SEO Blog by Search Engine Optimisation Consultant Pete Lorocco in Melbourne Australia

Search Engine Optimisation Horror Stories

pete@wildernessimages.com.au (Pete) — Sun, 20 Mar 2016 13:20:42 +0000

How SEO Can Send a Business Broke

There is a recurring pattern and series of early warning signs, that warn you of looming online disaster. Nothing makes a business owner confront reality more squarely than having their website traffic plummet to extremely low levels, and no more emails or phone calls. You'd be amazed how often this happens. People come to us for help- this is what we dig up- it seems to be a recurring cycle. We have reversed bad SEO other providers have done. Read about what we've seen-and how we fixed it.

Adwords Changes 2016 and SEO

pete@wildernessimages.com.au (Pete) — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 06:48:18 +0000

Impact of Changes to Adwords Layouts on SEO

Learn about the massive changes to adwords and understand what the ripple effect will be to your search engine optimisation efforts. Understand why there has never been a better time to ramp up your quest for organic traffic. Get a better understanding of the correlation between better adwords performance- and organic search prominence. We explain it all in this article!

SEO for Online Shops with Multiple Product Categories

pete@wildernessimages.com.au (Pete) — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 10:06:31 +0000

The Right Way to SEO an Online Store

Many people ask about setting up the best search engine optimisation for online stores, like Magento, Wordpress, Joomla and others, which employ a content management system. Are you an online merchant, selling products through your website which people might use search engines to seek out? If so, there are some definite things you can do to increase your competitive edge and share of organic rank.
There are some little-known tips on the SEO best practices for online shopping article which we published recently. However- you're here- so read on, to get a couple of extra points which weren't in the main article.

301 Redirects and Organic Rank - How to Keep or Improve Rankings After Page Redirection

pete@wildernessimages.com.au (Pete) — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 06:46:08 +0000

SEO and 301 Redirects

Get your rank back, after implementing a stack of 301 redirects to your website. Have you recently lost rank after doing 301 redirects? Read on for the best way to do 301s. Recover lost ranking due to URL changes, or broken URLs. Don't think of 301 redirections as a burden- see them as a chance to brush up your content and provide more opportunities for people to explore your products, read about more services- or just generally like your site better than they did before.

SEO Considerations for 2015- Essentials for Optimising Your Website

pete@wildernessimages.com.au (Pete) — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 05:55:53 +0000

Better Ways to Optimise Websites for 2015

It's 2015 and in the first week, I've already been inundated with requests for help with SEO. Most of our inquiries have come from people who have small businesses and have a staff member assigned to search engine optimisation tasks. I published a series of suggestions which are absolutely essential to moving higher in the SERPS. And for the uninitiated, "SERPS" is an acronym for "Search Engine Results Pages"- where you sit, in the lineup of returned results for a given query.

SEO Experts Explain Templates

pete@wildernessimages.com.au (seo melbourne webmaster) — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 12:27:05 +0000

Website Templates and SEO

One of the things almost every client chooses for their website design, is a template. Very few people make a build from the beginning using a layered Photoshop design, converted to html. Templates are written by many different developers- and the variation in attention to detail is enormous.
We've seen instances where there are multiple h1 heading tags on one page- or the title for the logo image is rendered as a h1 tag within the source code of every page.

New SEO Short Course Dates for Interactive Workshops

Mon, 27 Jan 2014 19:54:55 +0000

Learn SEO in Melbourne

Have you ever wanted to be in charge of your own search engine optimisation? It's a rewarding experience. Running your company website and doing your own internet marketing is something that can be learned.

SEO Courses are held in our Melbourne training rooms at Dandenong South, every month, and sometimes more often due to overflow.

We've just set aside some new dates for August as well as September 2015, and you can secure a spot by email, without having to pay a deposit. The training is informative- both information rich and practical. This means you walk away with skills you can use that very day, on any website project.

Become part of an SEO class and understand what you need to do to your website to get better Google rank, and how the whole landscape of search has been through significant changes recently.

We are amazed at how much incorrect information our students come in with. One student was told by his web developer that correct formatting of his website content was not the developer's responsibility... that it was an SEO issue. The website had multiple h1 headings on every page, all the images within the website had the same title and alt value assigned to each image. This was a brand new website, which came with a five-figure price tag.

Another student had been paying an off-shore SEO company for two years, and had slipped further back every month. Tempted by the lure of something cheap, it turned into the most expensive business mistake the person had ever made. Come in and learn search engine optimisation, and lay to rest any myths, anomalies or conjecture you might be holding onto.

What should you do differently in SEO these days?

Stop thinking keywords, densities and links.

We'll teach you what matters and what works- so that you can cement a strong online presence for your website.

SEO courses come in a range of intensities and durations. Short courses, day-long courses, and tailored SEO coaching or mentoring can get you on the right track to mastering the process of being visible in Google search.
We also a comprehensive, one-to-one SEO mentoring service, where we guide you, so you do the optimisation of your website under our guidance, and save lots of money.

Learn what you should always do- and what to avoid. Understand what's flawed in the offshore SEO providers' thinking and methods- and know what questions to ask when they call.
Understand why ultimately the best SEO will drive your visibility higher, and generate far more income and profit for you, than the seo service costs.

Especially when you contribute to the hands-on work of optising your website yourself.

Learn how to update-proof your website- so you don't run screaming for help when the next Google algorithm hits.

You've worked hard to build a website, develop an online presence and make your business what it is. Make it better with one of our Melbourne SEO courses.

Contact us today for more SEO training information.

Welcome to 2014: Google is Your Perfect P.A!

Mon, 27 Jan 2014 04:36:12 +0000

Google and SEO- Understanding Intent

It had to happen sooner or later- through prior browsing history, emails, links in emails and your general search trends- Google is slowly learning about you. In an effort to return the best, most relevant search results as accurately as possible first time round... Google strives to understand you- and what you really want.

They do this by logging and computing what you search for, whether or not you bounced right out of that page and went to search for longer-tailed keywords- they have their ways of knowing whether or not the match was right.

The message of this post- is that people are getting better acquainted with using search engines, and search engines are understanding user intent just that little bit better.

Much like a personal assistant would!

When you ask your P.A. for a coffee, they will know whether you want milk, whitener or sweetener- and how much of each. Google might not be there yet- but that day will come. I can see the day when you order something through an app, and Google drops you some suggestions based on recent searches... so your barista can put this new idea together for you as you double-park outside the café.

There's little doubt that 2013 was a big year in terms of shakeups and changes, in the way Google did business. Websites with thin pages were hit; those guys from developing nations selling cheap, bulk links suddenly caused their clients to crash and burn, right off the dreaded edge of the online world.

The silent, stoic practitioners of ethical SEO were rewarded, their rankings shot up overnight, because their competitors fell.
Penguin left people running for cover- buying adwords in an attempt to regain lost business. PPC sales and keyword competition went higher, a whole new army of once-organic placeholders now came armed with credit cards, ready to buy their way back onto page 1.

Here's what's changed- and why it matters to you.

It's no longer smart, cunning or cool to practice crazy linking techniques, as this will only get you pushed firmly off the map.

We're entering what is really just the very beginning of transparent, accountable behaviour online.

Suddenly who you are and what you say really matters.

