses big and small.

It’s difficult to know sometimes what can be automated, how much it will cost and what the specific benefits to your business will be.

What processes can my business automate?

To identify what tasks can be automated, break down the processes in your business into parts. These parts can then be broken into individual tasks. Each of these tasks is an opportunity for automation.

To decide which task to automate first, you as teh business owner must balance out the cost and difficulty of automating the task versus the potential increase in productivity.

I believe that most tasks can be ranked on 3 levels:

• ‍Basic: These tasks are repetitive and follow simple rules. The data they need comes from structured data sources. For example, issuing invoices, initiating bank transfers, and sending notification emails.
• Advanced: These tasks recur regularly and require variable actions, but the outcomes are predefined. For example, creating a bespoke quote for a customer based on their requirements.
• Intelligent: These tasks are unpredictable and don’t follow simple rules. They require complex thinking to solve the task.

Using tools like Zapier, many tasks that are ranked as ‘Basic’ or ‘Advanced’ can be entirely or partially automated, saving significant time and money.

Examples of automatable ‘Basic’ and ‘Advanced’ processes include:

• Accountancy: Processing expenses, processing payroll, basic accountancy, and revenue reporting
• Business Development: Finding qualified leads, following up leads, managing the sales pipeline, onboarding new clients and managing contracts
• eCommerce: Automated upsell or restock emails, abandoned cart reminders, chasing failed billing charges and chasing unpaid invoices
• Customer Service: Triage support tickets, automatically answer FAQs, send appointment reminders, measure client satisfaction and request referrals
• Marketing: Social media management, ad budget alerts, and dynamic content generation
• Office Management: Resource booking and scheduling
• Logistics: Stock management, re-ordering, and dispatch management‍
• Human Resources: Job application process management, employee leave requests, and employer onboarding

What if I don’t automate?

Businesses that have failed to adopt new technologies have suffered as a result. Recent examples include Kodak, who missed the switch to digital media and Nokia, who missed the smartphone revolution. Blockbuster sold video cassette tapes where Netflix has ondemand streaming from your TV. 

Companies miss out on new technologies for a wide range of reasons, including fear, technological pessimism, and the cost of adoption.

Put simply, if you don’t automate, your competitors will outpace you. At first, the improvements might be modest, but as the printing press example shows, these improvements compound dramatically over time.

So, how much money can you really save by automating?

To calculate how much you can save by automating, you should focus on 4 factors:

Labour Costs

Automation reduces your payroll by either replacing, repurposing, or augmenting your staff.

With some types of automation, staff may no longer be needed, as the task is entirely completed by the automation. These staff can then be reassigned to higher-value work, driving growth in areas of your business that cannot be automated, such as sales, relationship management, or customer service.

To calculate how much labor cost could be saved:

1. Calculate your current total labor expenditure for that position, including salary, benefits, and taxes.
2. Calculate the hidden costs of the position, such as amenities, office space, utility usage, training, sick leave, holiday pay, and legal compliance.
3. Add these values together and divide by the number of hours worked.

For example, one of your team might be responsible for entering invoices into your accounting system at $22 per hour, which takes them 10 hours every month, costing $2,640 per year.

Next, total up the fixed costs of running your offices and divide this by the number of staff.

Divide this by the number of hours worked each month to calculate an hourly cost. The automation you might choose for this would be to automate employees hourly cost againts business expenses or revenue toi determine the exacts of the P&L.

Time Loss

Automations work tirelessly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with 100% accuracy.

Humans are not so perfect. We need regular breaks, sick days, holiday pay, and are occasionally unproductive at work. 

To calculate the true benefits of automation:

1. Calculate the time the automation would take to complete the task.
2. Calculate the time a human would take to complete the task, minus any mistakes, breaks, or errors.
3. Compare the two values.

For example, one of your team might follow-up with your customers to encourage them to re-order each quarter. This takes 4 hours to complete, but 20% of this time is wasted due to breaks and other time loss factors.

Operational Bottlenecks

Take a look at your existing processes and map your workflows, starting at the end and working backward.

At each stage of this workflow, reflect on your past performance, and identify where slowdowns have occurred previously or could occur if your business grew.

For example, I have been a bottleneck in teh past as I begin to automate workflows so at the start of a new customer journey. For every new lead, 10-15 minutes of data entry is required. This meant only a fixed amount of leads could be onboarded each day, limiting the growth of my business business.

By automating this data entry, there is no limit to how many leads can be onboarded, clearing the bottleneck.

By applying automation where these bottlenecks occur, you increase productivity and reduce the likelihood of bottlenecks in the future.

