SEO Sydney Blog | Search Engine Optimisation News & Jobs in Australia

Junior Search Engine Analyst

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:11:00 +0000

Switched on Media is looking for a full time candidate with a passion in online marketing who wants a career in a fast growing digital marketing agency. You will have a unique opportunity to bring our clients to life in search and social media spaces.

You will undertake all technical aspects of a search engine optimisation (SEO) campaigns to maximise search engine visibility for a wide portfolio of blue-chip clients. While this is primarily a technical role requiring a high level of technical ability, such as understanding content management systems and web build experience, you will be an integral part of a professional marketing team; communicating bespoke SEO strategies and solutions to both internal departments and external clients.

Responsibilities
You will be responsible for carrying out a wide range of SEO tactics, such as technical optimisation, and link development. Regular support will be offered to internal departments and clients on fast developing ideas and research that has been investigated to meet client’s objectives and outperform your client’s competitors.

You will monitor, track and report on search metrics to determine market trends and customer search behaviour, both on a client’s website and through the search engines, resulting in an in-depth understanding of the client’s industry and target customer that can be fed back to copywriters, webmasters, or paid search departments to maximise the client’s campaign results.

Your regular day-to-day tasks will include pre-ordained deliverables to the clients, ad-hoc support, such as setting up new campaigns, reactions to changes in the search landscape and technical problems within the client’s websites.

You will also have the pleasure to work with some of the greatest minds in online marketing to create and share strategies and tactics on how paid search, social media services, web development and usability can work together to deliver an integrated campaign across all forms of online media.

Scope of Natural Search Analyst Role

Provide consultancy to clients on all aspects of SEO including:
Keyword research using a suite of tools
Comprehensively research and analyse competitor sites and search results pages
Produce and implement back link strategies through email, telephone and face-to-face discussions with 3rd party web site owners
Production of change requests for a variety of changes including:
Internal link optimisation
SEO technical analysis and evaluation
Website architecture problems
HTML and CMS optimisation
Analyse campaign performance and report back with insightful recommendations
Understand issues surrounding user experience, accessibility and information architecture
Keep up to date with the latest industry developments

Person Specification

Part of what makes Switched on Media successful is the highly motivated people who work here, and their enthusiasm for online marketing. We recruit individuals who possess honesty and integrity, and who display great initiative with a desire to be different through creativity and analytical approach to problem solving - a person that places the client at the centre of everything they do, and someone who inspires colleagues through their adaptable approach with lateral thinking complimenting their motivated and positive attitude to online marketing. You’ll have passion for your job that will be reflected in the work you deliver and regular deadlines that you meet.

Key Skills
You will possess:

A keen interest in online and web marketing
A good knowledge of business, including your clients markets and audience
An understanding of what differentiates Strategy from Tactics
Understanding of how search engines and websites work
Analytical, logic and mathematical skills
Great interpersonal and communication skills
Ability to prioritise conflicting workloads and consistently hit targets
A positive attitude to dealing with people
Ability to work independently and as part of the project team to strict deadlines
Capability to work hands-on to solve problems, with ability to generate ideas and solutions
Strong listening and questioning skills

Qualifications, Experience and Skills

A degree (or equivalent qualification) in computing, business, marketing, communications or related subjects.
1+ year’s previous SEO experience - Ad agency or online marketing background a plus
Demonstrable experience of working within a web development environment
Website Build & Web Administration – HTML, XML, JavaScript, RSS, W3C, DDA, server maintenance, knowledge of analytics packages and internet protocols
Appreciation of Content management Systems (CMS) and dynamic URLs
Demonstrate a proactive work ethic when managing numerous competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.
Proven ability to accommodate evolving responsibilities and last minute changes.

Salary
$35,000 - $50,000 package (base plus super), negotiable within range pending candidate.

About
Switched On Media is a search marketing and social media agency that unites the best talent from across the industry to deliver business changing results for our clients. We aim to use the latest approaches to deliver our clients value through three key channels; search engine optimisation, pay per click and social media. Interested in working on blue-chip household brands? Maybe you prefer more innovative businesses? Either way, you’re in luck as we work across a broad spectrum of businesses enabling you diversified experiences and to have something to help explain what you do at the next BBQ.

Contact the team at Switched and apply today:
Scot Ennis: 02 8248 5054
www.switchedonmedia.com.au
Scot@switchedonmedia.com.au
Applicants must be eligible to work in Australia

SEM Manager Job, Sydney

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:05:00 +0000

AtomicSearch are looking for the Brightest Star in Search Engine Marketing.

Do you want to work on the best brands & accounts?

Do you want to get paid more and rewarded for your talent?

Do you want to work with the best international Search minds?

Do you want an environment you’ll love working in?

AtomicSearch is one of Australia’s best and we have clients like Nike, SBS, MLC, ACP Magazines, AMP and OO.com.au to prove it.

We believe Search is the gateway to users entire online experience and brands online performance. As a full service Search Agency we pride ourselves on premium service and thinking beyond just click-throughs and numbers.

