ComScore predicts that in 2013 mobile devices will overtake traditional desktops computers as the primary means of accessing the internet. For businesses this means that prospective customers purchase decisions are increasingly being driven by their interaction with your brand on a tablet, laptop or smartphone.

The rapid growth in mobile connected devices has also meant that screen sizes and resolutions are no longer as uniform as the once were. As a result, the traditional approach of having both a desktop and mobile version of your website is no longer an effective solution for your business – there are simply too many variations to account for.

In today’s hand held economy what your business really needs is a Responsive Website Design.

What is Responsive Website Design?

A Responsive Website Design is a single website which is built in a particular way to adapt its look and feel “responsively”, providing users with the best viewing experience for their device – be it a smartphone, tablet, laptop or even smart TV – it literally adjust the page format to suit the device (visit www.lovethatpet.com on a desktop, then on a tablet, and then on your smartphone – experience intelligent responsive design and a website with intelligence).

Why you should choose a Responsive Web Design for your Business Website?

Responsive Website Design is fast becoming the future for website design and is relevant to both the B2C and B2B markets. Here are our top 7 reasons your business should be considering a Responsive Website Design.

1.    Reach Potential Customers Anytime, Anywhere

Web browsing habits are changing. Your prospective customers will likely access your website from multiple devices before they make the decision to buy your products or book your services – whether it’s from their PC in the office, from their iPhone on the bus or their tablet on couch whilst watching TV – and often all of the above. A Responsive Web Design ensures you will be able to engage with your prospective customers anywhere and anytime whilst delivering a consistent user experience and brand message.

2.    Improve Search Engine Visibility

We all know how important Search Engine visibility is when it comes to attracting and converting customers online. You may also know that, given a choice, Google will generally rank a website with mobile design higher for searches made from mobile device. What you may not know is that Google specifically recommends Responsive Website Design as best practice in improving website visibility across devices – that’s a pretty big clue as to where they see the web is heading.

As a single website a Responsive Design also has other advantages for your Search Engine Optimisation activity. First, one website means only one set of links to manage. No longer will your link outreach activities be diluted by spreading links between a mobile and desktop version of you website. Second, you no longer have to deal with duplicate content issues – all your content resides in a single website. These added benefits will mean you have more time to dedicate to value-add content activities that will further increase your Search Engine visibility.

Third, and finally, a Responsive Website has significant implications for local search. From bars and restaurants to plumbers and electricians, if your business is built on being locally relevant and visible, a responsive website will give a considerable edge over your competition. Not only will a well-optimised Responsive Website rank better for mobile and local keyword phrases, the mobile-friendly user experience (including features like click to call) will improve your conversions as well.

3.    Increase Sales and Conversions

Whilst your prospective customers may be happy to search for products or services on a mobile device the majority will still be more comfortable undertaking the purchase or booking process via a desktop or laptop computer. Providing a consistent user experience across devices has been shown to significantly improve conversion rates for multi-channel website users.

4.    Improve Customer Experience

With a Responsive Design your website is more than just a place for people to buy your products or book your services. For many users your responsive website has the potential to serve as a ‘pocket guide’ – an easily accessible reference for news, reviews, activities, events, maps and customer service. In addition to enhancing your user’s perceptions of your brand this content is extremely attractive to search engines.

5.    Save Time & Money

It’s true that upfront costs to develop a Responsive Website Design may be more expensive than a traditional desktop and mobile website combination but there are significant time and cost savings to be had over the life of the website.

First, one website means content only needs to be updated once, your marketing team will no longer spend copious time duplicating work across mobile and desktop websites.

Second, with the traditional approach, every time a new screen size or resolution comes along you will be required to develop a new template to fit that format. With a responsive design that problem never arises, the site simple adjusts to the screen it is presented with. With a responsive design you are effectively future proofing your website – an attractive option with devices like Google Glass, the iWatch and who knows what else on the horizon.

6.    Streamline Analytics and Reporting

With a single website comes the ability to track content interaction, user journeys and conversion funnels from a single analytics platform. Google Analytics has already been optimised to account for Responsive Website Designs and as a result, you will be able to gain a rich, single view of your customers which you can use in your sales and marketing activities.

7.    Get the Jump on Your Competition

Less than 2% of websites are currently optimised for mobile, let alone responsive design. Your business has the opportunity to gain a significant edge over the competition by being the first to adopt a Responsive Website Design.

I’m Convinced, Where to From Here?

If you are ready to be ahead of the curve, then now is the time to act – visit www.sebelpierone.com.au on a desktop, then on a tablet, and then on your smartphone – experience intelligent design and a website with intelligence…and then Contact Us for a preliminary chat…

The post 7 Reasons Your Business Needs A Responsive Website appeared first on .

Since its inception in April 2005, when Google acquired Urchin Software Corp and Measure Map the following year, Google Analytics has become the most widely used website statistics service ^[1].

This web analytics tool is popular amongst web masters of large corporate websites as well as small business owners and bloggers alike. Being a Google product, Google Analytics has pretty much become the “go to” website analysis tool and to top it all off, it is free to use for most and relatively easy to install. Data analysis, especially for large or high traffic volume sites, can be daunting at first and sifting through it and learning the ropes can take time. But it doesn’t have to be so overwhelming…

Enter Advanced Segments

The segmenting features in Google Analytics allow you to see the data that is important or relevant to you or your client quickly and these can be set up in minutes.

The sample of pre-generated segments let you cut that data into Search (paid or non-paid), Direct, Referrals and several other segments. You can also select up to three segments at once depending on the time frame and comparison range you are looking at. This allows you to have an instant comparison between search and total visits or non-paid and paid search traffic, for example.

Take a look at the table below for the default list of segments in Google Analytics:

For some explanations of the above terms, see my SEO Glossary post on the SEO Works Blog.

The following image shows the results generated when “New Visitors”, “Returning Visitors” and “Non-paid Search Traffic” default segments are selected. This shows us what amount of total SEO traffic is a return vs. a new visitor.

These segments let you see tailored data at the click of a button (or two). If you are looking for more refined data or specific information, then take a look at Custom Segments.

Custom Segments

The best part about segmenting your data is that you can create your own relevant dashboard to suit your specific requirements or the data you are looking for. You may be looking for keywords that convert, or the referrals from a specific site you have placed advertising on – custom segments allow you to do a lot, and make it easy to find data that you use often without having to resort to unfamiliar scripting languages or create permanent filters that may lead to biased data.

Custom Segments let you do a ton of different things and get to the data you are after easily and quickly. Other data that is popular to look for:

• Non-Branded keywords – one of my personal favourites, I’ll expand on this in a minute
• Specific referring sites – if you have non-search marketing campaigns
• Location specific users – from your city or country – useful for multinational clients
• Keyword specific traffic – usually better to look at keyword clusters (e.g searches and traffic that contain a primary search term or keyword. Sydney Hotels may also find Luxury Sydney Hotels for example)
• Specific landing page data – especially useful if you are testing two or more varied pages for similar search terms or just want to see which of your pages convert better; of course you can combine this with location specific traffic to highlight a local marketing campaign results

Do you have any other custom segments you use often? Please share it with us on Google +

 How to create your own segments

In this post I will explore a segment I create often, one I call Non-Branded. I may update or create new posts in the future that further explore other custom segments, so feel free to mention in the comments section if you are after a way to track specific data and I will endeavour to help you create your very own segment.

I use the non-branded segment to exclude any keyword data that contains brand terms related to the specific site. This allows me to present organic keyword data that is not skewed or polluted by high volume branded terms.

• Once you have logged in to Google Analytics and chosen the profile you wish to use, click on Advanced Segments, and +New Custom Segment.