What also matters, is what you've searched for in the past, the websites you've visited, email discussions and communities you've participated in... all these things help fuel Google's ever growing knowledge graph which strives to understand how the different points of data on the internet relate specifically to your search query, in the context of your world.

As the knowledge graph learns more and more about your queries' contextual meaning and the sorts of things you're really looking for, it takes on the role of a personal assistant, by getting it right more often. Many times, the answer to your question will be presented right there on the first page without you even having to click through one of the blue links.

If you think that's really cool you should take a look at the article on the relationship between semantic search and SEO to learn about how Google intends to "get it"- when you know what you want, but your instructions in the little search box might not always be clear.

Penguin 2013 Website Corrections for Better SEO

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 15:52:00 +0000

The Effect on Penguin on Your Website Rank

Have you noticed a sharp drop in your website rank within search engine results?

If this has happened before the end of May 2013, and you have been left scratching your head wondering why the sudden drop in position within the search results, it's quite likely you've received a Penguin penalty for 2013.

Penguin was heralded as quite a significant upgrade, and sent many website owners running for the panic button.

The whole purpose of these upgrades, is to sort the wheat from the chaff- to get web masters' link building policies squeaky clean, without trying to game the system.

Our Melbourne SEO services experts have received many calls for help from new clients wanting to get the loss of their website rank addressed.

Loss of Rank to Penguin 2013- the Likely Causes

The most likely causes of your website losing rank under Penguin 2, would be the lack of quality of your inbound links.

Too many links, created too quickly, from less than ideal, dubious sources. Websites selling real estate shouldn't be providing directory pages linking to service providers, links should not be placed on pages with low quality content and almost no user-experience except for a quick press of the "back" button... it goes on.

Some websites have low quality directory pages, and these are often buried several levels into the website architecture, hardly the hallmark of content worth visiting.

This type of seo malpractice has gone on for long enough, and Google has simply said "that's it-the party's over!"

Avoid Penguin Penalty Setbacks- Follow These Steps

Run a Google site query- do a thorough search on all the URLs within your website. If you have a sitemap- or you once had a sitemap, now is the time to refresh it and check every URL it lists. I'll bed there will be some you never knew existed- in various states of neglect and content-decay.

One by one, clean them up, using the following criteria:

How much value to your website's aggregate quality score does the page contribute?
Does the page have a depth of quality content that's worth linking to- that a visitor would think was a worthy click in the limited spare time they had?>
How unique is the page, in the scheme of things, as it relates to your website- and the internet in general?
How much generic content is on the page versus standalone content?
If the content of the main part of the page is a bit light, perhaps consider creating page-specific widget and sidebars to reduce the amount of website-wide common content found on the page

Here's some clarification of some of the points above.
Uniqueness of content at page level, is very important.

There's no value to the visitor by simply expanding out a list of bullet points with wide spacing, and calling it a page of content. Make sure the page has at least 70%-and preferably more- content within the page, that is unique to it.
If the page struggles to gain depth, perhaps that content would be better off living on another page in a sidebar instead.

The page should be unique- not only to the rest of your website, but to the internet in general.
The single biggest mistake in this arena, is people copying a manufacturer's website product description, onto their own website- this should be avoided at all costs.
Take it slow, work through one page at a time, and keep your website safe from Google updates. Shake the Penguin Penalty- go through all your inbound links with the same fine-toothed comb approach, and you'll be fine.

Awesome SEO- From Page 5 to Page 1 in a Week

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:07:38 +0000

SEO Takes Website From Page 5 to Page 1 in a Week

We had someone attend our seo training course recently. He came in to learn SEO so that he could use the skills taught in our training class, to improve the rank and visibility of his website.

The website had seen better days and needed some search engine optimisation best practices.

Teaching SEO is one thing- sometimes as SEO training providers, we need to reverse-teach bad habits developed over time, and this customer had all the wrong ideas from the wrong people.

He'd been working with other web developers and seo providers, and things had gone from bad to worse. Bad SEO had sent his rankings plummeting, and the ripple effect meant that there were no clients or online visitors to his website.

Sometimes people don't have the inclination or time to work on their website optimisation, so we help them out either on a retainer-based level, or assignment-based level. Our range of search engine optimisation services includes technical repairs to websites, responsive coding and more conventional tasks like on-page SEO and off-page SEO.

The SEO we did for this client, made a huge difference to his rank. His primary, high-competition and high volume keywords all went from page 5 positions and onto page 1 in just a single week.
Two months after our work was complete, his website continued to climb higher on page 1, without needing any extra optimisation work done by us. This is because the right things were done in the right way, at the correct time.

Only the best seo methods were used, and this was all after the Penguin update of 2013. Our methods and techniques for achieving first page rank, carry more credibility than ever before, as our clients continue to enjoy an internet presence that is "algorithm update" proof.

Here's what we did, to implement a rapid turnaround.

We checked his on-page SEO before anything. This is where the music plays- this is what a website is indexed on, and the ultimate seo quality score gets applied to on-page content and the quality of that content.

These are the problems we found and corrected, in the order we corrected them:

We fixed all 404 errors,these occur when the content cannot be found
We sorted a number of duplicate content issues
We removed and absolutely banned the inclusion of iFrame content
We corrected all page titles
We corrected the markup, and replaced it with clean semantic code
We sorted the hierarchy of content and gave each page a clear, single topic
We corrected factual errors within the content, and updated pages to reflect current information

Just these items were enough to propel this website to page 1 organic, for a number of competitive terms. When we met with the owner two weeks later, his phone didn't stop ringing, and we saw this person had a spring in his step, brought on by the boost in business.

Each website is a unique case, and often the more we dig, the more we uncover- it's a bit like being an archaeologist and detective all in one fell swoop.

If your website performance is not as it should be, then we can help. Some errors can be easily fixed- others require the equivalent work of re-stumping a building.
Whatever the problem, whatever the cause- whether you have had a bad seo provider in the past who was obsessed with link building or out of date techniques- or perhaps you have just been a client of a poorly versed web designer or website developer who hasn't understood the art and science of search engine optimisation, seo errors can be reversed. If you can search for your website within Google by typing in the following into the search box:

site:yourdomain

Remember to include your domain extension, like .com or .com.au etc.

If Google returns results for this search, then your website seo can be corrected and fixed. The longer the errors go unchecked in most cases the longer the ripple effect of our corrective action will take. We urge you to get in touch with our Melbourne SEO company office and have your website assessed and reviewed. We don't use automated software; we conduct a thorough manual review and assessment, and report our findings to you.

SEO Services Companies- Choosing the Best Search Engine Optimisation Providers

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:51:09 +0000

Know How to Choose a Great SEO Company or Consultant

Have you got an SEO company working for you right now?

Why do I ask?

If you do, then you need to be aware of what's happening every step of the way.

We've just recently spoken with someone who is a leader in their field, and their previous SEO was taking a few grand per month from them for the last two years and hadn't moved their web site up in the ranks for their selected keywords at all.

No increases in traffic, no extra business, and no value whatsoever from the search engine optimisation campaign.

When it all came crashing down, the web site owner engaged another seo company in Melbourne to take over, and essentially got more of the same.