Offering insight driven SEM, SEO, Analytics and Strategy at our core, our extended service offering has evolved to include display placement through Google Ad Exchange, Conversion Rate Optimisation, device and place specific Optimisation and Proprietary Search Technology.

What we are looking for is Australia’s best up and coming SEM manager with an intuitive love and understanding of all things online. We want you to passionately lead a portfolio of high-end clients who are genuinely great to work with but demand the best.

To secure the role you have to:

Be a born presenter, communicator and confident, natural manager

Possess 18-36 months experience in Paid Search

Totally understand the current and future direction Paid Search and Technology and the influences surrounding, affecting and working with it

Have superior detail, organisational, analytical and strategic Search skills

Believe in passionately striving to deliver on client expectations and goals

Have an understanding of Brands and the wider Media and Marketing industry and Paid Searches role within that context

This starring role offers genuine rewards including above average remuneration, bonus and incentives, two extra long weekends per year, scope to progress, grow further and help lead our future. Think this is you? Lets talk.

To apply please send your resume to j.dixon@atomicsearch.com.au

Google Adwords: Review of Paused Ads

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 00:10:00 +0000

I have just received an email from Google Adwords notifying that paused ads in Google Adwords will be reviewed as part of the standard ad approval process from September 6th.

If you do not advertise on Google Adwords, it probably does not mean much to you, but if you have been running campaign for some time, you would have experienced the frustration to deal with ad reviewing delays.
Even if in most case, the ads approval process is relatively fast, it is not uncommon (especially for video ads and banners) to have to wait for a couple of days before your ads are approved. This is especially true when you have to start a campaign on a specific day..

Such changes should therefore make any SEM campaign manager happy. According to Google, these changes should take place on September 6th.

List & Table Items Displayed in Google Search Result Listings

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 23:17:00 +0000

Even if the Google search results pages appear to be quite plain, Google is constantly trying to improve the user experience by adding new features.

From the introduction of rich snippets to the new site links for branded terms, the Google search result listings are changing all the time.
Most of these changes aim at helping the user to find the best result for his/her query and therefore improve the overall user search experience

Recently, we have noticed a new feature in the Google search engine listings. The items from a list or table are displayed in the snippet in the form of a bullet list rather than simple text. The new listing format often include the number of items in the list.

For example, if you type "LCD Tvs" in Google Australia, you will noticed that the BigW listing includes a bullet-pointed list of products:

According to Raj Krishnan, product manager at Google:

"Snippets—the few lines of text that appear under every search result—are designed to give you a sense for what’s on the page and why it’s relevant to your query,"

"This week we started rolling out snippet improvements for pages that contain lists; results for these pages will now reflect the structure of the page, rather than just showing two lines of text. If a search result consists mostly of a structured list, like a table or series of bullets, we’ll show a list of three relevant rows or items underneath the result in a bulleted format,".

"The snippet will also show an approximate count of the total number of rows or items on the page," he added.

In the case of our example, adding the list snippet will help the user to differenciate an ecommerce retailer from a site providing information.
From an SEO point of view, it would make sense for retailers to list their featured products/ products on special, at the top of their page lists to ensure maximum exposure in the search results!

Google Search Listings: New Site Links Format for Branded Terms

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:18:00 +0000

Over the last couple of days, we have noticed that Google has changed his way of displaying site links for a specific site. First of all, Google has extended the number of site links to up to 12. Google has also change the format of site links, which are now similar to a standard web page listing with the page title in blue and the meta description in black (see below)

From a user perspective, this new site link format offer a much better way of browsing the content of the site and therefore a better way to reach the appropriate page.
From Google perspective, this new site links format entices the online users to stay longer on the Google Search result pages and therefore being more exposed to potential ads.
From a brand perspective ( so far this new site link format has only been observed on brand terms), these new site links offer a much bigger exposure over the fold and offer the opportunity for brand to "own" the search engine result pages for their brand name (fair enough!)

It still seems to be a new thing and only little information has been published on the topic, so we do not know yet if it is a test or a permanent thing. However this new format seems to tick quite a few boxes!

Google PageRank Update - June 2011 - Finally!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 05:41:00 +0000

Even if the PageRank score is slowly loosing its aura amongst SEO professionals and webmasters, it is always great to see that some of your work is paying off!

Over the last 2 years, Google got into a good rythm of updating the PageRank every 3 months, but had suddently stopped in April 2010, which was the last time I recorded a page rank update. Some people recorded an update on January 2011, but I did not really see it in Australia.

Google Officially Launched Product Search for Australia

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 04 May 2011 08:23:00 +0000

After a long waiting period, Google has finally released Google Product Search, which is essentially a search engine index dedicated to products.
We have described the product in a previous post. If you want to access Google Product Search, look on the left hand side of your Google search result page and you will find a yellow icon labelled shopping!

If you are a merchant and want to set this up, you will need to register to Google Merchant Center and submit your feed.

Understanding Location & Language Targeting Options in Google Adwords

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 05:28:00 +0000

Recently I had the opportunity to work on a global paid search campaign targeting multiple languages and locations. Although languagelocation targeting in Google Adwords appears to be pretty simple, some aspects can be slighty more complex.