• Name your Segment and choose Exclude in the first drop down menu
• The second drop down menu has a dozens of options, here you want to choose the Keyword dimension and you can do this by searching for it.
• Under containing, type in one of the brand terms or part of it for your client site.
  • You may have to do this multiple times for online retailers or software producers who have specific brands that you wish to exclude from the data, and if so, you must use the “add AND statement” to filter additional brand keywords.
  • Hit the Test Segment button to see the results or the Preview Segment button for a preview
  • If all is fine, save your segment. You can now access it under the Advanced Segments section.

 How this helps

As SEO’s our main aim is to increase non-brand organic traffic for our clients. However, this increased visibility for non-branded terms also causes increases in overall brand awareness and therefore increase brand traffic. For larger sites or well-known brands, using a non-branded keyword segment is essentially a must if you want to highlight organic traffic directly improved by the work you do.

Clients, like anyone else for that matter, want to see value for money and being able to show them exactly where their SEO dollars are going by means of acquired non-branded organic traffic is a great way to keep them happy.

In addition, by combining this new segment with ‘Visits with Conversions’ you can see how your non-branded keywords are converting (provided of course you have already set up goals).

Conclusion

Google Analytics has a lot of data, segmenting that data helps you getting to the information you are after – quickly and easily.

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1)      Audit Your Site (Functionality)

Rather than diving straight into your awesome New Year idea that you’re sure will catapult your site to the top of Google; first take a step back and take the time to review each page of your site. Take time to click through your site as a user and see what you really think. Some quick things to check:

• Are your forms working?
• Are your Meta tags showing up properly on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) and are they up to date?
• Is your internal linking working & is it updated post-panda/penguin?
• Are all of your header tags in place?
• Do you have any holiday links that need to be 301 re-directed or deleted all together?

2) Audit Your Content

Often content gets written when a site is launched and is never revisited again.  Google (and those other search engines) want to see fresh content on your site.  They want to see that you didn’t just throw up some pages and then leave them and hope for the best.

• Do you have anything left over on your site regarding the holidays?
• Are there any pages on your site that could be elaborated on or separated into sub-pages?
• Is your content easy to read and understand from a user perspective?

3) Audit Your Images & Graphics

Images can quite literally make or break the performance of your website.  While I know that you may have some images on there that are near and dear to your heart, ask for an outsiders opinion. Often I have to wrestle a favourite image from a client but it’s for their own good…I promise!

• When was your site built? If the image is more than 5 or 6 years old, it’s probably time to let it go.
• When was the last time you gave your graphics a face-lift?
• Do you have keyword enriched image-alt tags in place?

4) Update That Blog & Keep It Coming!

I can hear you mumbling from way over here but it’s a necessary evil for every successful website these days. Not only does it keep the content on your site fresh, but it is establishing you as an industry expert in your field.  It doesn’t have to be a press release-worthy article but it needs to be relevant, informative and useful.  To come up with a blog subject, it’s probably easier than you realise.  While some things may seem common sense to you, they aren’t to other people and that’s why they’re coming to you. That or you have a product that people want, so show them why yours is the best.  Below are a few easy questions to ask yourself to get the blog ideas rolling:

• What are common questions that your customers ask?
• What’s a hot button topic in your industry that people are talking about?
• What’s going on in your community and what does that have to do with you?
• Is there anything fresh and exciting happening in your company?
• Any new products, locations, or expansions?
• Have you reviewed your Google Analytics to see what keywords are driving traffic to your site?

5) Guest Blogging, Reach Out!

I won’t beat a dead horse by telling you the importance of guest blogging, besides, that’s a whole other article by itself.  2013 is undoubtedly the year for guest blogging and you won’t be alone in trying to acquire a coveted guest blogging spot.  Kissmetrics writes a brilliant article called The Ultimate Guide For Guest Blogging, I’d recommend starting there.

6) Get Social

In case you haven’t heard…social media is where it’s at! If you’re still dragging your feet or have no idea what to do with it; find out and start doing it.  In 2011 we saw how much influence Google put on having on-site relevant content. In 2012, the now infamous, Penguin showed us the necessity for relevant content bringing inbound links. And now in 2013 we have to be relevant and informative everywhere…and yes that includes social media.  It’s not only about being relevant…it’s about other people thinking you’re relevant.

7) Get Active In Your Community

I recently watched a great webinar by SEOmoz and in it, Rand Fishkin makes an interesting point: We are all so busy focusing obsessively on our on-line presence, are we remembering to focus on our off-line customer experience as well? Here are some of the suggestions from the SEO Webinar:

• Can you get involved with a local charity?
• Can you help sponsor a local event?
• Can you have a customer appreciation day?
• Don’t forget to ask your off-line customers to visit you online. (Use common sense here and don’t pester people!)

8) Contest For Your Customers or Employees

Who doesn’t love a good contest where you can win something free?  This is one of the best ways to kick-start your social media and its fun. You can easily use apps like Wildfire to run your contest and be confident in its success.  Not only does it bring in new customers, but it can be a fresh way to encourage your employees to get involved.

9) Realistically Understand Your Traffic Flow

While we are all tempted to panic when traffic-flow changes, there are often realistic explanations to keep in mind when analysing your Google Analytics.  These things are often explanations for both a spike in traffic, as well as a decline.  Some mean that you should adjust your tactic and others are simply…explanations, nothing more.

• Are you an e-commerce company or a vacation spot where it’s normal to see a spike in traffic & conversions for certain months?
• Have recent changes been made to the site that would affect traffic?
• Have you changed your link building technique?
• If traffic is down, how is the quality of conversions? Often when a new SEO approach is implemented; traffic may go down but you are now seeing quality traffic over sheer quantity.
• Is this a seasonal trend? Make sure to compare year to year, rather than just month to month.

10) Fresh Link Building Ideas

This one may seem obvious but I had to add it in here. Often we are all guilty of hammering away with the same plan and eventually it’s going to stop working.  Link building is still the backbone of SEO but the way we acquire inbound links changes all the time. Maybe it’s time to bring in a fresh pair of eyes and a fresh take on your 2013 link building strategy. With all the algorithm changes in 2012, it is more important than ever to ensure that your inbound links are quality.

11) Make Goal Markers For The Year

Rather than trying all these new ideas at once and expecting a massive increase within 30 days, maybe sit down and make realistic goals month by month.  Make goals, not only for sales and traffic increases, but goals for completing each of these new/fresh tasks.

12) Be Active For 2014 Starting Now!

Don’t wait for January 2014 to come around before making new goals and resolutions, start your plan now. While there is a fresh and energetic feeling that takes over all of us at the start of a New Year, it is usually short lived and by February…it’s just another month.  So start now and decide where you want to be for this Holiday season and see the kind of difference January 2013 and January 2014 will have.

(Oh and also don’t buy a gym membership until the first day you actually go to the Gym!)

Happy blogging everyone!

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In only a few short years we have made it virtually impossible (pun intended!) to completely ‘unplug’. There is little fear of missing an email, client call or new assignment from the boss; but with all this hustling around, are we missing out on quality human interaction?

Today I decided to do an experiment and hold a Google+ Hangout session with some of my team members. After some inevitable hiccups in downloading the software and locating the proper hangout, I think the over- all verdict was that it was a lot of fun and well worth it.  Below are 7 reasons why I believe that video chatting programs like Google+ Hangouts are great for business.

1. Social Media Rules The World!

It’s no secret that social media has revolutionised the way that we interact with one another but it has also completely changed the way that businesses communicate with their customers.  Having a solid social presence online can make or break your sales for the year and can be a large factor in determining your reputation both online and off.  Hosting a Google+ Hangout for your customers not only makes you hip, but it shows your customers that you’re willing to take time out of your day to speak with them.