Opportunity Cost

The Oxford American Dictionary defines opportunity cost as “the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.”

In the context of automation, this means what are you missing out on if you fail to automate:

• Reduced Costs: By adopting automation, you can produce goods or deliver services at a reduced cost in exchange for a one-time investment in automation. With reduced costs, you increase your profits, which can be reinvested in new opportunities.
• Reduce Lead Time: With automation, you might be able to serve customers quicker, leading to healthier cash flow. For businesses with physical products, this also reduces inventory and storage requirements.
• Reduce Errors: Automation guarantees that a task is completely accurate. Without errors, customer satisfaction will improve and labor costs are reduced.

Automation For Customer Service Teams 

Trigger surveys after a support ticket is solved or closed. 

While you’re measuring the number of tickets and the time taken for your customer service team to close tickets, it is also important to know if the Customer was satisfied with the resolution or not. An ideal way to do this is to trigger a CSAT Survey right after a ticket is solved or closed.  

With Zapier, you can create a Zap with any Help desk tool you use like Zendesk, Freshdesk, Hubspot, Groove HQ, HelpScout and connect to your customer feedback tool to send an email survey right after a ticket is updated. This will help you gauge real-time customer feedback and know how well your customer service team is doing.

Add new support tickets for negative feedback

When you get negative feedback, you obviously want the team to take action on it. Studies suggest that 67% of customer churn can be avoided if customers’ issues are solved at first instance. Even if the issues are not completely resolved, 11% of customer churn can still be avoided if negative feedback or complaints are responded timely and properly.

Instead of manually adding tickets and tasks for your team, you can use Zapier to automate this. As soon as you receive low feedback on your online surveys or offline survey, a ticket will automatically be added to your helpdesk. 

Include feedback questions in all customer service team emails

A great way to get feedback for your customer service team and members is to include a CSAT or NPS question right within their emails. When you send an email survey for feedback, there are more chances of your email not getting read or maybe the automatic movement of your email into the spam folders.

But when you send an important communication regarding your interaction with the customers, the customers tend to open it and read it through. You can utilize this opportunity to collect feedback by embedding your feedback survey in the email body at the end. Customers will not only read it but will get promoted to answer the displayed question and ultimately fill the short survey. This helps you gauge feedback at every interaction. 

For sales & marketing teams

Sync your feedback to CRMs

For sales and marketing teams, it is important to know how satisfied the customers are. With powerful integrations, you can sync back your feedback data to your CRM. In this way, your teams will get the customer feedback data in real-time and thus would be able to view the customer insights and satisfaction levels in one place.

This will not only help to work on their feedback, but also make sales and marketing strategies for the future to attract prospective customers which will ultimately help to grow your business.

Trigger surveys

A customer journey comprises various touchpoints and crucial aspects. It is possible for customer feedback to be positive at one point, and negative for the other. So it is always better to collect feedback at every touchpoint rather than just asking for feedback on the overall experience.

With the help of this integration, you can trigger sending of Surveys automatically just after key events like a demo, onboarding, meeting, billing, purchase, or after a few days/weeks of usage. This will help to know in detail about the customer experiences and the factors affecting it in your business so that you can improve on the weak points and strengthen the positive aspects of your business.

Include feedback questions

You can also include feedback questions in your marketing and sales emails. Add CSAT or NPS questions to know the customer happiness and loyalty with their experience with your brand. This will help you know about their likeliness to make repurchases and recommend your brand to others.

With this, you can predict the sales and revenue to be generated in the near future. This information will be useful for you to do effective planning and forecasting for the coming days and eventually help you make better business decisions and grow your business.

For ecommerce

Display popup surveys on the website after purchase 

Website or online surveys are a great way of capturing Customer Feedback from the website users at the moment. With powerful integrations, you can display online surveys on your eCommerce website through pop-ups asking for customer feedback.

Pop-ups are really helpful to prompt your customers to take a survey. You can enable these customer feedback survey popups to appear on the customers’ screens as soon as they make a purchase. In this way, you can easily collect Customer Feedback data to measure customer satisfaction with the purchase experience the customers just had.

Send email surveys for feedback after delivery or use

Powerful integrations will enable you to automate sending of email surveys to the customers just after the delivery of products. These surveys will help you to know the delivery experience of the customers and the aspects like the condition of the products received, the behavior of the delivery staff and waiting time for the delivery.

You can also automate sending of these surveys with a time lag of some hours or some days of the delivery of products so that your customers get enough time to use your products and check their performance. This will help you to know whether your products and their experience provided lives up to their expectations or not.

How to get started with automating your business?