Location Targeting Options

The main criteria that Google uses to determine a user location, is the actual Google domain they use. For example someone search in Google.de, Google will assume that the user is more likely to want to see German ads rather an English ads.
However, Google also look additional parameters including search personalisation settings, user IP addresses and the actual search term. Based on the combination of all these, Google might decide to refine the ads it displays. ( Please note that mobile devices use different location targeting parameters)

What is often misunderstood with location targeting, is that locally targeted ads wont always display to users physically located in a specific region.
For example someone in Australia searches on Google France for a plumber (plombier in French), the Australian user will be able to see the ads targeted to France, but not the Australian Ads
Another example, the same person in Australia, searches in Google France for the term 'Accommodation New York', the user is likely to see ads targeted at France, but also ads regionally targeted to New York, once again the Australian user is not likely to see Australian ads.

When setting up a location targeted campaign, it is important to remember these details to be sure to understand the audience of your ads.

Language Targeting Options

Targeting becomes more and more interesting (and complex), when you bring languages into the equation. Google offers the option to target up to 40 languages, which is great. To target ads at specific languages, Google looks at the language of the Google interface.
If you are not sure, which language is your interface set to, you can see your interface language settings in the URL when you make a search. Look for the following parameter in the URL "&hl=en" - in this case it is set to English.

Although it does not really apply to English speaking countries, this element need to be understood when looking at different languages as you might miss out on a large share of audience.
For example, you are an Australian retailer and want to sell your product in Spain, you target your campaign at Spain as a country. If you only target your ads at Spain in English, your ads wont be displayed to all users searching in Google Spain with their browser set as Spanish! This is more than likely to reduce the reach of your campaign.

Moreover if you want to use multi-language ads, it will be really important to set your campaigns properly to ensure optimum results.

Best Pratices for Language and Location Targeting

Lets say your products are commonly searched in English and Spanish and you want to serve ads in Spanish to Spanish speakers and English ads to English speakers.

First, you will need to set 2 campaigns targeting Spain as the location. The campaign using Spanish ads will have to target Spanish only and the campaign using English ads will have to target English only.
When someone searching in Google Spain with his interface set to Spanish, the Spanish ads will be displayed. If the interface is set to English, the user will see ads in English.
Now, it is also really important to look at the keywords as they will play a big role. If someone searches in English in Google Spain with a Spanish set as the language, the ads will only be displayed if the actual English keyword is integrated in the Spanish campaign targeting Spanish, so your Spainish campaign will need to include both English and Spanish keywords to reach any possible combination of language/locations.

To summarise, for multi-language campaigns, it is strongly advised to target each country and language combination with a specific campaign, but do not forget your keywords. This will help to target global users with the correct language and therefore have a much stronger impact in terms of CTR. Obvioulsy local landing pages in the right language will also be required to achieve better results

Google Recipe Search Released in US and Japan

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 23:07:00 +0000

Recipe searches account for a large volume of searches in Google as food lovers and cooks tend to use the search engine as their main gateway to access recipes online. Recipes searches have also evolved over time. While searching for a specific recipe is still the most common way, many online users tend to look for recipes by typing specific ingredients.

To provide a better answer to the changing food lovers needs, Google has recently released the "recipes view" feature ( US and Japan only) . Following the same concept used for book searches and product searches, Google offer the opportunity to filter the search index for food content only.

Using the left hand side navigation, online users can choose to click on the recipes menu item, which will display food only content. To provide a better experience, Google also offer advanced search features allowing users to search based on calories, ingredients, cooking time.

The recipes listings also display rich snippets providing even more information about the recipe including review from previous users, cooking time, ingredients and more straight in the search result pages.

Such feature requires publishers to markup their content with microdata, but is more than likely to provide tremendous benefits in terms of exposure and click through rate.

At this stage, the new feature has only been released in US and Japan, but is likely to be expanded to other countries when fully functional.

Google Product Search: Coming Soon in Australia

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 22:57:00 +0000

After a quite a lot of buzz, Google Product Search is soon going to be released in Australia. Considering 80% of Australians start their shopping exerience online ( research, review, price comparison), this new product within the Google set of tool is likely to have a pretty big impact on the Australian online retailing and ecommerce industry.

What is Google Product Search

Google Product Search is basically a search engine specialising in products. Currently there are Google News (focusing on news search). Google Images (specialising on images), but you will soon have the option to search for products only.

Google Product Search will be accessible in the same way as Google Images or Google Maps. Either in the horizontal menu at the top left hand side or in the vertical menu on the left hand side of the page. Google Product Search will also be integrated in the Universal search index and display product listings in the organic listings.

In terms of look and feel, the Google Product Search result page pretty much looks like a result page from a shopping comparion engine.

The user types his search and Google lists products matching with the search. The user can then click and compare all the stores selling the product.

For more relevant results, there are plenty options to refine a search by filtering the results by prices, store location, brand and product specific criteria

How Does Google Product Search Work For Retailers

Google Product Search is a great move from Google to support online retailers. In the end, online retail and ecommerce contribute to a large share of searches. Online retailers are also large advertisers on Google Adwords, so it is quite logical to make a product more fitted to their needs.