2. Customers Are Far More Likely To Be Loyal With Face To Face Interaction.

While it may not always be possible to meet in person with your customers/clients, the next best thing is to have a video conference with them.  By hosting a hangout, you are allowing your customers to get involved with your brand and have that personal connection with your business.

3. Humanises Your Brand/Reputation Management

Don’t be afraid to accept negative comments and/or reviews.  Approach them head on; and what better way than to do it ‘in person.’ As we all know, it’s much more difficult to say something negative to a live person than it is to type out a bad review on an anonymous forum.  When hosting sessions like this, it allows you to tackle any negative feedback directly and proactively.  Hosting something like a hangout on Google+ let’s your customers know that you value their opinion and are willing to hear what they have to say.

4. Establishing Yourself As An Industry Expert.

When hosting an event such as a hangout, you are showing your customer/client base that you are, indeed, an expert in your field. After all that’s what Google wants to see; they want to see that you are so relevant and respected that people can’t wait to attend one of your hangout’s.  And once you’ve hosted a hangout, social chatter is sure to follow and thus significantly improving your virtual social status.

5. Link Building!

Whether you know very little about SEO or have a vast understanding, you know that link building is the backbone of SEO.  However, if 2012 taught us anything, Social Media has proven to be a powerhouse in the search world. And in 2012, Google showed us ‘who’s boss’ by positioning their own social network as a ‘must have’ for the online world.  So when combining link building with social media, you’re unstoppable! (Hint: Unlike most social networks, Google+ links are indeed follow links!)

6. Increasing Your Social Chatter

With last April’s Penguin and Panda updates ( I can hear the grunts and mumbles from here!), we learned that while content is still King, relevance is his Queen!  And who can prove that you are more relevant than your loyal fans/customers talking about you on their social networks.  Not only are you gaining links, but you’re being talked about and establishing relevance.

7. It’s Fun, Get Your Employees Involved!

It’s 2013 and while meetings and conferences are a necessary evil in the corporate world, why not switch it up every now and then and invite your employees to video conference in via their Google+ page.  It’s also one of the best ways to encourage your staff to participate in promoting your brand or business on their own Social platforms.  After all, who can sell your brand better than a staff member who loves their job!

With the rules of SEO constantly changing and the algorithm updates that send the blogosphere into a tizzy, one thing has remained consistent and that’s word of mouth recommendations from our friends.  I’m with SEOMoz’s, Rand Fishkin, in believing that 2013 will be the year that SEO embraces that it cannot survive independently from Social Media.  So why not jump in feet first and start testing out all the different ways that Social Media can benefit your business and maybe even start with a Google+ hangout!

Happy 2013 everyone and here’s to a fantastic New Year!

The post 7 Reason’s Google+ Hangouts Are Good For Business! appeared first on .

Hotel customers are increasingly turning to the web as their first, and often only, point of reference when researching travel and holiday destinations. It is therefore essential that your hotel website is designed to connect with your online audience and leave a first impression that truly lasts.

Here at SEO Works we have assembled a collection of the Top 10 Hotel Website Designs from around the globe which combine rich imagery and content with engaging functionality to create an online user experience designed to convert website ‘lookers’ into hotel ‘bookers’.

1. EME Catedral Hotel, Spain

www.emecatedralhotel.com

2. Capo La Gala Hotel, Italy

www.hotelcapolagala.com

3. The Joule Dallas, USA

www.thejouledallas.com

4. Hidden Hotel, France

www.hidden-hotel.com

5. Hotel Missoni, Kuwait

www.hotelmissoni.com

6. Hotel Grand Pacific, Canada

www.hotelgrandpacific.com

7. The Benjamin, USA

www.thebenjamin.com

8. El San Juan Resort, Puerto Rico

www.elsanjuanresort.com

9. The White Barn Inn, USA

www.whitebarninn.com

10. Harbour Rocks Hotel, Australia

www.harbourrocks.com.au

The post Top 10 Hotel Website Designs 2012 appeared first on .

The reason we say this, is that there is no real value in checking a bunch of rankings and the traffic they generated, no sir! Sure, it’s a good snapshot of how your site is progressing and measuring up against your competitors, but it is not a tangible indicator of how successful your SEO campaign is. In reality, web searchers use hundreds of combinations of keywords and related extension phrases to find your website. In fact every day 25% of all the queries that Google sees are for searches they have never seen before. Much of this has to do with the fact that queries are naturally getting longer and more specific, with over half of search queries in 2011 being 4 words or longer.

This is where the concept of “keyword clusters” comes into play. Keyword clusters are as the term suggests are a group of keyword phrases that contain your “money” terms.

How to identify a keyword cluster:

Let’s say you run a hotel in Sydney and you figure the term “Sydney Hotels” is likely to generate significant traffic, so naturally, you will want to rank well for that key phrase.

What you might not realise is, that your website will also be ranking for variations of that keyword phrase – what we call a keyword cluster.

To start building up your keyword clusters, go to Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool, set the settings to “Phrase Match”, as we want to find keyword phrases that contain our main keyword phrase “Sydney Hotels”. (Make sure you are searching within Australia).

Some of the variations that come up are: “Sydney Hotels CBD”, “Cheap Sydney Hotels”, “Best Sydney Hotels”, “Sydney Hotels 5 Star” etc.

What you will quickly find is that these variations of your original keyword quickly add up and most of the time exceeds the search volume you might receive from just the one keyword phrase.

What next? Well, now that we know there are many more variations of your original keyword, let’s look at your analytics to see what keywords have been receiving traffic that include “Sydney Hotels”.

Looking at keyword clusters already generating traffic

In your Google analytics account, venture down to your “Organic” search traffic section and select the “Advanced” button on the right hand side and “include” the keyword “Sydney”, and add a second “include” for the keyword “Hotel” (as we want both Hotel and Hotels to show up in our data).

After selecting “Apply” the data will be filtered to only show keywords that contain “Sydney” and “Hotel” that have generated traffic to your website.

In this particular case, even if the rankings for “Sydney hotels” weren’t ideal, we can still see that the website is generating traffic from a whole “cluster” of keywords that are derived from the original keyword phrase.
In this example, “Sydney hotels” generated 338 visits however the total visits generated by the rest of the keyword phrases in the keyword cluster was 8,236.

Why Tracking Keyword Clusters Is Essential

So why should you use keyword clusters rather than just focusing on single keyword phrase rankings? In simple terms, similar to an iceberg where 90% of the bulk is below the water line, targeting just a single keyword phrase means that you are missing out on valuable traffic and conversion opportunities.

A Better Benchmark

Over time, keyword phrase trends come and go, sometimes due to seasonality or economic or psychographic reasons. Tracking keyword clusters smooths out such variations. Also, there is less reason to panic if a specific keyword phrase temporarily drops a few places; you can gain some comfort in knowing that the rest of your keyword phrases in the clusters you are tracking are still working hard for you.

Less Competition

Longer keyword phrases are by their very nature less competitive. It does take a little more time and thought to target keyword clusters around your core keyword phrase, but once you have identified each cluster, inserting them into your content and link building activities is actually quite easy and will start becoming a natural part of your content marketing.

Higher Conversions

The longer a keyword phrase is, the closer customers are to making a decision and are ready to buy. Think of keyword clusters as qualifying questions in the sales process, allowing you to tailor your content to best fulfil your customers’ needs once they land on your website. So often we see keyword clusters outperform a specific keyword phrase when it comes to conversion, sometimes four or five times.