They charged him handsomely, and in our web site assessment, which is done manually, without automated software- we detected seven instances of the same content- so it wasn't duplicate content, it was "times seven" content!

Has a word even been invented to describe a situation that is so bad?

It gets worse.

The website had these faults, among others:

Duplicate home page content
Some pages blocked by robots.txt
H1 level headings missing on most pages
Duplicate page titles
Excessive, non-productive code in the head area of the page, before any useful content appeared
Inline styles which should have been declared in the stylesheets
Critical heading text displayed as images, which should have been h1 text instead

and so the list goes on.

We were forwarded an email from his current seo, who said the lack of performance and recent loss of rank might be due to "too many links having been made too soon".

This brings us to the point of this article.
You need to know what your SEO is doing- and where it is being done.

Our first job for this client, will be to track down where the links were posted, and complete a "disavow" request through Google web masters.

The problem now, is that the seo person cannot recall where the links were placed.
We should remind you that all links are not equal, and our guess is that there would be a lot of links brokered through link farms or link programs, which should be avoided at all costs.

It's unimaginable that two separate seo people, charging good money for their services, did not detect the compounding on-site problems.

That's why you- as a website owner and business owner- need to know what your SEO is doing. You need to know where your web site is being linked from, where your money has gone every month.
Your online success- the very essence of your seo campaign depends on it.

More Website SEO Services for Better Organic Search Performance

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 22:28:04 +0000

Website Optimisation Services

We're delighted to have expanded the range of website optimisation tasks we undertake for clients. You can select one or more of the following categories of works, according to what problem or problems- your website has.

on-page seo
off-page seo
overall server health
website performance- page load speed
responsiveness- so your website looks good and performs well across mobiles, tablets and computers
reversal of penalties

All of the above should be checked, individually, as the chain of performance in search is only as strong as the weakest link.

Speaking of links- how's your backlink profile looking? Our analysis of your inbound links might turn up some alarming facts- you'd be amazed where- and how- dubious links into your website develop. This important seo services overview article will help you understand the primary pillars that underpin successful search engine optimisation. If your website has urgent needs and your budget is limited, where do you assign your priorities? Fix any mistakes- address your overall website health. This means generating a sitemap and ensuring the bots can crawl all of the pages within your website, and that there are no errors, or "not found" messages. If your online activity has been good- if you have maintained a healthy pattern of content development and link acquisition, the very next thing you should devote resources to, is checking each and every page in a mobile-friendly tester.
Any display issues should be fixed and user experience should be first class across all devices. Don't get lulled into a false sense of security because your website looks great on your gadgets- people use all manner of phones, tablets and screen resolutions to view sites.

Do some testing!

Next, use our audit service to check what's been done in the past. Sometimes dubious tactics from years ago can do you more harm than good in 2015 and 2016.
Don't ever think that a professional SEO service is about links and meta tags. There are so many factors weighing in which determine a website's rank, that a comprehensive overhaul is quite labour intensive.

Maybe it's a good time to look at your overall web site health and plan a new search engine optimisation strategy for 2016 and beyond? Contact us now, to find out how we can help you make the most of your web site by improving its overall health, with our safe, ethical SEO service.

Looking Ahead- the Future of Search Engine Optimisation

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 02:59:56 +0000

SEO Beyond 2013

Our newest article looks at the role of seo and seo providers in 2013. Search engine optimisation is going to be more crucial, as people strive to saturate web sites and every form of connectivity with content in an effort to drive traffic to their web site.
Our latest article on the shape of things to come, within the world of SEO in 2013 can be accessed by following the link.
Professional SEOs- people who do search engine optimisation for a living, will have a broader range of fronts to manage- as clients' content and web sites need to have their promotion propagated more widely throughout the internet.

The SEO company will need to ensure that content conforms to best practices and remains accessible to people of all ability levels, across a wide range of devices, including those which use assistive technology.
Of course, search bots need to be able to access web site content too, if it is to be indexed properly.

To see a web site much the same way a search engine sees it, try viewing it in a text-only browser, with styles disabled.
Styles, generally contained with cascading style sheets, separate presentation from content, and poor css can make life difficult for users and robots. Users cannot be expected to read white text on a white background, and robots can't complete forms or log-in requests in order to access pages of a web site.

The roles of web designers and seo experts overlap a little here- there needs to be a balanced harmony that makes a web site easily manageable by a mobility impaired user, as well as a robot which crawls through blindly, looking for links to follow.

one of the most important takeaways from this year, is to remember that not everybody looks at a website the same way on the same device as you or I would use.

Enter responsive design.

Websites should provide an equally fantastic experience for users of mobiles and tablets- in both portrait and landscape mode. There should be no issues with rendering the site on a desktop computer or laptop.

With Google putting the emphasis on quality results being returned to visitors, you can be assured 2013 marks the start of tighter standards in the work of search engine optimisation.

Advertising and Search Engine Optimisation

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 19:43:03 +0000

General Media Advertising and SEO

There is a way to effectively utilise general media advertising with an SEO campaign. Our Melbourne SEO office often works with businesses who have invested heavily in either print, television or radio advertising- and sometimes more than one of these. If you are still advertising in places other than the internet, and are wondering how all that temporary presence elsewhere can be properly utilised, read on.

I'd suggest first and foremost- if you have a bricks-and-mortar business, with a street address, your first task should be to validate your business through "Google my Business". Ensure you can be found easily, when someone recalls your non-internet ad and tries to figure out exactly who it was from.

People rarely take notes when listening to the radio or television, and newspapers get thrown out, magazines get put back on the table or rack, and most of the ad is forgotten.

Different snippets of information from ads stick in the prospect's mind- and they expect Google to have the answers to their questions.

make sure you're there, when the customer or searcher is asking for Google's help.

Take steps to set up your online advertising- start small, develop credibility, generate history and be ready for tomorrow.

Advertising online has become a precisely targeted way of reaching internet users, and businesses are embracing it.

So why SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you ask?

With a never ending battle for the consumer's mind, advertising tends to get blissfully ignored by most people. After all, it is an interruption to what they are looking at, or enjoying online.

There are exceptions- and one of them is that moment when an internet surfer types a query into the search bar of the front page of Google or any other internet search engine.

At that point, the internet user is fully receptive to your message; they want to know about what it is you offer.

They will only find out about you via organic search if you appear within the results returned by the search engine.

To make this happen, you need to get your SEO sorted.

You need to be where the visitor is looking. More often than not, that will be on page 1 of Google.

Take a look at our article, which talks about the advantages of great SEO over conventional print advertising.

The SEO advantage over print advertising article has some more information about the benefits of using search engine optimisation to reach your potential customers when they are hungry for what you offer.

SEO After Web Site Migration

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:33:55 +0000

Changing Servers and Keeping Organic Rank

If you need to move the hosting arrangement of your website to a new server, ensure you don't lose rank by configuring your DNS settings with errors. If you make mistakes in migrating your website, you might go offline and lose traffic as well as organic rank. If you don't realize this has happened- because of DNS propagation- it could be days before you notice. The very nature of DNS propagation means that your "old" server will resolve when your website is called, for anything up to 48 hours after the move. The exact time depends on the speed at which different ISPs update their records. It can be instant- but more often than not, it varies between old and new host until things settle.

