This is more of a tip to increase your sales that improve rankings.
Several inspectors have asked me in the past (Gerry Beaumont asked
today which moved me to finally write something up) on how to add chat
to their website. There are many different methods of doing this, but
one that I feel is the best for inspectors.
Why add chat to your website? Lets imagine the casual client who is
looking over multiple websites for an inspector, not sure who they are
going to choose. Yes, all have a phone number to call, so the client
writes down the phone numbers planning to call a few once they narrow
down their choices. Then they come across a site with a box on the
front page of their site that says 'chat with this inspector live!' Now
you've created a way to create an instant connection with a client from
the comfort of your computer.
What happens if you're not at your computer? Well, there's two options.
The first is that the system will simply say you're offline and they
are welcome to leave a message (which is also nice, I'd have the system
say if I'm off performing an inspection or something). The second is if
you have a phone that supports any chat protocol such as
MSN,AIM,ICQ,Google Chat,Jabber,Yahoo Messenger, etc, the message can be
forwarded to your phone!
So, how do you do this? Go to http://www.plugoo.com/ . Register and
enter the info requested and you will be given code to add to your
site. If you're using our hosting service then create a block and you
can add the chat to one of the side bars of your site, or add it to a
new page. You can choose any of the chat systems mentioned above.
What happens when someone requests a chat? The message goes directly to your normal chat program open on your desktop.
Many phones today like the blackberry's, iPhones, treo's, etc can
support live chat via the systems above, allowing you to stay in touch
with users on your website all day.