Micro Targeting

Related to conversions, creating pages for less competitive keyword phrases allows you to very specifically target extensions of your core keyword phrase. In a recent case, there was an increase in search activity around the keyword phrase “hotels in Sydney australia near the opera house” albeit not a whole lot of search volume, but very targeted nonetheless. Creating a simple page about the location of the hotel and its distance from the Opera House and perhaps some information about the Opera House would do wonders in increasing the visibility for this particular keyword phrase.

Higher Rankings For Your Core Keyword Phrase

Today, the Search Engines look not only for a specific keyword phrase but also evaluate the overall page for the “theme” of the content. Including related phrases within your content will also enhance the overall ranking for your core keyword phrase.

Summing Up

Keyword clusters that surround the obvious “core” keyword phrases as opposed to a list of separate keywords by themselves gives you a much better picture of your website’s overall performance for the myriad of variations that searchers use every day to find you – remember that every day, 25% of the searches have never been seen by the Search Engines before and that 61% of searches include three of more keywords. So, to get a real picture of your website visibility and a genuine benchmark for traffic and conversions, start developing your keyword clusters and start targeting them and watch your results grow.

The post Keyword Research – Working With Clusters appeared first on .

http://www.seoworks.com/specialists/retail-seo/

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With over 530 million views on YouTube and 4.5 million “likes” Gangnam Style has rocked the world with PSY’s unique and easy to learn dance moves. We take a look at how these moves can relate to Good as well as Bad SEO practices and the Search industry as a whole.

^{Image courtesy of News.com.au}

The Sunglasses

Bad: Some SEO’s may hide behind the glamour and mystery of search engine optimisation, promising how valuable it can be for a website but may not deliver the results you expected.

Good: An ethical SEO company would instead take off the sunglasses and be upfront and truthful about what they do, be honest about what their expectations are for their client’s website. SEO doesn’t have to be a mystery.

The Horse

Bad: As with the cowboys, some SEO’s may take your hard earned dollars and race away with them, leaving you and your website in their dust.

Good: For ethical search marketers, the horseback represents the constant feeling of being in a race. We compete with many other sites to get ours or our clients’ on top and when we are near the finish line that is when the race gets tougher.

The Cowboy

Bad: There are lots of cowboys out there in the industry, some are better than others and some may try to lasso you with their words and tricks.

Good: Being a cowboy might not be a bad thing all the time – there are always more lucrative keywords to nail and better rankings to achieve in the Wild Wild Web, and with our own tools and techniques tying them down is a lot easier.

The Finale

Bad: For some in the industry, they finish before they even get into the race – some give up or some apply unethical black hat techniques, provide quick and dirty results and then quit before your site gets penalised by Google.

Good: All ethical SEO’s know that their job is never finished – there is always room for improvement in rankings, traffic and conversions. The job of testing and learning is and will never be done. We are constantly researching, reading and finding better ways to help our clients succeed online.

Conclusions

Our be SMART think BIG act FAST measure ALL & have FUN philosophy makes SEO Works stand out from the crowd, just like Psy does. So, if you are looking for an ethical SEO company that still has all the right moves and is also fun to deal with, then the team at SEO Works is here to help…SEO Gangnam Style. Check out our SEO Genesis Plans and custom SEO Services today.

And for those of you who may have missed the video…

_{*Disclaimer: SEO Works has no commercial relationship with Psy or the hit single Gangnam Style - we just think he’s cool.}

The post Ethical SEO – Gangnam Style appeared first on .

After recent Google updates and algorithm shifts (e.g. Panda and in particular Penguin updates), webmasters around the world have been battling with the challenge of how to have any “unnatural links” pointing to their website removed, sometimes resulting in mass-email campaigns, pleading emails and even bribes to other webmasters requesting them to remove a dodgy link.

However, not every webmaster is as receptive as you would like them to be, often resulting in the offending links not being removed… very frustrating!

Stress no more (or less)! Matt Cutts, head of the Web Spam team at Google, announced today the release of a new feature in Google Webmaster Tools, the Disavow Links tool, now being progressively rolled out across the Google realm.

What Is It For?

The tool’s main target is webmasters whose sites received that “unnatural links” message in Google Webmaster Tools (you know, the one that starts with “Google Webmaster Tools notice of detected unnatural links to…” that instantly raises your heart rate to 200 beats per minute).

As per Google’s official blog post:

“If you’ve ever been caught up in linkspam, you may have seen a message in Webmaster Tools about “unnatural links” pointing to your site. We send you this message when we see evidence of paid links, link exchanges, or other link schemes that violate our quality guidelines. If you get this message, we recommend that you remove from the web as many spammy or low-quality links to your site as possible. This is the best approach because it addresses the problem at the root. By removing the bad links directly, you’re helping to prevent Google (and other search engines) from taking action again in the future. You’re also helping to protect your site’s image, since people will no longer find spammy links pointing to your site on the web and jump to conclusions about your website or business.”

So, if you have ever received one of these “unnatural links” notices and have done all you can to try and get these links removed, including, trying to reach the webmasters from the offending websites, the new disavow tool gives you the ability to let Google know that you don’t want certain links, or even entire websites that link to you, to be included in Google’s assessment of your site.

How Does It Work

Within your Google Webmaster Tools account you will soon find the new Disavow Links section which will ask you to select the website in question from the drop down menu.

The next step is straight forward, you are requested to upload a file that contain the URL’s or domains of the links that you want removed.

All that is required is a plain text file with one URL per line and allows for URL specific considerations and domain wide considerations.

Use the ‘#’ to add comments before a URL to explain and add comments regarding previous efforts in having these links removed.

Use “domain:thedomainyouwantremoved.com” to have all links from a domain disavowed.

Google has given the example of a disavow link text file below.

You Need To Be Careful

Matt Cutts has said that whenever this file is submitted it could take weeks before all the actual links are actually excluded from your websites assessment as Google requires to reindex and re-evaluate the links specified in your document.

As the disavowing process takes several weeks, if you make a mistake and accidently list sites that should not be disavowed, you are required to download your current disavow list, update the list and re-submit the list, which in turn will again take several weeks to be reassessed.

Google also noted that it will take the disavow file as a strong suggestion only but will make its own judgement as to whether or not a link should be disavowed.

In the Q&A, Cutts said that the disavow tool is much like the “nofollow” attribute, the attribute which allows sites to link to one another without passing credit.

For more frequently asked questions you can visit the official Google Webmaster Central blog post here http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/a-new-tool-to-disavow-links.html

We Can Help

If your website is affected by “unnatural links” or by questionable SEO techniques, contact SEO Works today. Our experienced Business Analysts will analyse your site and identify the links that are holding your website back and then recommend and implement the best SEO strategy to resolve your situation.

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Your website’s “link profile” is essentially how the World Wide Web sees your site. It encompasses the number of links that point to your site, what content they point at, where those links come from and how they have been created. From its very inception Google (and subsequently Bing/Yahoo) has used your link profile as the cornerstone of its ranking algorithm, but following recent updates to that algorithm, having the wrong link profile will not only fail to improve your search engine rankings…it will actively work against you.

A “natural” link profile is one that represents a good fit for your content, products and services. Essentially a profile that would exist even if search engines did not. In other words site owners are linking to and citing your content because it provides a valuable resource for their visitors.

Is your content link-worthy?

Now more than ever, the quality of your content is paramount. If your content is thin, poorly written or doesn’t engage the visitor they will not stay long on the page or navigate deeper into the site…and Google will notice*. Before undertaking any link building activity take a fresh look at your content. Is there a reason someone would want to link to it? Examine your analytics data…time on site, pages per visit and bounce rate are all key indicators. Address any technical issues e.g. slow page loading times as this can not only affect visitor behaviour but has been identified as a ranking signal as well.

Bottom line…if your content is not link-worthy you will never achieve a link profile that will enhance your Search Engine visibility, be it natural or otherwise.