To ensure this happens as seamlessly as possible, make a full back up of your web site before you commence the move.

If it's a simple html web site, life is pretty straight forward. In the case of a database driven web site, ensure your backup includes the database.

Once you have installed an instance of your web site on your new host, whether as an add on domain or the primary domain for that account, check to see that it works. Your host will provide you with a path to the folder holding the newly migrated web site, so that you can test everything. This could be something like: current-domain/migrated-site-name or if your migration is to the top level directory of your hosting account, it could be hosting-company-root/your-username/public_html or similar. Whatever the magic URL is, you need to test that everything works, before logging into the registrar control panel for your domain registration and pointing the domain to the new servers.

The section of the registrar's control panel you need to look for, is the "Manage Domains" area. There will be provision to modify name servers, or change name server settings. Your hosting company will list the name server critical numbers, something like ns1theirname.123dotcom followed by a second one which could be similar, but not identical. Enter these numbers into the fields, and you're done!

Having a staging server is a great place to test any CMS updates or extension updates before flicking the switch on the DNS settings pointing to your new host.

Keep your organic rank- use our contact form and get professional assistance is moving your website.

Watch out for a more in depth article on the melbourne seo experts web site soon.

Your Web Site Security Can Affect SEO

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 16:12:51 +0000

We've recently handled an instance of getting back Google rank after web site hacking, for someone. Our client's web site had been attacked via a third party extension plug-in which was out of date. This enabled the hacker to gain entry to the site root directory and wreak havoc for our client.

Security vulnerabilities develop, as hackers find ways in- whether the holes are left by the developers or poor web master practices is irrelevant- the effect is the same.

Unauthorised entry takes away control of the web site and leaves glaring vulnerabilities, which will send your SEO and Google rank spiralling downwards very quickly.

There are a number of important things you can do to minimise risk of attack:

ensure you have a good web host
stay up to date with all extension and software updates
regularly change passwords
keep regular clean web site backups offsite
be alert to suspicious activity on your web site through vigilant monitoring

This is not an exhaustive list, but plugging these holes will keep you one step ahead of the game.

You can read more about this on our web site. We have an article about web site security and what you can do to reduce the risk or likelihood of unauthorised access to the "business end" of your web site

New SEO Short Course Melbourne

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:02:39 +0000

SEO training just became easier- with bite-sized manageable our search engine optimisation courses.

In response to a number of request from people taking the time to email us, we've decided to roll out these introductory short courses, which cover the absolutely essential basics of search engine optimisation. It's amazing that many web masters and site owners make errors relating to such fundamental aspects of their online presence.

We always use SEO best practice techniques- and these are the exact methods we teach to our students. Much of the success in SEO comes from mastering the basics and fundamentals, and understanding how to work with the principles of website optimisation in creative ways.

Get the essentials right, and you'll be on your way to a brighter online future, more website traffic, happier visitors, and a healthier bottom line.

Our comprehensive and in-depth SEO courses get you on the right path to mastering search engine optimisation. Training is fun, easy and it will make sense to you right from the beginning, even if you're not a computer geek. You'll have valuable material you can take home and work on right away.br/>
Read about the SEO short course for beginners.

If you're interested in learning SEO at an intermediate or advanced level, check out an overview of different levels ofSEO courses to help you choose the best one.

If you've been the unlucky recipient of a Penguin penalty, or poor quality linking efforts from the past have reared their ugly heads and got your website removed from the search engine index, then swift action is the answer!

Sometimes our recommendations might be a bitter pill to swallow for web masters who have spent lots of money on SEO to get nowhere...but in the end our wish is that you recover from the penalty and prosper- so we're only gong to recommend the best course of remedial action.

SEO Course Melbourne- October 2012

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:14:46 +0000

Our extremely popular search engine optimisation study course is on again, and provides the perfect opportunity for people to learn the specific methods and techniques we use in search engine optimisation.

This SEO Melbourne course covers intermediate to advanced level skills, and is flexible enough in its approach to be adjusted to the needs of students on the day.

With an approach that's precisely targeted to the things you need to learn, you'll find all the seo answers you are looking for, when you attend the short course.

This is like having personalised SEO consulting, for an absolute fraction of the cost.

We will check out a web site of your choice, and provide you with the actionable steps needed to get you on the way to the coveted page 1 Google rank. The web site check takes a look at the most important on-page and off-site ranking factors, as well as the code which runs your site- it's amazing how minor adjustments can yield spectacular results!

If you've been considering an SEO course, now's a great time to do it. Apply the techniques we'll teach you, and you will see positive ranking improvement by Christmas, in time for the Christmas traffic.

The SEO Melbourne course is scheduled for 31st October 2012. There is a day course available, as well as an evening course. The day course is between 10am and 2:30 pm, and the evening course is between 5pm and 9:30pm. Bookings are essential. Use the information on our contact page to get in touch.

SEO Support for Web Masters

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:53:59 +0000

Melbourne SEO Support and Mentoring

Sometimes the road to the best seo results can be long and winding. We are pleased to announce the introduction of our new seo Melbourne mentor service. This is designed to help web masters as well as business owners do their own search engine optimisation for web sites. Often there are questions which need answering- and having the correct information is crucial.

There are number of ways to access our resources.

In the first instance, head to our seo melbourne home page, and enter some search terms relating to your problem in the query box at the top right corner of the page. If the results don't provide the precise answer you need, contact us either via email or by phone. We'll be able to arrange some one-on-one assistance for you, with an seo coach who has experience with solving the specific problems you face right now.

For more in-depth, case-specific web site analysis, we recommend you enrol for one of our seo courses Melbourne, where we can walk you through a web site of your choice, to help you on your journey of becoming an seo professional.

Search engine optimisation is an evolving industry; imagine a game of football played on a tilting, dynamic field with shifting goal posts during whirly wind- and you'd be getting a clear picture of the current state of seo. The scope for errors in code, content and optimising is enormous for the novice or inexperienced, and the effects can be disastrous.

By the time errors have rippled through to the Google search results, it's likely other changes to the web site will have been made too. Thus the process of weeding out the good changes from the bad changes is fraught with anomaly before it begins. If the web site incurs a penalty in the form of lost rank, this could take time to correct, even if the error in coding or content is fixed immediately.

This is because search engines frequently keep a cached copy of a web page, in their index. Storing a cached web page within an index is much like your computer's browser keeping a copy of images, website content and favicons in the web browser's cache. It frees up processing resources, and speeds up referencing when a call for that page is made.

When the page is crawled again, the content of the cache is revised, when a "secret" period has elapsed, the content in the cache is refreshed. Many tactical problems can be avoided by seeking the right information and guidance before applying seo to a website.

The frequency with which a cached copy of a web page is updated in the search engine index, depends on the level of trust the web site has. For instance, web sites which are news web sites would have many refreshes per hour- which is why current news and event search results tend to point to the news sites high up in the results.

The SEO Challenge

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 17:06:39 +0000

The SEO Challenge- Watch a Website Jump in Organic Rank

The SEO team here would like to invite you to watch us prove our worth. The SEO Melbourne Challenge will put you fairly in the observer's seat, as we work some of our stuff on a website, to push it up in the ranks on page 1 of Google organic.