Consider automating the following aspects of your company: payroll, accounting, customer onboarding, new sales, marketing – in fact, every area of your business provides opportunities to streamline.

The key is to take it slow and be methodical just like SEO results. Target one part of your business at a time, thoroughly map its processes first and then plan automated workflows that will be effective for your companies needs.

These are some more ideas for you as your start analysing your business:

– Lead management

A marketing automation system can track prospects’ progress through the sales cycle and assign them a score based on their potential to become paying customers. Key communication touch points can be recorded and even sent automatically.

– Email campaigns

Marketing automation software can help coordinate marketing campaigns and increase their effectiveness with performance metrics. For example, it might track the date your customer purchased a refrigerator and send them maintenance reminders annually or notify them of complementary products currently on sale.

– Social media

A marketing automation software is a necessary asset for any small business with smart social media strategy in place. These systems help manage all of your posts across platforms and keep to a finely-tuned schedule that will provide your company with their best current engagement rates.

How to choose the right software for you

While most CRMs these days have some automation capabilities, you’ll likely want to turn to one of the major automation apps to get things working in your business.

The market leaders are Zapier, Integromat and n8n and there are dozens of other options that do very similar things.

– Zapier

Zapier is an automation platform that connects with thousands of other apps. The software uses what they call “zaps” – workflows that map out a process involving two or more connected apps.

– Integromat

Integromat is very powerful and has deep integrations, but focuses on visual programming to create workflows. The software connects with hundreds of popular apps and lets you quickly build some very advanced workflows.

– n8n

Again – similar to Zapier and Integromat in that it allows you to build complex workflows visually, where it differs is that it can be self-hosted and run for free. The trade-off is a steeper learning curve.

Different types of software automation

Automation software is a tool that helps organizations create systems to handle repetitive manual tasks. Since they save time, improve efficiency, reduce operational costs, and help organizations save money, these automation tools are used in various industries and sectors, including financial institutions, medical fields, and manufacturing companies.

However, there’s no one-size-fits-all automation solution. Since every organization has varying needs and cultures, you will find different types of software automation to help you address those gaps.

Just to remind you I do this for a living.

Here are the three primary types of automation.

Basic automation

This type of software automation involves simple, rudimentary work that is easily understood, replicated, and organized. This level of automation is all about digitizing high-volume tasks that take time and are prone to human error. Basic automation uses tools to centralize and streamline processes. For example, your organization can take advantage of a shared messaging system to improve communication instead of having information in disconnected departments. Some types of basic automation include robotic process automation and business process management.

Enhanced automation

This next level of software automation involves more sophisticated and specialized processes. An example of a task where organizations can use enhanced automation is scanning business emails for specific information. Since it’s more advanced, this type of automation can be used in industries where complex tasks are more prone to human error. Some examples of work areas that require this level of automation include IT, finance, and accounting.

Cognitive automation

Cognitive automation is the most complex level of automation since it’s a subsection of Artificial Intelligence. This type of automation takes things a step further since the machines imitate human functions such as thinking and reasoning. Due to its analytical capabilities, cognitive automation tools can learn and make decisions based on past events they encountered and analyzed. An example of this is automated customer service and support.

How to successfully invest in business automation

While automation holds real business potential, not everyone experiences the advantages it offers. The answer lies in understanding the different types of automation software. With those tools, organizations must also develop and implement a strategy that fits their needs. Here are some steps you can use as a guide to successfully invest in business automation.

1. Prepare your company

If you’re starting your automation project, you must first understand your goals and determine what you want your business to achieve. Then, compare this to your capabilities and ensure you have the right people on board. It’s crucial that you developed a strategy for the initial steps and have rules to help you focus on your results.

2. Start small

Once you have defined your business goals and prepared your business, begin with a few pilot programs or basic automation. Although investing in basic programs will only give you some small wins, this will protect your company from massive losses until you get the hang of it. No organization is the same, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Take your time in implementing your first automation project correctly, and learn from the mistakes.

3. Expand your program continuously

Keep in mind that progress isn’t linear, and the needs of your business may often change. That’s why you need to look for opportunities where automation can help your business save money. Once your basic automation shows success, be prepared for the plethora of automation requests within your company. Use the lessons you learned from your pilot programs and adjust your business strategy accordingly. However, you need to re-define your rules and have a clear approach on which automation to prioritize.

Conclusion – take automation seriously in your business

Automation isn’t only for large enterprises, and there is a growing selection of tools to help you take advantage of automation.

With that in mind it’s never been easier to reap the benefits of automation in your business – and if you’re worried that you don’t have the time or resources to invest in it – you can also hire one growing number of experts in business automation.