Any retailer can join Google Product Search for free by setting up a Google Merchant account. Once the account is created, a product feed can be submitted directly, providing Google with all the information about your products.

On top of the exposure within the organic listings, online retailers can link their product feed (through the Google Merchant Account) with their Google Adwords account to display richer text ads. These new Google Adwords ads formats will provide product and image listings. According to a Google test in the US, these new ads format recorded CTR 8% higher than normal ads.

As you can see, there are plenty of opportunities there for online retailers!

Web & SEO Sales Professional ( BDM)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 06:35:00 +0000

Freedom SEO is a fresh and fast growing SEO & Search Engine marketing firm based in Melbourne, which has a wealth of experienced team members, from all over the IT industry. Due to rapid growth and expansion plans, we are looking for an enthusiastic, ethical and professional web sales expert to join our team.

This is a high profile role within our organisation, that enjoys an enviable reputation for excellence. This role is ideally suited to the ambitious BDM who strives for success. The successful applicant will have a proven track record in B2B sales. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) experience will be highly regarded.

Key Objectives & Responsibilities:

• Create new leads through research and networking.
• Present sales proposals to potential clients.
• Ensure the highest level of customer service.
• Achieve sales targets, and encourage the growth of the business.
• Build, maintain and enhance relationships with new and existing customers.

Key Attributes:

• Experience in SEO, PPC, social media and other online marketing products.
• Good Phone manners and strong experience in cold calling businesses.
• A strong sales and customer service history in selling to SMEs.
• A proactive outlook.
• Account Management experience.
• Experience in managing a pipeline of high-end small to medium businesses from qualifying, prospecting and to contract signature.
• Experience in preparation of quotes, proposals, and presentations as required.
• Computer and internet savvy skills and should be familiar with MS Office applications.

Remuneration will include $50K base + achievable and uncapped commissions. As the company is in the growth phase, there is great opportunity for career progression!

To apply for this role submit or email your cv and cover letter to gordon.chong@freedomseo.com.au

Yahoo's Organic Search Results Powered by Microsoft Bing in Australia

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 08:48:00 +0000

Back in August 2010, Yahoo and Microsoft announced a search alliance to use the Microsoft technology to power Yahoo's organic search results.
On January 15th, Yahoo and Microsoft announced that the search transition between Yahoo7 and Microsoft Bing has been successfully completed in Australia as well as in 2 other markets.

According to Yahoo:

The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance team has reached yet another important milestone today. As planned, we are moving forward with the global transition of certain Yahoo! Search back-end functions to Microsoft’s search platform, and have just completed this process for organic search in Australia, Brazil and Mexico. This news is another step forward for the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance as we continue our efforts for a quality transition with our worldwide advertisers and partners.

Although the transition should be seemless, Yahoo has advised to double check your rankings and set up a Bing Webmaster Tool account to optimise the indexing capabilities.
The Search Alliance will have a large impact on the US and Canadian markets, but is likely to have little impact in Australia, which is largely dominated by Google.

Regarding paid search, Yahoo has announced that the transition will occur in the second half of 2011.

Google Grants: Free Advertising for Non-Profit Organisations

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 07:59:00 +0000

If you are managing the marketing activities of a non-profit organisation or charitable institution, you are probably interested in paid search to increase the reach and donations for your organisation.

Since April 2003, Google has developped a donation program called Google Grants. The program awards free Google Adwords advertising to selected non profit organisations to promote their website, recruit volunteers and raise money.
Over the last 7 years the program has supported over 4,000 organisations in 15 countries ( including Australia) with an estimated $272.3M worth of advertising.

With up to $10,000 worth of advertising per month ($330 per day) with no time restrictions, joining the Google Grants program could have a positive impact on your organisation's goals. All this free budget, could be used to increase donations, promoting any new initiatives or recruiting volunteers.

In Australia, the program is open to any non profit organisations in the fields of Arts, Education, Health, Technology and Science.
To be eligible your organisation must be endorsed as charity organisation by the Commissioner of Taxation or prescribed as charitable institution in the Income Tax Assessement Regulations of 1997.
Obvioulsy some restrictions exist for political, religious, and membership based organisations as well as for organisations using Google Adsense on their websites.

To apply for the Google Grants program, you will need to meet the program requirments and then fill in an application form providing quite a lot of details on your organisation. The Google Grants Commitee will then review your application and get back to you.
From experience, the review period can take up to 6 months, so be patient because it is really worth it!

5 Useful SEO Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:46:00 +0000

When choosing a SEO tool, it is important to know exactly what you really need. If you look around in Google, you will find a vast amount of tools performing a lot of functions, but very often you wont need half of them.

After reviewing and using some SEO packages (all in one), I realised that ,in most cases, I did not use all the functionalities, or some functionalities were quite weak so the investment was not always worth it. Instead of using one SEO package, I found more useful and often cheaper to use different tools.