We're giving people the chance to get ready to make screenshots for validation later, and mark the dates in their calendars. If you would like to witness what happens and the effects of best practice seo work, then we encourage you to:

subscribe to this blog
familiarize yourself with making screenshots
suggest your friends with an interest in seo do the same

and stay tuned for the announcement.

The website will be one of our own, so it doesn't compromise any client confidentiality agreements or trust people have put in us to look after their online presence. It's not something that seo companies do- announcements tend to be made after the reward is one, not an advance warning of a live case-study waiting to be followed.

Google Penalty Removal, Reversing Search Engine Penalties

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 09:53:07 +0000

Dealing With Penalties from Google

If you have a manual penalty action notice in your webmasters tools interface- or you have suddenly had a massive loss of traffic, it's time to act fast. Websites receive different levels of penalties against them for offences which violate strict content and quality guidelines. The simplest penalty can be a loss of 10 or 20 spots for some terms, because of a silly error on your website, which could be a basic coding mistake that fails to render a title tag, or multiple h1 level headings on a single page- perhaps you have images with duplicate title or alt tags. A basic penalty can be fixed with simple corrections. You need to work out what the problems are- and you need to know what to do to fix them.
Check out the Google penalty recovery article on our website, perhaps you can initiate the turnaround, before calling us for professional penalty removal help.

Penalties which are a little more serious- like a hacked site, unnatural link profiles or very ordinary content, might be accompanied by a notice in your webmasters tools. You should take immediate action to correct any hacks. Attacks are usually made on your htaccess file in order to steal organic traffic. Your penalty comes from the sneaky redirect which violates Google's definition of a great user experience. Your customer would have clicked through a search result expecting to reach your website- and instead got taken to something they didn't want to see at that moment.

Even bigger penalties- the worse kind- involve de-indexing.

Duplicate content can cause this to happen- one website we worked on had almost 100% duplicate content on every page- and did not appear anywhere in Google for anything- not even for specific, exact text match queries.

In almost every case, I would advise the client to trash the site, the domain and start again.

We took a chance with this particular job- removed all the duplicate content, changed all the page layouts to a responsive design, and gave the website a thorough rejuvenation.

We were hoping for positive results in 6 months after all the faults were corrected- and were pleasantly surprised that there were strong organic visitor numbers in just 7 weeks.

They were for long-tailed keywords- but the long tailed keywords were the buying keywords- the ones people typed in when their mind was set on making a purchase.

It was a great outcome.

Ensure you address any quality issues before you get penalized. Recovery from a penalty s possible in almost all cases- and there won't be a penalty to recover from, if you use our professional, reputable SEO service.

SEO and Online Marketing Make Best Use of Your Online Advertising Budget

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 12:31:19 +0000

Spend Your Ad Budget Wisely

It's interesting to hear others talk about what works in advertising, and what doesn't. Theseo melbourne website has an article on a conversation I had with a fellow tenant in the building.
It came up in the discussion that once there were two main places most businesses would advertise- and they were the Yellow Pages and the Local Paper.
I was aghast to hear that this guy still believed that the local paper was "the place" to advertise, because his was still delivered weekly.
His thinking stemmed from the low cost of a three line ad in the paper, which could be paid weekly or monthly and with such a small outgoing, was hardly noticed in the ledger.
Advertising budgets need to be spent wisely- if you're not careful, you'll be working just to pay for ads, even if they bring you customers.

Wise marketing spending means not spending three times the amount of profit from one customer, on getting the sale- especially if you are in a one-time product or service that doesn't see repeat business.
Back to the misconception of value from the loca paper because it's so cheap...

What happens when the paper gets wet in the rain or not delivered, or used to wrap vegetable peeling in before it all goes in the bin?
It's as though the newspaper has got one chance to be useful soon after delivery and after that, it's redundant.
And the money spent on advertising has just been wasted.

These days, you have interruption advertising, like television, radio, billboards, magazines and most other things- or advertising that talks to people exactly when they're searching for something.
That advertising is online- and can be paid search PPC (pay-per-click) or social media marketing. The object of well thought out online advertising is to compel the visitor to click through to your website and move through a conversion funnel whatever you define that to be.

A well made, search engine optimised website is an asset which works for you 24 hours a day, and doesn't get thrown out after a day or two, nor does it get delivered sopping wet, the way a local newspaper might be delivered in the rain. familiarise yourself with your local community via Google Local SEO. It's a much better alternative to print media, and the your customers will find you more easily, given the diversity of tablets, phones, Androids and gizmos used to access the internet now. Read the full article about print media versus website seo and decide for yourself.

The money you have allocated for online advertising will go further than any print, radio or telephone directory campaign , especially when your adwords is configured properly.

The Hottest, Unpublished SEO Tip

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 05:30:06 +0000

In this article, we offer the best, often overlooked- yet absolutely crucial seo technique every website owner should deploy, without delay. Once mastered, you will wonder how you ever did without it- and it might even keep you a step ahead of Google's every tweak!

Invite a select group of friends over for an evening, and ask them to search within your website for information you have provided somewhere in the content. Ideally your target group should be from the same genre of people who would in fact, use your website to fulfil a need they might have.

You will be amazed at what this will teach you about your website- and human interaction. You should carefully note any stumbling blocks the visitors encounter- and remember- it's them doing you the favour- so don't try to blame them if they are not getting to their objectives easily.

So how does this affect search engine optimisation?

Regular readers will know by now, of the increased emphasis Google is placing on visitor experience.

This focus group is your opportunity to tweak the user experience. You, as the website creator- can anticipate where everything is. Total newcomers to your website might not know that something is "obviously" in a particular place. If their human experience is less than ideal, you can bet your clicks that the Googlebot with his pseudo-human evaluation methods, will return your website a less-than-ideal score, when he reports back to base.

Note all problems- ask your focus group to not spare the horses on this one- you really need to be in the hot seat here, with the heat turned up. Top level consulting costs many thousands of dollars, here you are getting it cheap for perhaps a case of fine spirits and some pizza. The more impartial and foreign to your internet presence the focus group can be, the better your results from the testing will be.

Our Own Website Rebuilt

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 20:09:00 +0000

Our seo melbourne website has had a rebuild- literally from the ground up! In what ended up being a marathon effort, we meticulously built it all again on a much friendlier platform, with easier navigation. Some new features have been introduced- and we'll see how they go! Thanks for the positive comments some people have left already. It might be time to look at your own website- how's that performing after the latest Google blitz on spammy looking sites?

Pay particular attention to user friendliness- and build it for humans, not robots. The search results will reward you. We'll just need a few weeks to catch up with work that needs doing, and there will be lots more to report on- we've got some great seo projects in the system as well as some impressive additions to our already bursting list of Page 1 rankings.

His Website Needs SEO- and the client is in denial

Mon, 14 May 2012 08:34:54 +0000

Sometimes I see things on blogs, and wonder. I have read other instances of clients' reactions- like the alcoholic who doesn't think he has a problem at all- or the chronic gambler thinking everything is fine, despite having lost his home, job and family.

But when this little interaction happened last week, I shook my head in disbelief.

I spoke with someone who had a tourism service in a little town- he was one of 5 operators providing the type of service I was looking to book.