It’s all about balance

In a perfect world every link that points to your site will be perfectly natural, high quality and unsolicited. Economic reality determines that savvy site owners are going to actively develop additional inbound links…and Google understands this. What’s important is that you achieve the right balance of incoming links, and especially between commercial and navigational links. A “commercial” link uses keyword-focussed anchor text e.g. “laptop repairs” while navigational links use less optimised anchor texts such as your brand name or domain name and point to pages such as your contact page etc.

Take a look at your linking data in Google Webmaster Tools (WMT)…if your brand name and URL aren’t near the top of the list for anchor text then you have cause for concern. Also you should aim for a good spread of anchor texts using related keywords. If you have an over-reliance on specific keyword links this can cause your site to rank poorly for those keywords. This is generally referred to as over-optimisation and when detected by Google can cause a ranking penalty to be applied.

Your link profile is not just about external (inbound) links. How you structure your internal links plays a role as well. Aim to achieve that same balance of commercial/navigational links when pointing from one page of your website to another.

Eliminate low quality links

If you have been actively link building for some time then righting the wrongs of the past isn’t going to be easy. Modifying or deleting a poor quality link from a site you don’t control will take some effort but will be worth it. There has been some discussion on Google implementing a function in WMT where you simply tell them to disregard a link, but despite Bing having introduced such a tool Google are yet to follow suit.

Take a long hard look at the links pointing at your site. Is the content of the linking page relevant to the page it links to? How many other links appear on that page? Does it use keywords or brand/URL links? Is the site high authority? Does the link have a reason for existing other than to boost your search engine rankings? Did you pay for the link?

By asking yourself those questions you will identify links that will either need to be removed or modified in order to achieve that natural link profile.

*Google has stated that they do not use Webmaster Tools data to determine rankings but state this on their analytics support page…

Bounce Rate: Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page. Bounce rate is a measure of visit quality and a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance (landing) pages aren’t relevant to your visitors.

Google want to deliver pages to their searchers which are relevant and engaging. It’s simply good sense to align your website’s goals with theirs.

Google’s Matt Cutts on effective techniques for building links…

Summing Up

Links have always been important to Google but with the recent algorithm updates, which change the way your pages and inbound links are evaluated, it’s time to take action and ensure you have the best natural link profile possible.

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The report also confirms Google’s position as the top dog of search in terms of both its search volume and search accuracy, with the UK search market reporting more than four times as many Google searches as Bing searches, and a Google search success rate of 91%. Bing’s success rate was a more hit-and-miss 76%.

Based on 28 million people making 1.4 billion search queries over July 2011 in the UK search market, it was also the first study in the country to examine click through rate (CTR) for both branded and non-brand search terms, and how this metric is influenced by natural search position and vertical.

Among other discoveries, the study found:

Branded vs. non branded clicks

For branded terms, most searchers are far more likely to click on the top three results in the SERPs. For non-brand terms, they are more likely to look beyond the first three.

Industry matters

If you’re selling flights, getting to the top of search results is more important than for any other vertical, with the first result attracting 78% of clicks, followed by just 11% for the next result and 4% choosing the third.  A similar distribution applied to the next two industries in the graph: broadcast media and finance/insurance, both of which attracted a 64% CTR on the first result. At the other end of the curve, software manufacturers saw 44% of users clicking on the top result, followed by 20% clicking the second, and 8% the third.

Gender and age bias

Women are slightly more likely to click paid search results than men, at 53% compared with 47% for males. PPC clicks also increase steadily with age, with just 11% of 18-24 year olds clicking paid results, rising to 21% for those in the 35-54 age bracket and 23% of searchers aged 55 or more.

To give you an idea of the scale of the study, the data analysed added up to 3.98 billion words (for an average of 2.84 words per search), the equivalent of 1.6 English language Wikipedias.

The study’s primary takeaway was that organic search visibility is critical to any online marketing campaign, and that while paid search can have some early impact, a good organic search result is much more important in the long run.

SEO Works offers an approach to SEO that combines expert application of tried-and-true rank building techniques with strategic targeting of “money” keywords that help ensure maximum return on your marketing dollar. Contact us if you would like to find out more about our services, and how your SEO can get the boost it needs.

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Backlinks should ideally come from quality, credible and trustworthy sites but what does this mean exactly and what sites should you avoid? The underlying premise of Search Engines is for websites to add value for visitors, become a valuable part of the online community and increase the online footprint for your company in a meaningful and positive way. Here are seven types of link spam you should avoid in your link building strategies.

Paid links

Google’s guidelines say that those who buy or sell links in a way meant to influence search results or artificially boost rankings may be penalised. Despite this, many companies such as JC Penney and Overstock hired companies who participated in paid link building schemes and their websites were penalised as a result. Companies such as BuildMyRank and iAcquire which bought paid links for clients (link spam) now have to rethink their business model.

Directories

Directories and in particular websites which enlist payment from subscribers can be construed as paid links. However, Matt Cutts clarifies the difference between a quality directory like Yahoo! Directory and other low quality directories as one which is more selective about the websites they list with sites needing to fulfil a pre-determined criteria. A lot of low quality directories will accept submissions from any website as long as they pay the nominated fee.

Blog networks are websites that allow paid subscribers to post their content to a network of sites for the sole purpose of building links. The articles usually had thinly disguised keyword-rich content that wasn’t meant to be read but was only written to include backlinks to websites. The Panda update put an end to a lot of these low quality sites – remember the end premise of a Search Engine is to add value to users.

Link farms

When the internet was in its infancy, a company could boost their rankings with backlinks from low quality sites. Link farms generally refer to third-party sites but some companies have also built a network of low-quality websites purely to create links back to their primary site. Today Google is more focused than ever on the quality not quantity of backlinks. Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz explains why link farms are not a good idea in this video.

Article marketing and media release syndication

This is another over-used tactic to boost the number of backlinks to a website. Again in theory, this could be a good strategy but if a website exists purely so that companies can get a link back to their website, this could be considered to be spam by Google. The same applies to syndication of media releases. Only send out newsworthy media releases that are likely to be posted on credible sites. Otherwise, it might cause more harm than good.

Footer or sidebar links

One of the links that Google appears to have identified as link spam are links in the footer of the page. These can be free or sponsored links. Unfortunately, it is very difficult for Google to identify between these legitimate links and links that are placed on a website to artificially boost your site rankings. Google much prefers links that are within the body of content because this is what they see as ultimately more valuable and relevant to users.

Link exchanges

A company may have a list of preferred or recommended suppliers and may list these on their website and their details may also be listed on their suppliers’ websites. This is a legitimate way of adding backlinks to your website which increase the usability of your website. However, if your website is listed on web pages that are not related to your industry and you have a similar page on your site, this may be considered to be link spam by Google.

SEO Works likes to improve results for clients by following the guidelines set by Google and other Search Engines. Our link development team have a proven record of working with clients from sole traders to large international companies to create a natural link profile with white hat SEO strategies. If your website has been penalised by the use of link spam or you are thinking of changing SEO companies, contact us today.

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Matt Cutts, the head of Web Spam at Google said in a recent interview with Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land at the SMX Advanced 2012 Conference that in ten year’s time, social signals will be stronger but not to discount the value of quality links just yet in your SEO plans. However, this is a clear shout out to the web community that it’s time to get social. Here is how you can improve your SEO social strategy so you don’t get left behind.

So what are social signals?

A social signal similar to a backlink in that it is like a ‘vote’ for your website and validation that your website is an important part of the online community. Social signals can be anything from a ‘Google Plus 1’, Facebook ‘likes’, Twitter ‘followers’ or people sharing your content. But not all social signals are created equally; more weight will be carried by websites with more ‘social authority’ such as those written by industry experts.