The tools listed below are some of the ones, I use most.Obvioulsy it is a personal opinion and not an exahustive list.

OpenSite Explorer by SEOMOZ

OpenSite Explorer has recently been released by SEOMOZ. It is essentially a backlink analysis tool. OpenSite Explorer can be used for free, but it offers a lot more functionalities when you have a membership with SEOMOZ.

OpenSite Explorer is similar to Yahoo Site Explorer, but with a lot more features. You can analyse the backlinks of your site or any competitors websites and obtain information about the domains linking to them and the anchor text they use.
In my opinion, it is one of the best tool for link building research.

Advanced Web Ranking by Caphyon

Advanced Web Ranking is essentially a ranking monitoring software. It does the painful job of measuring the results of your SEO activities. I have personally reviewed a few and this one have provided the most accurate results. Advanced Web Ranking allows to measure the progress of rankings over time and see the evolution over a period of time.
Advanced Web Ranking is not free (unfortunately). The standard version comes at $99, but I have found the Professional edition ($199) the best.

FireBug for Firefox

Firebug is one of the most popular web development plugin for Firefox. While it is more a web development tool, I have found it very useful to inspect the HTML code of a page without having to go through the page source every time. The inspect function let you view the code directly on the webpage. You can therefore find any on-page optimisation weaknesses ( missing Heading tags).

Web Bug by Aman

Web Bug is a free software, which allows to view the server response for a web page. Obvioulsy this a kind of geeky tool with very limited use, but I do use it frequently when I perform website audits. Web Bug will be quite useful to highlight redirects and server response issues, which might affect the optimisation of a site.

SEO Quake for Firefox
SEO Quake is a nice Firefox extension, which summarise some SEO parameters ( PageRank, age of the site, etc...) while browsing on a site. While the data is limited, the toolbar is quite useful to quickly scan and evaluate the value of a website. Another useful plugin providing pretty much the fuctionality is SEO for Firefox, so feel free to compare and choose the one you prefer.

As I said earlier, this is a personal and non exhaustive list. I would be really interested to know the tools you really like and use on regular basis

Search and Analytics jobs in Sydney

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 05:38:00 +0000

There have been a sharp increase in the number of search roles in the quarter coming up to the Christmas period, perhaps companies are ramping up for the silly season to get customers spending their hard earned dollars. Here are a few search jobs you may be interested in.

Search | Sales Manager - $60-80k base, super and commissions (sales experience)

Search Engine Marketing Manager - $70-80k base plus super (3-5 years SEM plus team management)

Search Engine Marketing Executive - $40-60k plus super (1-3 years experience)

Web Analytics Manager - $80-100k, plus super (omiture, google, site catalyst - 3-5 years analytics experience)

For all inquiries contact Ronan at Xpand on 02 9346 5232 or ronan.mahon@xpand.com.au

SEO/SEM Strategy: Capitalise on Traffic Generated by Events

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:25:00 +0000

Every year on the 3rd Thursday of November at 12:01 am, the Beaujolais Nouveau, the first French wine of the vintage, is released world wide.
Interestingly, the release of the Beaujolais Nouveau is not only a major event for wine enthusiasts, but has also a dramatic impact on search traffic.

The Impact of Events on Search Traffic

As you can see, every year at the same period, the traffic for the term "beaujolais" increases dramatically compared to the usual level. The popularity of the event is mirrored online generating searches. Obviously the Beaujolais Nouveau is not the only case and many other popular events do generate similar spikes in traffic. For example the Melbourne Cup has a similar effect on the term 'betting' (see below). Every year in November, the volume of search for this term increases dramatially as punters look for tips to place their bets.

A Great Opportunity

In most cases, the traffic generated by an event does not last long ( a few days or weeks before and after the event), however it remains a major opportunity for industry players. As a french wine online retailer or for a wine related website, the traffic generated by the Beaujolais Nouveau can bring a lot of new visitors and generate sales. Likewise, the Melbourne Cup offer a tremendous opportunity for any business in the gambling/horse racing industry.
The main advantage of events generated traffic, is the fact that is occur each year at the same time. There is no surprise effect and there is all year to be ready.

Capturing Event Generated Traffic

Being able to plan in advance for the event, offers plenty of opportunity for SEO. Some content can be created a few month before and some links can be built to give the 'event page(s)' maximum opportunities to rank high on D-Day. For yearly event, the optimisation can be improved every year.

SEM (Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing) can also be an opportunity for the late mover. A specific campaign targeting a small range of keywords can be created and put live on the day. SEM will give you the opportunity to have full control of the message and wont require as much work as SEO.
The main drawback is the cost. Obviously your competitors will also be aware of the event and try to do the same, so the cost per clicks will be high. Monitoring the spend on daily (even twice daily) is definately required.

Obviously a good mix of both channels appears to be the best way to leverage the event generated traffic.

Google Analytics: What Does Direct Traffic Really Means

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 08:08:00 +0000

When it comes to classify the incoming traffic to a website, Google Analytics currently uses 4 default categories:

The search engines and referring sites are rather self-explanatory, however the direct traffic and others categories can be somehow confusing. In today's post will be focusing solely on Direct Traffic.