I mentioned to him that his website was on page 3 of Google for what should have been a page 1 trophy keyword- and with only 4 competitors, all 5 providers should have been on the golden mile of Google- page 1 organic.

The website is 9 years old, and has way better content than his competitors' sites have.

But there are a couple of flaws in this otherwise perfect mix of html and css... and even in the long-tail queries, this person's website is lagging behind.

His answer was: "Oh, we don't need seo- you see we've been working on our website for about 6 months now, and it's not ready for seo yet".

I was going to book this guy for the service he provides, but I chose not to, figuring if he was so blind to reality, he would have us off the edge of the road, so best I went with someone else instead.

A website is ready for seo before it's even been built. If there's no "seo" and it goes live, the website owner's world needs to go on hold until the problem is corrected- and that means immediately. If the website has been live for nine years with glaring accessibility errors jumping out at the poor Googlebot- and the owner is in denial- then there is a serious problem.

Whatever your scenario- don't be in denial. If your website needs professional search engine optimisation help, you should get some organised today.

Underdog to Top Dog

Wed, 09 May 2012 06:28:00 +0000

Melbourne seo has had a busy two weeks- with some massive seo website rebuilds and revision- for clients as well as our own websites. By now everyone will have either hailed or wailed the Penguin update from Google.

It first came to my attention when I noticed a sharp, sudden rise in money keyword rank, for a number of websites I manage seo for. They were clients' websites as well as my own. I started digging... and this is what I discovered.

Google is

getting less tolerant of "obvious" seo efforts
the human visitor has to come first, even more than before
content was once king- now it's the kingdom
you can't live in a cave- go out and join the tribe
you have to make it- and not fake it!

The expanded meaning of just about all these topics will be obvious, and since this is a blog article, intended to be brief, I'll summarise by saying this. Whatever you thought was clever and under the radar, is not so any more. The radar is aimed so low, that any attempt by you to fly under it will result in a "crash and burn" into the hillside.

This is the time to redeem- undo any bad tactics, remove all your keyword stuffing, spammy looking links and any dubious seo efforts you may have once engaged in. Clean the slate, payday is coming, and you want to be at the front of the queue. Get your Google rank back- in fact we rescued one website from a 10 position drop, to a higher spot than ever before for the money search term of that industry. They now occupy position 2 on page 1 organic, after a crazy amount of recent technical problems.

Some seo practitioners have asked whether seo could be dead.

It hasn't even sprung to life yet- the beast is still in the lab, getting its DNA sorted.

It's getting ready to hit the ground running.

More articles will go on the website soon.

More SEO Melbourne Success!

Thu, 03 May 2012 10:13:09 +0000

It's always great when clients' targets are reached. It's something we do a lot of- but understandably, the vast majority of our search engine optimisation clients want their seo achievements kept confidential- and away from competitors' prying eyes! A number of months ago, one of our customers' websites made it to page 1 of Google organic for a number of search terms. Which terms? "24 hour couriers melbourne", "weekend couriers melbourne", "line haul melbourne" and "pallet services melbourne". The owner has been responsible for most of this; the website was originally made and coded properly from the start by us. Correct coding gets a website off to a flying start. The owner followed our recommendations- albeit a little haphazardly- but managed to get the important things right. We'll provide an inside account of his- and other webmasters' seo first page achievements, in a forthcoming article- so stay tuned!

Seo- a double victory for us!

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:15:14 +0000

Diligent seo efforts were rewarded last week, with a double placement on page 1 for a highly competitive string. Two separate websites pulled front page rank for us, with some interesting revelations, and debunking of a couple of poplar seo myths.

There is a more information about this on the seo melbourne success page of the website.

You'll be pleased to know that these two websites were ones which I own, that there was no testing being done with clients' websites, money or livelihoods at stake.

Take a look at the page by following the link above. It's an interesting read.

Dealing with the Locals- the Latest in Venice?

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:08:48 +0000

By now, most folk will be aware of the Venice update from Google, documenting 40 or so points which have moved the seo goal posts around the field a little. What this does mean, is that 2012 is definitely the year of localisation- so if you are not listed anywhere in local directories, or you have no physical address or geo tagging on your website, you had better get to it and see that these are done!

Google maps, showing your location, can be embedded into your website. Melbourne website designers can do this for you, if you are not inclined to do your own work.

To offer an example of how this might affect you, or your visitors- let's say you are looking for accommodation near National Parks in Victoria. You type your query into Google- and instead of returning results from Victoria Australia AND Victoria BC, the "local" results return listings relevant to the Victoria you are in right now.

Or more precisely, it's Saturday night, and you want to book for a pizza delivery dinner. You type in "pizza delivery" and your suburb. There are no pizza restaurants in your suburb/ You live on the north fringe of your suburb, and Google returns the closest results to where you are, the southern fringe of the suburb to the north of you.

This is a great opportunity to tap into a local market, and it's still early days.

Get onto it- sort your local listings and placements today. If you need help, seo melbourne can do it for you.

Website Hacking and SEO

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:03:34 +0000

Your website security is paramount. Think of the username and password to your site as being the keys to your safe. The safe holds the cash- but in this instance you forgot to spin the dial, and to make it worse- you have left the keys hanging from the lock, and there's a year's worth of taking in cash, inside. Don't ever let the security of your server be compromised. This week we worked with a number of clients to quickly restore what could have been irreversible damage to their seo efforts. In our article about the effects of website hacking on seo, we have outlined the causes, effects and remedies for three common scenarios website owners or web masters could face. It is essential reading, on our seo melbourne website.

Ongoing SEO Techniques to Keep Your Website Rank

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 07:50:35 +0000

Long-term SEO Tips

Here's something most webmasters and students of our SEO classes don't always comprehend. Search engine optimization demands an ongoing, long-term commitment. As part of a successful, ongoing SEO plan, you should be looking at creating a balanced content curating and marketing campaign designed to build authority and credibility with your audience.
A plan set out for 6 months or 12 months is great- and so is flexibility- to allow for sudden moves in the marketplace. Public sentiment might change- once upon a time, real fur coats were all the rage- they're certainly not now!
A marketing campaign built on the principles of real fur supply for coat manufacture would suddenly be driving customers away.

So what do you do? What's the best ongoing SEO initiative you can use to drive continuous organic traffic to your website and rank well in Google?

First, ensure your content is authoritative, timely and relevant- and that it's frequently updated.
your website should be seen as a publicity vehicle for a modern, forward thinking enterprise, and not some decaying business that simply has a website because they were offered a great deal.

Second- get with the times with regards to design and using current html elements. If your website uses Flash technology, this language was left behind in the 90s and the same effects can be achieved with Javascript and CSS. Ensure your website is responsive and test it in Google's mobile-friendly website tester.

Third- an ongoing content injection into your website should be followed by publicity online. Post news of updates- not copies of the updates themselves- in places that your interested prospects might discover it, both intentionally and serendipitously.

Fourth- don't create links into your website just for the sake of having them. Now more than ever before- its important to be really selective with your inbound linking strategy. Get links from websites that you would seek links from if there was no SEO. That means- you would cultivate links from websites which would only provide quality click-throughs- from people who really want to visit your site because it matches their needs or interest at the time.
An obsession with links is the single biggest reason why SEO campaigns fail.