The rise and fall of backlinks

Backlinks were always considered a strong signal in Google’s Search Engine algorithms to boost the Search Engine rankings of websites. But for a few years now industry experts have suggested that Google is reducing the importance of links and slowly but surely shifting its focus to citations and social signals, supplementing and perhaps one day replacing links as a quality signal for their ranking algorithm. The recent Panda and Penguin algorithm updates seem to support this.

How do I increase my social online footprint?

With your SEO social strategy, you have two main goals; to increase the ‘social authority’ of your networks with social influences and help your social pages rank better. The foundation of any online marketing campaign is to provide quality content that people find stimulating, engaging and want to share with their online community. Content can include blog articles, polls, survey results, infographics and interviews. Other ways to increase your social footprint include:

• Increasing social involvement by providing social media buttons on your website that make it easy for visitors to share your content.
• Making your content easily shareable on your other online spaces so people can incorporate them on their own site for example including embed codes for videos.
• Asking open ended questions of your audience to encouragement engagement and interaction.
• Using brand names or keywords in posts – URLs that match search terms have a built in advantage for high SEO rankings on that search.
• Opening up blogs, video hosting accounts and other social media for comments to build a strong community of brand enthusiasts.
• Promote your social networks to increase your following and build your community.
• Becoming part of the online community and follow, comment and share material from thought leaders and others who have high social authority.
• Taking a cohesive approach to your SEO social strategy and include links to your social networks on your homepage, other social networks, media releases, articles and other communication tools.

These are just some of the ways your company can try and increase its social influence and ensure your social media and SEO strategy are working in unison. With social networking activities starting to impact search results, it’s important for businesses to start thinking seriously about the way they use social media. For other tips on how to develop a SEO social strategy, contact one of our consultants at SEO Works.

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Recent Google algorithm updates have been sending shockwaves through the web community. But if you’re doing all the right things and have created a solid site with original and quality content and a natural link profile which has been organically rising up the rankings, then you won’t have much to worry about. Here are ways to stay on the good side of Google and ensure that in the Search Engine’s war against spam, you’re the last one standing.

Follow Search Engine guidelines

Search Engines allow you to index your website for free. However, they ask that your website follows the guidelines they have set such as Google Webmaster Guidelines. White hat SEO in a nutshell is about techniques which fall within a Search Engine’s guidelines. When you have fallen outside of those policies and are seen to be spamming or manipulating Search Engine results, your website may be penalised or banned as a result.

Analyse your link building profile

One of the main problems that even high-profile ecommerce sites like JC Penney have encountered is that they have hired link building companies who used black hat SEO techniques to lift their rankings. Google has specified that the focus should be on natural link building profiles with backlinks from high quality, credible, trustworthy and relevant websites. Open Site Explorer by SEOmoz is a good starting point to analyse your link building profile.

Remove bad links

In theory, you cannot control what sites are pointing to your website but if you find a link from a website that you want removed, you can email the webmaster and ask them to remove it. A very bad sign is when there are no contact details on the website. It is a time consuming, cumbersome and ongoing process to clean your historical link building profile but it will be very rewarding in the end when you see your rankings return or a spike on the SERPs*.

Analyse your anchor text

Anchor text is the hyperlinked (underlined) part of links, both internal and external. Again, the key here is ‘natural’. Google wants to see a healthy and organic link profile with a variation of keyword-rich anchor text that reflects the content of the web page it is linking to. Don’t put all your links in one basket; Search Engines want to see a diversity of anchor text and links pointing to different pages on your website.

Review your content

In recent Google algorithm updates, the Search Engine is heavily pushing their ‘content is king’ mantra and cracking down on content theft such as duplication, content spinners and scraping. The underlying premise of search is to improve usability for visitors. One of the key ways to do this is by including original, interesting and engaging content. But unknowingly, you may be raising the ire of Search Engines. Here are a few things to watch out for:

• Keyword spamming has always been a point of contention. The keywords used in the on-page optimisation need to reflect the content on the page and used in a natural and organic way.
• Duplicated content can also be an issue for some sites and for some organisations, and businesses, this cannot be avoided. But what you can do is index one of the pages in question on your site and noindex the low value page or add a rel=canonical tag.
• Websites scraping your content can also be a point of contention. Use programs like Copysentry (the premium version of Copyscape) which monitors the web and emails you when they spot plagiarism.
• As above, watch the use of anchor text in internal links. This has been a recent focus on Google algorithm updates. The Search Engine wants to see varied anchor text across your website.

Limit the number of ads above the fold

In February 2012 Google announced an algorithm update that affected sites that don’t have much content and too many advertisements above the fold** You can use Google’s Browser Size tool, among many others, to see how your website would look under different screen resolutions. In light of this change, if your website is ad-heavy, you may have to change your page layout and bring more visible content above the fold.

Monitor your website

It’s important to track your rankings – especially the keywords that are in the first page of the SERPs*. Then you will notice if you’re rankings have dropped or equally as alarming is where you have had a huge influx of traffic which can also arouse the suspicion of Google. In addition, Google may send you a message via Webmaster Tools so if you’re not checking your account, you may not get a head’s up from them about your rankings drop.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

The underlying message in all this stated by leading SEO expert Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land is not to put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify your online marketing strategies so traffic is driven from different sources and you’re not relying solely on Search Engines. SEO is one of the most cost-effective internet marketing strategies but it’s also about building your brand through public relations, advertising and social media marketing.

There is little coincidence that Google chose the names Penguin and Panda for the Google algorithm updates. As we always say in SEO, there is only black and white, there are no shades of grey when it comes to following Search Engine guidelines. SEO Works is part of Internet Intelligence Works, a full-service internet marketing agency. Contact us if you would like to find out more about the services we offer and remember it’s a jungle out there.

*Search Engine Results Pages

**The part of your website a visitor can see before they need to scroll down further.

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If you have been on the receiving end of one of Google’s Dear John emails and you have a penalised or banned site, you’re not alone. But don’t worry, it’s only a break not a total break up. If your site has been penalised, Google may send “manually generated” warnings via Google Webmaster Tools. But they are not always so gracious. Sometimes your rankings may drop and you may not know exactly why. Here are tips to clean up your act.

Wait and see

Don’t panic! Rankings will change slightly every day. You may see a dip in your rankings now and again but if there is a significant drop, you may have a problem on your hands. Firstly, check if your website is banned altogether by doing a site search by typing in– site:www.yoursite.com and see if Google returns any results. If your website returns page listing, your website is not banned but it may be penalised.

Read more about why your website may have been penalised in our article ‘Banned from Google – What Now?’.

Carefully read Google’s quality guidelines

If you have a penalised or banned site, you need to refresh your knowledge of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and ascertain why you may in breach of those policies. The Search Engine clearly outlines its terms of use and provides information about how web developers can create a Google-friendly site. Matt Cutts, Google’s head of web spam has spoken out in favour of SEO saying that is not spam and there is even an SEO Starter Guide provided.

Make the necessary changes to your site

Google will usually notify you if your site has been penalised*. But if your rankings have dropped significantly, you will have to clean up your site. You may know you have done something naughty such as employing a company that uses black hat SEO techniques and thus, you will need to undo all the ‘not so good work’ you have had done to your site. If you do not know why your website has been penalised, here are the key elements to look at:

• Analyse your link building campaigns and see if any low value websites are linking to your website. Email the webmasters and ask them to remove the link.
• Look at the anchor text that you are using in your internal and external link building. Vary the keywords in the anchor text so that they are not too keyword-rich.
• Review your content and look for instances of keyword stuffing and duplicated or scraped content. Rewrite the copy so the keywords are inserted more naturally and the content is original.
• Examine your web design – Google is penalising websites that are ad-heavy and have less actual content above the fold (the part of the website a visitor sees before they have to scroll down the page).
• Take this moment to review your site in entirety and see whether there are any other potential SEO problems that may raise their ugly head.