What is Direct Traffic

According to Google, incoming traffic is classified as Direct Traffic when someone:

- Typed your URL directly in their web browser and reach your website.
- Bookmarked your website and clicked on a bookmark to reach your website.

Google's definition is exact, but is rather simplified. Such short cut has contributed to a common misconception of direct traffic visits leading to misleading interpretations of analytics data. In many cases, Direct traffic is much more than just bookmarked and URL-typed visits.

Google Analytics classify traffic as Direct when a user session has been started without a referrer being passed by the user browser. All this means that a direct visit is not ONLY a bookmarked or URL-tpyed visit.

What Does Google Analytics Classifies as Direct Traffic

Based on the complete definition, the Direct Traffic bucket is often filled with a large array of visitors.

In reality direct traffic includes:

- URL-typed visits

- Visits from Bookmarks

- Visits coming from an email signature. If someone clicks on a website link in a email signature in Outlook, no referrer will be passed to the user browser and this visit will be attributed to direct.

- Visits coming from an untagged email campaign. When someone clicks on an untagged link (link which does not include a Google Analytics tag) from in their email client (Outlook, Lotus Notes or Thunderbird), no referrer will be passed and the visit will be classified as direct. This is actually one of the most common cause of spikes in direct traffic. It is therefore very important to correctly tag email campaigns.
Note: This only applies to email clients. If someone clicks on a link from a Webmail (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo), the visit will be classified in Referring traffic.

- Visits from Shortened URLs in Facebook, Twitter or Social Media. The shortened URLs do not pass referrers, so all your traffic coming from your shortened Twitter updates will be classified as Direct. To ensure it is classified in the right bucket, make sure you tag your URLs.

- Visits coming from a Document (Word, Excel)

- Visits from a user in a secured environment or intranet, where the Firewall or Proxy strips the referrer leading to the referrer not being passed.

- Visits from Mobile Ads. As outlined by Avinash Kaushik, untagged mobile ads link will be classified as Direct.

- Visits from a Page of your website missing the Google Analytics tag. If someone clicks on a link from a page of your website,which does not have the Google Analytics tracking code, the visit will be reported as direct. It is therefore quite important to ensure that GA tracking code is added any new page you might create.

- Visits coming from a link on a HTTPS page pointing to a HTTP page or on a HTTP page pointing to a HTTPS page. For security reason, the referrer is not passed on this type of links and therefore the visit will be categorised as direct. A quick fix is to ensure that your URL are tagged correctly.

- Visit from someone, who has modified its browser configuration to avoid passing the referrer ( not so common).

- Visits from links encoded in Javascript. For some browsers (IE), links encoded in Javascript will not pass the referrer and therefore be classified as direct traffic. Some display networks use this type of links, so it is advised to always use tagged URLs to avoid bad surprises.

- Visits from unproperly coded Redirects. 301 Permanent Redirects usually pass the referrer information so your traffic will be classified correctly, however in some cases, 302 Temporary redirects can lead to visits being classified as direct traffic.

Note: Quite logically, untagged paid search campaigns usually do not end up in Direct traffic but in the search engine bucket. it is however important to tag paid search campaign correctly

Obviously there are a few more cases, when Google classifies traffic as direct, but this list should outline the most common cases.

As you can see, Direct Traffic is much more than just people typing your URL or bookmark generated visits. Keeping this in mind can be really useful when it comes to analyse your data and understand the different trends in direct traffic.
In most case a spike in Direct Traffic is the result of an incorrect implementation of URL tagging (email campaign), so to keep a 'clean' direct traffic is is extremley important to tag your URL correctly

2010 SEO/SEM Salary Survey Australia & New Zealand - Results

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:06:00 +0000

After a long wait, SEO Sydney Blog has finally published the results of the 2010 Australia and New Zealand SEO SEM Salary Survey. (You can download the results here).

For a little bit of background, the 2010 survey started in April 2010 following the same template as the 2008 and 2009 surveys.

In 2010, we had 59 respondents, which we would like to thanks for their support. After collecting and analysing the results, we finally got all the information we were looking for.

In 2010, the SEO and SEM industry in Australia and New Zealand has evolved compared to the previous years. While quite predictable, the 2010 Survey results show that the industry is getting more and more mature.

- The age of SEO and SEM professionals has increased compared to 2009 and 2008. In 2010 52.5% of all respondents are below 30. They were 64.5% in 2008 and 64% in 2009.

- The SEO and SEM professionals are also more experienced. In 2010, 63% of professionals have 3 or more years of exprience. They were 51.5% in 2009 and 42.4% in 2008.

- With more experience, SEO and SEM professionals have also worked for more companies than before. In 2008 32.5% of respondents had worked for more than 3 companies, they were 39% in 2009 and 52.5 % in 2010.

- More experience is also translated with higher salaries. In 2010 55% of SEO and SEM professionals earn more than 60K a year. They were 50% in 2009 and 45.4% in 2008.