Fifth- be consistent with content development- and present material that your intended audience is actively searching for and is worthy of being shared throughout their network.
You'll be amazed at the flow on effect that comes from it, and how it leads to what should really be your ultimate goal with your SEO strategy- more business.

Work hard- refine your ongoing search engine optimisation strategy technique- and get more organic traffic.

Want to Keep Your Google Rank?

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:02:41 +0000

It's one thing to have achieved front page Google rank- and another to maintain it. I cannot emphasise enough, the need to ensure uptime for your website. That means, it needs to stay online and accessible. No "under construction" or "can't find the server" message in the visitor's browser window.

If you want to keep any Google rank you have worked so hard to acquire, then your content- your website's pages- must be there when a visitor clicks through on search results, and also when the Googlebot comes back to check on you again.

Keep your Google rank, by maintaining your website's online integrity.

I had one of my own front-page organic ranking websites go down the other day. Of course, I only found out about it when someone called me, curious that they couldn't access the site.

It was a MySQL site- like this one- which means the content sits within tables in a database, and the whole ensemble resides on the hosting company server where the site was developed. That's all fine if your host is still in business- but now they aren't.

Open the door to the backup folder- the place where all our websites- and those we manage for our clients- are stored offsite. Even all the database sites are zipped and ripped- downloaded from the server at regular intervals- and tucked away safely in three different, secure locations.

The whole process took a few hours- finding a new host, running the archive expander, setting up the configuration, and breathing a very long sigh of relief, followed by catching up on missed caffeine.

Another 20 minutes was spent restoring the content missing from the archived copy- that content which was added to the website before the backup was made. It sure beat redeveloping the framework, doing all 50 articles, and uploading and optimising in excess of 200 images.

I hate to think of the effect this had on the website's awesome front page Google organic rank.

I know one thing for sure- I'd be a lot worse off without the backup.

How prepared are you for when disaster strikes? Close your computer, and get organised.

Now.

Call us if you need help.

Parked Domains- What do I do with my Domain Name?

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:32:22 +0000

So you have chosen a domain name, a keyword rich one. And now you're thinking about getting it all started. Let's just recap a few points. Be absolutely certain that:

your domain name is yours, not some third party's property
the registration has been paid for a minimum of two years
that you are correct in your eligibility to own the name
that you have the registry keys
that you have cPanel access to be able to change registrant details
and- surprise surprise- that you have got all of this info backup somewhere!

Let's say that the above conditions have all been met.

There are two things you can do here. You are at a "T" intersection.

Either:

park the domain, and come back to it later- sometimes months or years later;
launch straight into website development

Either way, figure out what you're going to do and do it. If you are going to come back to your site "later", put some basic content on the site. Do not have a domain sitting there with "under construction" on it, or "this domain is parked on..."

That is not an seo mindset.

Get some content on there. Just straight text will be enough- no need to worry about divs or tables or CSS, until you have your site developed properly.

Just get seen.

In the next article, we'll look at what is important in web hosting, and why it has such an influence on search engine optimisation.

Optimising Your Domain Name for Best SEO

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 18:07:26 +0000

Selecting your domain name is not something you should do on a whim. Consider the options carefully, and remember there's no harm in owning more than one version of your desired domain name. Try to have keywords in your URL; let the URL of your website say what you do, rather than who you are, if the former is what people would be searching for. Ideally, your domain name should tell someone what they should expect to see on your website, not leave them wondering what on earth they could find. If your brand is an established one, and built around your name or a company name which tells the visitor absolutely nothing, perhaps consider a basic website on that URL- one which is really an informational site- and provide a link to your other website from the information site. Aim for either the .com or .com.au extension if you are in Australia.

Keywords in URL are not as crucial to SEO as they once were, but believe me they still help. We can point you to an example of this online right now- if you go to Google and type in paid modelling work melbourneyou'll see the website wilderness images returned in the top spot on page 1. The primary business of the website is budget wedding photography, and the site also features in the top few page 1 organic listings for budget wedding photographers melbourne -try it and see!

Two entirely different topics, the domain name has no keywords- and awesome rank for both search terms, as well as countless others. And yes, we did it- we can do it for you too. See the article on how to rank well in Google for an explanation of critical search engine ranking factors, applicable now, as well as a glimpse into the top seo tips for 2012.

Use the Melbourne SEO Contact page to get in touch, if we can be of help.

Search Engine Optimisation Shop Talk- On Website Hacking and Restoration

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 15:32:53 +0000

This is an interesting post, towards the end of what has been very interesting 10 days. I have had several people come to me with a problem of their site being hacked. When you visit their hacked site, you will see a replacement index page installed by a hacker, calling himself Q8Coder, probably from the country Kuwait. Q8-Kuwait- get it?

A website hacked by Q8coder is not the end of the world, if you move quickly to fix the problem.

Understandably you as the site owner would not be impressed that this has happened. It is imperative that you move immediately to correct the problem. Every day that passes is costing you, in terms of positive ranking signals.

You need to assess the damage- and correct what needs fixing. A hacked website is severe blow to your search engine rank credibility and just a few days can do major damage if left unchecked.

Of course, an effective backup strategy would minimise your web site down time- by way of enabling you to restore the site to the full functionality of the backed up copy. Keep three working backups of your site- don't keep them all on the one drive, or in the one location.

Website backups should not be kept in a sub directory of the website. If the site goes down, the sub directories will go down too- don't put all your eggs in the one basket and leave yourself at the mercy of the elements.

Design for the Future- of Your Website and SEO

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:27:08 +0000

Now it's time to plan one of the most important steps of all- the information . The architecture you use to house all this information as well as the presentation and delivery systems you intend to use, need to be looked at right now. There will be more personalisation in search results- so your best search engine optimisation tips for 2012 should keep this important point at the fore.

If you look through the SEO Australia site, you will see a detailed menu on the right hand side of the page. This type of menu allows for unlimited expansion, and some links to key regions are also placed in the top navigation bar. I didn't go with locating the complete site navigation at the "usual" top position, because it would be too cluttered in the future. I put a few important links there, because visitors expect to see links or a menu in that position.

Look at where you are now, and where your journey will take you. It's not always possible to predict this with pinpoint accuracy, but as a website owner or business owner, you will have some idea of where your industry is heading and where you fit in with all that. Plan for tomorrow. See the best seo planning tips on our site.

Choosing the best domain name and extension for SEO

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:35:08 +0000

This week's article takes a look at selecting the best domain name, domain extension and whether or not you use your business name, or a keyword rich domain name as your website url. This can have a marked effect on how fast your search engine optimisation efforts take effect- so choose carefully!

In October 2012, there was an adjustment to the Google algorithm, which became known as the "EMD". This stood for "exact match domain" and the adjustment was brought on to reduce the advantage that a keyword-laden or exact keyword match domain enjoyed during the ranking process.
Some websites took a shattering dive- Google estimated that around 7% of domains were affected. Looking over a number of websites we keep track of, we noticed others have held their ground or risen to greater prominence.

Find out why.

See also the updates to the article, reflecting our recent observations in June 2014. Read more about this on the best website name and extension page of our website.

You'll be surprised at what these recent algorithm changes mean, and once again, the playing field has been shaken.