Read more in our article ‘Penguins, Pandas And Polar Bears – How Not To Get Bitten By The Google Algorithm Updates’.

Submit a request for reconsideration

Matt Cutts has said that some sites were penalised unfairly by the Penguin update. If you really believe your site was, you can file a report as explained here. Otherwise, if you have been caught spamming Google or engaging in black hat SEO techniques, login to your Google Webmaster tools account and submit a re-inclusion request. Be honest and upfront about what you have done to receive the penalty and how you have made amends.

Following is a video by Google on tips on requesting consideration.

Start off fresh with a new domain

For sites with an established brand presence, this is clearly not an option. But Matt Cutts has said on the record in an interview with Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land, that if you’ve cleaned your site and it still hasn’t recovered its rankings, ultimately, you might need to start all over with a fresh site ie new domain name. Danny says that is a very last resort approach and gives a few suggestions on how to relaunch your site:

• Launch the new site entirely independently of the old one (host IP, WHOIS, new content).
• Don’t link the new site and penalised or banned site together.
• Don’t add 301 redirects from the old site to the new site as it is not known how the penalty is carried across at this stage.
• Don’t cross domain canonical unless you have a safe testing ground to validate that the penalty is not transferred.
• Don’t associate the sites via Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics.
• Assume you’ll need to submit “updates” to any linking text in old guest posts.

Monitor your website

Google Webmaster Tools is a great toolset for webmasters to use to monitor their sites. You need to check your rankings regularly to see where there has been a huge rankings drop or equally as alarming, whether you have had a traffic spike. In addition, Google may send you a message via Webmaster Tools so if you’re not checking your account, you may not get a head’s up from them about your rankings drop.

Even big names such as JC Penney, Overstock and BMW websites have been penalised as a result of hiring unethical companies who used black hat SEO techniques to artificially boost their rankings. At SEO Works, we use white hat SEO techniques and play nicely with Google to help your websites rank organically and naturally. If you have a penalised or banned site, contact us today so we can help you recover your lost rankings and ultimately your online revenues.

*If you have a clean site (no adult, gambling or such) and are using Google Webmaster Tools, you will receive a notification saying it has been penalised.

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Whether you have been optimising your site for a few months or a few years, it doesn’t take long to get stuck in a routine. While developing regular optimisation habits are good, you can easily make the mistake of falling into a rut and becoming complacent about your Search Engine rankings. Before you know it, your SEO strategies are out of date and rankings are starting to slip as a result. Here are seven ways to breathe back life into a stale SEO campaign.

Freshening up your keywords

As search evolves, so should the keywords that your target market uses to look for companies such as yours on the web. Your keyword strategy may have been current and on-point a few years ago but they can quickly become outdated. Make sure your keywords are refreshed every six months and don’t forget to take into account seasonal trends. You may also want to expand your keyword portfolio. Keyword research tools include:

• Premium tools such as WordTracker and Keyword Discovery
• Free tools such as Google Keyword Research Tool
• Surveying clients, customers and suppliers
• Analysing social media chat
• Asking clients for a list of keywords relevant to their business
• Google Analytics and other web analytics tools
• Focus groups and usability tests
• Competitor analysis
• Thesaurus to find synonyms for keywords for SEO strategies.

Revisiting link building campaigns

A link audit is necessary at least every year to see whether you are within the Search Engine’s guidelines especially in light of Google algorithm changes like Google Panda and whether there are weaknesses or gaps in your link building campaigns. Check if you have any inbound links that may be damaging to your site’s rankings as well as looking for new link building opportunities such as new directories or subject specific blogs or online media that have sprung up.

Reworking your online copy

Every business should revamp their website content regularly and undertake and end-to-end review every year. Check whether the content on your site is current and still accurate, whether there is duplicated content which needs to be rewritten and whether there are more opportunities to add content such as a company blog or a news and views page. In light of algorithm changes by Google, in some cases, you may also have to de-optimise your copy by reducing keyword frequency and evaluate the use of keywords and anchor text in your internal linking.

Brainstorming interesting article ideas

After a while, you may find it difficult to come up with interesting and relevant article ideas. But who says that this is solely your responsibility? Share the love around and generate ideas from different sources such as asking your clients and customers what they would like to read about and requesting staff members volunteer article ideas. You can also feature guest posts from leading practitioners and thought leaders in your industry.

Increasing your social influence

A website’s social influence is starting to play a more influential role in increasing your Search Engine rankings, with backlinks rumoured to play a lesser role in SEO strategies. Social signals include Google+1’s, Facebook ‘likes’ and shares and Twitter ‘followers’, ‘tweets’ and ‘retweets’. When these come from significant, trusted and authoritative sources, it is seen as validation of your website’s quality, enhancing your rankings.

Tweaking your technical infrastructure

You can take baby steps to improve the technical infrastructure of your website such as fixing broken links and optimising images to make your site faster through to making major changes such as changing your hosting company or plan to improve site speed. Analysis of your website’s technical infrastructure includes looking at the quality of coding, the hosting environment and speed of the site, the IP address, robots.txt file, sitemap structure and URL/filename naming.

Fine-tuning your on-page optimisation

With all the hype about Google’s latest algorithm updates, it is easy to forget about the basics that are needed to get high rankings. This includes on-page optimisation such as your title tags, meta description tags, headings, body copy, anchor text and ALT (alternative) text for images. Ideally each web page should target a particular keyword – this helps Search Engines understand what the page is all about and index it accordingly.

As we always say, SEO is not a set it and forget it online marketing strategy. With Search Engines constantly making algorithm changes, you need to have one finger on the Search Engine pulse and another on the mouse continually optimising your website. At SEO Works, we are constantly watching webinars, listening to podcasts and attending conferences to keep up to date with industry changes and pass this knowledge onto you with our SEO strategies.

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Like any new relationship, when you hire an SEO company, you have to give them a chance. SEO is not immediately gratifying – it can take weeks or even months for a new website or page to appear on the SERPS*. And with SEO, you’re definitely in it for the long haul as it’s a long-term strategy and not a one-night stand. But if you find yourself in one or all of the following situations, it might be time to call it a day.

They never return your phone calls

When they were trying to woo you, they rang you constantly but now you’re in a fully-fledged professional relationship with them, they never return your phone calls and the romance has gone. This is a very bad sign. An SEO company should continue to court you and arrange dates to meet with you to give you progress reports. For a relationship to flourish and prosper, communication, an open door policy and honest dialogue is important.

They make you feel second best

Regardless of your budget or what SEO package you choose, an SEO consultancy should always make you feel that you are the most important person/client in their life. Not returning phone calls (see above) may not be a sign of pure laziness, the SEO analyst might be overburdened by work and not be able to give you the love you know you deserve. When first hiring an SEO expert, ask them how many clients they are looking after.

They are cheating on you

While you cannot expect an SEO agency to have a purely monogamous business relationship with you, what you can and should insist on is that they do not work with any similar companies within your particular sector. For example if an SEO firm is working with your company servicing and you service a local region, then there may be a conflict of interest to be working with another similar company targeting the same region – they should at least discuss the issue with you and allow you to decide what you would like to do.

They are all style and no substance

You may have fallen for the glossy marketing materials, the Colgate smiles and the smooth sales pitch but now you’ve working with an SEO expert, you may find that they can’t live up to their copywriting or link building. While you can’t easily ask exes to rate their former partners, before hiring an SEO firm, you can ask their existing clients what they really think of them and pray they will be candid and honest about their shortcomings.