Although not a break-through, the results of the survey provide some useful insights for both recruiters and candidates (Please feel free to check our SEO recruitment guide as well). As a recruiter, it is more and more important to offer salaries in line with experience. Candidates with 3 or more years experience will be less likely to accept anything below 60K. If they are on this wage or below, they might also be looking at other companies to get a payrise.

Google Caffeine: Towards a Fresher Google Index

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:47:00 +0000

Back in December 2009, we wrote a post on the issues that Google faced with real-time search. At this time the integraton of real-time search and especially Twitter updates in Google's search engine result pages showed some weaknesses.

Since then, things have changed and Google has reviewed its way of indexing documents and build a completely new search index called Google Caffeine. On July 8th, Google has officially announced and explained the Google Caffeine.

What is new with Caffeine

The orginal Google search index was built some time ago, when the Internet was much smaller and very different. In the last couple of years and even months, the content on the internet has increased dramatically and the need for instantaneous and fresh information has put a lot of pressure on the Google search index resulting in large delays to display the latest information.

The 'old' Google search index was build around layers. Each layer was updated at different rates (some layers were updated more frequently than others for example for Google News), but the main layer or main index required to crawl a very large amount of web pages to be fully updated. This process could take up to 30 days to integrate newly created pages in its index.

Although Google does not give a lot of information on what it is radiacally different, Caffeine appears to have higher crawling capabilities. The crawling process has also been reviewed. Rather than crawling the entire web at once, Caffeine crawls smaller portions and update the index on constant basis, which would improve the freshness of information.

At this stage, it is still early days to see the difference and measure the real effect of the changes.

Update:
After having published a few posts since the Google Caffeine release, I have noticed that most of my posts were indexed in the next 30 mins after the post has been published. Not sure if it is because we use Blogger, but it seems to be working quite well so far!

3 Tips to Effectively Set Your SEM Budget

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 11:02:00 +0000

Setting up a SEM budget might seems like the easiest part, when considering advertising your business or products in search engines, however making the wrong decision with your budget allocation can have a bad impact on your campaign ROI.

A budget too high will result in some money being 'wasted' on not relevant terms or non converting terms . On the other hand, a budget too low is likely not to capture relevant traffic and will represent a high opportunity cost.

Based on experience and best practices, we have outlined some tips, which we hope will help you set your budget and maximise your campaign return on investment.

1) Your budget should reflect the search demand

This basic marketing principle is often overlooked when setting up SEM budget, which often result in inflated budget. For some reasons advertisers often think that they can spend without limits, but search traffic is a limited demand environement.

Having a budget much higher than the search volume is often the cause of poor performance. By forcing to spend more, the advertisier is likely to pay more for a click or select keywords which do not bring qualified traffic and therefore lower its ROI.

Before choosing a budget, make sure you do a quick research with the Google Adwords keyword tool to see the actual search volume. While useful, remember that the data is only an estimate and is likely to be different from the reality.

2) Take seasonality into account.

Seasonaliy is an important factor to consider when setting up your SEM budget. Search demand is not flat and depending in your industry is might vary based on the time of the year or special events.

If you are an online retailer, the Christmas season will generate a much higher demand than usual, so your SEM budget needs to reflect this.
If you are an accountant, the end of financial year will see an increase in search demand, which should be reflected in your budget.

Again the Google Adwords keyword tool can help you to identify seasonal trends.

3) Review your budget on regular basis

Setting up a budget for 12 months based on estimate is a risky exercise. 99% of the time, the estimate will be wrong so you budget is likely not to be fully aligned with the search demand.
Reviewing your budget every 2 to 3 months and adjusting it based on the demand, will make sure that you search engine marketing spend is in line with the search demand.

Search Specialist | SEO and SEM | $65-75K Package

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:20:00 +0000

Do you want to work for a leading digital agency, helping clients achieve there search goals.

About the role:

Do you want to implement Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Digital Marketing solutions including Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Performance-Marketing and Social Media Strategies. Do you want to help clients achieve there commercial goals. If so an exciting permanent opportunity has come up for a talented SEO and SEM specialist to join the team.

What you will need to be successful:

PPC
Experience running Pay Per Click campaigns
Key word generation experience
PPC ad writing skills
Campaign Optimisation
Key word bidding experience
Campaign reporting experience
Client Presentation skills

SEO

SEO site audit skills including crawling audit
Client recommendation and presentation skills
SEO reporting
SEO tracking
Link building
Article submission
Task priorotisation

If you are up for the challenge then apply now or contact Ronan Mahon on 02 9346 5232

Account Director - Search Marketing Agency

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:22:00 +0000

First Rate, a search marketing agency, is looking for an Account Director to join its marketing and business development division.

Objectives

• Grow agency revenue from existing clients by working the client base
• Grow agency revenue from new businesses by pitching search marketing to potential new clients.