Search Engine Optimisation- a Double Edged Account

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:00:00 +0000

This incredible pair of opposing search engine optimisation real life accounts- warrant their own article and blog post. By following this link to the best seo double article, you can read the incredible story of how a client of ours with almost zero web expertise bumped his site to organic page 1 of Google! Contrast this with an enquiry we received just a few days ago, for search engine optimisation- where the enquirer was paying a four figure monthly amount to someone for "ongoing" search engine optimisation contract work, on a website which had never been live on the internet. How does this happen? SEO and the industry of search engine optimisation is still new enough, that most people don't realise when they are being "had". Ensure it doesn't happen to you- question everything that a search engine expert proposes to do for you- don't be scared of cutting ties- you could be saving your own purse strings!

SEO and Determining Your Search Engine Optimisation Targets and Objectives

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 13:14:55 +0000

SEO Starts With Defining Your Organic Targets

OK, it's time to roll your sleeves up and get down to it. Let's say you've completed your website- or decided to overhaul the SEO strategy of your current one. You need to know what you are aiming for, as a website publisher and business owner. With most products and services involving the exchange of money, people often research before spending. It would be highly unlikely, with big ticket items or even not-so-big ones, that someone would arrive at your website, and simply order what it is you sell on that first visit. Instead of focusing on what you as an insider of your industry thinks the customer wants- take some time to step inside their shoes and tailor your information to them.

Before proceeding any further you should familiarise yourself with terms like short tail search engine optimisation, and long tail search engine optimisation. Both of these are explained on our seo planning page. Read about, and understand those terms well- the decisions you make and how you approach the next task determines the effectiveness of your seo fulcrum from this moment on.

You'll need to think about the two important things here, before moving forward.

Is your product a highly researched item before being purchased?

If so, then you should look at and address- the sorts of questions people might be seeking answers to before they make a commitment. Anything that involves a big decision- cars, holidays, homes, major purchases of products or services- are often researched online over multiple sessions before people make a commitment to buy. If you understand this, you're well placed to intercept those queries people are making, and turn researchers into buyers- well ahead of your competitors. Although successful SEOs have been preaching it for years, business people are still not catching on- that there is more action in the long-tail queries, than there is benefit of ranking for short tail keywords.

The drastic shift to smartphones and mobile devices mean that people are speaking queries into their device, and these are often in the form of questions directed at the search engine they are using rather than queries comprising one or two keywords.

It makes sense for you to develop content aimed at answering the questions people ask, and getting some of that long-tailed keyword traffic. Developing your SEO strategy a step further- decide what sector of the market your website is targeting- and design your information flow for those people. If you hire something out to people- are you more interested in short-term hire- or long term contracts? What about leasing- or hiring with a buyout option? Many businesses don't take a look at these simple options, and end up missing out on low-hanging fruit which is free organic traffic.
Take the time to read our pertinent SEO tips and be sure to get as much from your organic search strategy as you possibly can.

Understand Search Acquisition and how it Impacts Your SEO and Business

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:02:56 +0000

How SEO Works with Client Acquisition Strategies

It's been a while in the making but it's finally done. An informative piece explaining the relationship of the elements which make up a clever strategy of search acquisition- that is- acquiring rank and traffic with a purpose, through SEO, is now complete. As SEO consultants, we're amazed at how disjointed most websites are with their information. This usually a reflects a deeper issue- the sign of a business that's unsure of what it really does, or stands for.

While it's all too easy to talk about things like "we're the best at what we do"and "we've been in the industry longer than our competition", those items make little sense to the customer searching online.

We notice that many businesses don't have a clear idea of exactly The finished article, which addresses the seven points of search acquisition can be found here.search engine optimisation and search acquisition article

Search Acquisition Strategy- Understanding What Happens and Why

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 06:32:05 +0000

Acquisition Strategies- Building Blocks of Smart SEO

Search Engine Optimisation needs a great Search Acquisition Strategy behind it- and in the most recent article on our website, we look at the first of 7 points to be examined in more detail. Our office is going through a very busy time right now, and I have been grappling for spare time to write these entries. Read the article on search engine acquisition- which will be updated until all 7 points are covered. This link will take you directly to the search acquisition strategy article on our website. Study this article- it will eventually (within a week I hope)- provide more information about the supporting pillars of the successful search engine optimisation strategy.

SEO and Organic Traffic Acquisition- Essential Tips for Success

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 18:53:00 +0000

Using SEO to Attract More Organic Visitors to Your Website

Enjoy the increase in revenue that comes with attracting more of your perfect website visitors via organic search. Visitors to your website who arrive through a successful match between query and answer, are most likely to convert to paying customers. The painstaking process of search engine optimisation is without substance or reward, if you don't know what your ideal visitor searched for on the road to conversion. For the sake of this discussion, we'll define a conversion as taking the necessary steps to move along the path to handing you their details or credit card so a relationship can begin.

As a website owner, you'll pore over blogs, articles and words from the wise, on how to get more traffic. Read the article which defines the essential pillars in search engine optimisation planning for a blue print which can be applied to any business, selling a product or service.

My work as an seo consultant in Melbourne revolves around creating and managing content on, and pointing to client websites. Those websites exist to make money for their owners, and everything needs to be right.

The best thing you as a website owner or content curator can do, is keep up with what your customers are searching for, and put yourself in their shoes. As an industry insider, things which are second nature to you about your product or service, might be looked at through eyes of wonder, by your prospective clients. Take the time to research what they're talking about with their friends on social media, and like-minded groups. Get yourself up with the times on what people really want from a business like yours, and ensure your offer hits their device screen first and offers them a compelling reason to click through to your website.

Nothing works better than being in the right place at the right time.
I encourage all my clients to actively and enthusiastically publicise what they do throughout their social and professional networks, to take advantage of the immediacy of the web and how most answers to most of the questions asked, are only a click or two away.

As smartphones and even smarter personal browsing devices become like our own digital personal assistants, fueled by our online profile and history, search engines tighten their rules when selecting which sites to list on the first page of results. To stay successful- and visible- you need some credible citations. These should have exact matching details to those on your website, for phone number, address and business name.

Get people talking about you- and encourage a two-way dialog when someone needs to air a concern or ask more general questions.

Attract better, more qualified organic visitors- and enjoy working with people who have come to your website or business already trusting you. Maintain freshness in all the places you get found, and send the message out that you're here to stay.

The right message to the right people- timed well and publicised properly- will beat back links every time. Organic traffic makes sense- to both your website AND bank balance... so pursue it ethically!

Beginning Our SEO Journey- How We Came to Offer Search Engine Optimisation

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 02:45:25 +0000

What Started Us Doing SEO?

Most things have a distinct beginning, and our journey into the exciting world of optimizing websites certainly did. It happened in a random, unplanned way and just went from there. From simple pattern recognition, to more complex strategic assessment and testing on our own suite of websites- we outline some of the significant steps in the journey that brought us here.

The Best SEO Blog Featuring Search Engine Optimisation Melbourne Australia Expert Tips

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:17:25 +0000

Read Our Search Engine Optimization Blog

Understand what's happening at the bleeding edge of SEO. Timely articles, relevant tips and discussion of best-practice techniques for website enhancement, will give business owners and webmasters the right information needed to move their website to better visibility.