They are letting themselves go

Let’s face it, there may come a time when your SEO company just doesn’t do it for you anymore. You’ve had the ‘talk’ with them, given them time, a lot of chances and nothing has changed. Your rankings keep on slipping and it’s starting to affect your revenue. We’ve all been there, staying too long in a relationship when it’s bad for you. But if your SEO agency can’t deliver the results you want and the spark is gone, give them the flick.

They are asking you to be a little too adventurous in the boardroom

A little adventure can make a budding partnership exciting but if an SEO consultancy is trying to enhance your performance in the boardroom with black hat SEO techniques, you may want to rethink whether this union is right for your company’s future success. It’s good to be taken out of your comfort zone but if your agency wants to use techniques to spice up your SEO strategy that make you feel uncomfortable, then show them the door.

You’ve evolved and they haven’t

When you are first starting out in business, you want your significant SEO other to grow with you but if you find that you know more about search techniques than your SEO company, then sadly, it might be time to move on. An SEO agency might have been suited to your needs and budget when you began your company but as you have developed your business, it might be time to trade up to a more experienced online marketing company.

Breaking up with your SEO company is a hard conversation to have but your traffic, lead generation and sales leads rely on SEO done well. Even worse, if you have fallen for a bad boy (or bad girl) and hired an unethical SEO firm, your website may even be penalised.

But at SEO Works, we think that nice guys finish first and only use well-researched, tested white hat SEO techniques to help our client’s websites accelerate through the rankings. If you are looking for a new SEO company to optimise your website, please contact one of our consultants today – our first “date” may be just what you are looking for..

*Search Engine Results Pages

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If you have been reading about SEO, you would have most likely come across the term ‘backlinks’ – this is when an external website is linking back or pointing to your website. A link from a trusted, relevant website is like a ‘vote’ for your site – ‘votes’ from quality or “authority” websites that are relevant to the theme of your website, the higher your rankings will be. Find out more about backlinks and the important role they play in increasing your website’s Search Engine visibility.

Why are backlinks important?

Your link building profile is one of the most influential signals in Search Engine algorithms. When ranking your website for certain keywords, Search Engines look at the number and quality of websites that link back to your site. Ideally, you want incoming links from sites that have high-authority but also have high relevancy such as government bodies, industry organisations and subject specific sites.

What are quality backlinks?

Decades ago, a website would just need to have any kind of links pointing to their website to improve their Search Engine ranking. Now particularly in light of Google’s recent algorithm changes, a website linking to your site now ideally should be high-authority, credible and trustworthy. Of course you cannot control who links back to your site but it is something to take note of when planning your link building campaigns.

How to build a natural link profile

Search Engines want to see a link profile that is built naturally over time. If a Search Engine believes that you are trying to increase links to your website by methods outside of their webmaster guidelines, they may get suspicious and your website may be penalised as a result. Companies penalised by Google for unethical link building campaigns include JC Penney and Overstock. Tips to creating a natural link building profile include:

• Focus on creating quality content that other websites naturally want to link back to.
• Build relevant and authoritative links slowly over months rather than weeks. You don’t want to arouse the suspicion or the ire of Search Engines.
• Use a variation of anchor text (the underlined text that is clickable – also known as a hyperlink) in your backlinks. The anchor text should reflect the content on the page but don’t over-commercialise the anchor text with too many keyword-rich links.
• Have a blend of internal and external links as well do follow and no follow links on web pages.
• A natural link profile will also be linking out to other authoritative websites.

Read more about ten link building strategies you can implement on your website.

Search Engines put a lot of emphasis on off-page optimisation and consider it one of the major factors in website ranking. At SEO Works, we have a large team of experienced Link Development Analysts who can assist you with your link building as part of an overall SEO campaigns. If you would like to know more about backlinks and our Link Building Services, included as part of our SEO packages, please contact one of our consultants today.

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How do you judge which is the top SEO company in Australia? Review their very own SEO results of course…

Check out the table below…as you can see it seems pretty clear that if you want at least twice as many keyword phrases on Page 1 and 2 or 3 times as many top 3 listings as your competitors, then SEO Works is the top SEO company for you…

Methodology

We started with the Google Adwords Keyword Research Tool and picked the top keyword phrases searched for over the preceding 90 days related to either “SEO” or “Search Engine Optimisation.

We then added in some key geographic locations around Australia (generally used by searchers to refine their searches across most market segments) for the terms “SEO” and “Search Engine Optimisation”…

…also in reverse order giving a total of 50 keyword phrases targeted by top SEO companies.

The next stage involved selecting every website that turned up in the first three pages of Google for these keyword phrases (there were 96 SEO-related websites that had at least one mention in the SERP’s). Then using independent SEO software – Advanced Web Ranking (AWR) by Caphyon – we recorded how many pages each top SEO company had appearing in:

• first place
• the top three listings
• the top five listings
• on page one
• within the first two pages
• within the first three pages

AWR then calculates an SEO Visibility Score by first assigning a number of points to each of the first 30 positions, as follows:

• Position 1 = 30 points
• Position 2 = 29 points
• Position 30 = 1 point
• Positions below 30 have 0 points.

A Visibility Score is then determined by the sum of the points given to an URL by each search engine.

The Visibility Percentage is then determined by the sum of Visibility Scores from all the search engines divided by the maximum number of points that the search engines can provide.

* This data was last updated on 1 June 2012. Search engine results can and do vary over time.

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June 2012 appeared first on .

SEO is Not Spam – stated by Matt Cutts. Although we and other ethical professionals in the SEO have known this for many years, it has now been made ‘official’ by the Search Engine giant. SEO has long suffered a public relations problem due to a small number of companies acting unethically but the Google spokesperson has dispelled the misconception that SEO has no legitimacy or authenticity.

Google has long supported white hat SEO with the publication of their Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, their Help Articles and Webmaster videos. White hat SEO is traffic built in a natural and organic way in accordance with Search Engines guidelines and vice versa, black hat SEO is when techniques are employed which are not within the specified procedures. This may result in a website being penalised or even banned.

In this 4-minute Webmaster video from Matt Cutts, he dismisses the comments that Search Engine Optimisation is spam, and touches on some of the basics of white hat or ethical SEO practices.

The Google expert says there are a lot of valid things that SEO experts do from deciding on the initial site technical infrastructure to optimising your site to get the most return on investment and getting ‘more bang for your buck’. The whole premise behind SEO is improving the search experience for users and SEO companies Matt Cutts says that Search Engines to find and index pages better. These white hat SEO practices include:

• Visibility – an SEO consultant can help you with making your pages visible or accessible to Search Engines so their robots can easily crawl over the site. This assists in indexing your pages as quickly as possible to be able to return these results to users and improve the integrity of search results.

• Keywords – SEO experts can point you in the right direction to use keywords you should be thinking about. You may use industry jargon to describe your product offerings but an SEO expert can help you drill down and put a shortlist of keywords together that people use to find products and services like yours.

• Useability – an SEO company can help make sure the design of the site is attractive to both users and for Search Engines. It’s an exercise in futility if your website has high visibility and low useability. All that will happen is that visitors will bounce off your site and move onto your competitor’s or another site that is easy to navigate.

• Site speed – an SEO company can help you improve your page speed. Not only does Google use site speed in their ranking algorithms but if you can make your site run faster, that can make it a much better experience for visitors. Not only does it equate to higher useability, a faster site also saves money on operating costs.

Now that we know that SEO is not spam, Matt Cutts still advises that you still have to be careful when choosing your SEO company to partner with you in your internet marketing campaigns. SEO Works is one of Australia’s leading SEO companies and we have built our business on a foundation of transparency and honesty. Contact us today and find out how we can enhance the optimisation of your site through white hat SEO.

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