Reponsabilities

• Work with existing clients to maintain and increase media budget
• Identify opportunities within the agency client base
• Propose and present new digital and search marketing ideas to clients
• Identify opportunities and pursue them
• Expand your knowledge of SEM, SEO, and Performance Marketing

Requirements
• 4+ years experience as an account director
• 2+ years experience in search marketing
• Active professionnal network
• Great interpersonal skills

Salary
$85,000 to $110,000 + super (based on experience)

For more information or To apply: http://lnkd.in/atUBxt

Facebook New Zealand User Statistics & Demographics 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 16 May 2010 16:39:00 +0000

Back in August 2009, we wrote a post on the Facebook user statistics in Australia. Over the months, this post has generated a lot of interest.

While a small market, we thought it would be valuable to provide the same type of data for the New Zealand market.

Facebook in New Zealand

Looking at the growth of the most popular social media webistes from 2007 to 2009 (Hitwise 2009), Facebook has recorded the highest growth of all social media sites. On the other hand, Bebo and MySpace has lost a large share of audience most likely to Facebook.

Based on a study on the Internet in New Zealand conducted in 2009 by the AUT University, Facebook is by far the site that New Zealanders use more often (75% of all respondents)

Facebook Statistics & Demographics- New Zealand

According to CheckFacebook.com, there are 1,675,540 Facebook in New Zealand, which represents around 49.87% of the overall online population. Compared to Australia (55.6%) and the US (57%), Facebook has a slightly lower penetration.

While representing only 0.36% of the global Facebook population, targeting New Zealand Facebook users offer great oppotunities for companies looking at generating brand awareness or selling products locally.

In terms of demographics, the New Zealand population is dominated by womens with 56.4% of the entire population. In proportion, the New Zealand population is more feminine than in Australia (54.3%).

The largest age group is the 18 - 24 years old (24.7%) followed closely by the 25 -34 years old (24.5%). Interestingly the 35 + represent 36.8% of the overall New Zealand population including 19.6% of 45+ users.
Compared to Australia, the New Zealand Facebook population has a larger proportion of 45+ users (NZ: 19.6% AU: 17.1%).

The Client Roles in SEO Success

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:39:00 +0000

The success (or failure) of a SEO project is very often entirely attributed to the SEO consultant or agency, however the client itself has a critical role to play in the outcome of a SEO project.

SEO Results: A Shared Responsability between the Agency and the Client

Over the years, I have heard of projects stalling or not delivering the expected results partly because the client did not communicate correctly with the agency, did not play its expected role in the implementation or simply because it did not expect to have anything to do with the project.

Do not get me wrong, I strongly believe that the SEO agency or consultant is the main warrant of a SEO project's success. The consultant has an expertise and that is why is being hired. The consultant needs to have skills, experience as he is the one, who do the researches, analysis and recommendations.
The consultant should also be a specialist in communicating effectively with the client whatever the client's personality. The consultant should be able to deal with client's request while pointing out the main priorities and tasks of the project to deliver the appropriate results.

What I am trying to say, it that clients have an important role to play in the project outcome as they plays central roles at various dimensions of the project. In most case, they need to be pro-active and distribute resources effectively to ensure maximum results.

Coordinating SEO Implementation

One of the most important role of the client is the implementation of the SEO recommendations. In many projects, the SEO consultant is hired to provide analysis and recommendations on how to improve a client's website rankings, but does not actually do the implementation. Most of the time, the implementation done by the client IT team or a third party provider.
The SEO Consultant plays a role in assisting the client with the implementation, however the client do need to allocate appropriate resources to make the correct implementation possible in a timely manner.

Project Briefing & Information Circulation

Often overlooked, but crucial is the initial client briefing. Although the consultant will do in-depth research on the project, nothing replace in-house knowledge. The client is the best to know its industry and business and should try to circulate this information as best as it can to the consultant. Very often approximate briefs jeopardise the SEO project effectiveness.

On the same topic, it is likely that the SEO consultant will have questions, which will need answers. Late and approximative replies, often leads to project delays and confusion. Being available is therefore highly important to ensure that the SEO Consultant can work properly.

Coordinating Resources and Interactions

When the project involve different party such as 3rd party vendor or different departments within the client's company, it is crucial to insure appropriate communication, resources allocations and coordination. For many political and organisational reasons, SEO Consultants are often not in a position to contact other departments or 3rd party vendor directly. As a result the client should make sure that flow of communication is correct and that each party cooperate and can interact effectivelly.

As a summary, I hope this post will make sense to clients and SEO consutants. For the client to better understand how to work with a SEO Agency. For SEO consultants to remind that the client has an important role to play too and he/she should therefore be involved in the project. At the end of the day each party will benefit from an effective cooperation.

Affiliate Manager Job

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:04:00 +0000

An exciting opportunity has come up to work for TPN, an Australian performance marketing network.

As a senior affiliate manager, you will be responsible to manage a wide range of online advertising campaign for TPN's advertisers including CPC and CPA campaigns. You will also work on the acquisition program for a 400,000 members in-house list including recommendations on landing pages, creatives, A/B Testing and developing strong relationships with overseas performance networks.

Ideal canditates will have a marketing or technical degree with a good understanding of the different online marketing techniques. Excellent attention to details, good communication and time management skills are also required.

Salary: $60,000 to $70,000 + Super

To apply, please send you resume to support@tpn.com.au. If you need more information, click here