customer support and search visibility

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.

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Twitter: @webmama