Friday, December 17, 2010

SEO Professional Services Will Turn to Social Media for Help

Microsoft Corporation made an announcement this week that they will be using more info from social media websites in their search results on Bing. With these types of changes coming, SEO Professional Services will turn to social media more than ever to help promote traffic for websites. Getting SEO right on your social media sites will be as important as ever.

SEO firms, like our own SEO Experts Australia, will be looking to find ways to incorporate key search terms into their overall communications via social media services. Even in small microblogs (i.e. those 140 character tweets) can and should contain keywords that you are using to drive traffic on search engines. SERP's will be including those items now.

Let's say for a moment that my keywords for my website are "SEO professional services." I could send a short message like this across Twitter: "SEO professional services get boost from social media on Bing." This type of phrase not only stands a good chance of being picked up for the Bing reference, but also for the keywords."

That same set of keywords could also be included in a status message on a site like Facebook: "Looking at the article on how SEO professional services are getting help from Bing's decision to start including social media in search engine results. This is big." Obviously, the same can be done on sites like Tumblr, LiveJournal, etc., that allow for articles.

In addition to setting keywords in micro blogs, status messages, and articles, you will also want to have keywords in your naming conventions for your social sites. For example, our Twitter account to follow SEO Experts Australia is @seoaus2010, which picks up on the fact we do SEO, and we are from Australia. Our Facebook Page is called SEO Experts Australia also, playing off the keywords.

SEO professional services around the world will be taking big advantage of this change by Bing. Other groups will follow. That's our take on it.

Johnny Smoes

SEO Experts Australia

Friday, December 10, 2010

Do You Have an SEO Specialist?

Do you have an SEO specialist that you work with on behalf of your website? You should, and I hope to convince you of that fact. Even if you know a fair bit about search engine optimization, you will need someone to mentor you and your skills. This is the role of the SEO Specialist for your company.

We share a lot of basic knowledge here on SEO Experts Australia. That’s because we believe that certain types of SEO services should be available to all. So, we spend a great deal of time sharing with our readers about the latest trends in the industry, and SEO tips and tricks that can help you get your website noticed.

The problem is, it is almost impossible for us to share everything we know. It’s not some secret black hat SEO kind of thing at all. It involves the ability we have, through years of being an SEO specialist, that helps us interpret data received. It also helps us design implementation plans that work.

Not every customer has the time to watch analytical data for a website all the time. That is where you need someone to who is an SEO Specialist to work with even on a part time basis. SEO Professional Services are available at all kinds of levels, for different size businesses.

Consider the role of an SEO Specialist as a mentor to your efforts to build traffic to your website. We would be happy to work with anyone on any size level.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

SEM changes fast, for sure. How to keep pace?http://ping.fm/k2pJS

Choose only the best of SEO services for your online venture

Whether it’s for a business venture or an online project based in Australia, you should always endeavour to choose only the best of SEO services in Australia to ensure best results from your Social Media Optimisation campaign.

So, what are the key things to look for when searching for a seo/ SMO service?

Look for a company with a proven track record, preferably one with testimonials from other clients. A good Social Media Optimisation firm will not do a slapdash job, but will take time to understand your business, your customers, your short term objectives and your long term goals. They may also offer to optimise your website content, add more relevant links, and make it more business oriented under the umbrella of their SEO services in Australia. A goal-oriented SMO campaign will seek to get more and more visitors and convert them into customers. This in turn would generate more business and ultimately more sales.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

SEO Conferences with SEO Experts

Search Engine Optimization related meetings and conferences are becoming the rage. They are not just for SEO Experts alone anymore. So, I wanted share a little of my thoughts and opinions on SEO Conferences. I guarantee mate, if we leave Victoria to go to a conference, it needs to be a good one.

On the face of things, and based on the part of the world that you live in, I would say that going to a conference is OK. Many of the web forums and blogs I read would tend to agree. It can be great to interact with other SEO Experts.

On another level, these conferences can be good because the industry is changing almost daily anymore. As the big engines like Google try to improve their processes, it causes all of us that work on search engine optimization to constantly be on our toes for techniques that no longer work.
Many SEO Experts are also very easy to talk to, and are glad to discuss issues with anyone. So, while you are at a conference session of one of your favorite bloggers or seo experts, take a break and talk to them. Introduce yourself, tell them what you do, and comment about their work. Don’t be afraid to ask some challenging questions also. Many SEO Experts learn this way also. Just because you are considered a pro in your industry does not mean that some other guy won’t have a good idea.

You may also find yourself sitting next to people in speaking sessions that you need to meet. You could find yourself sitting with the CEO of a company, or a marketing director for a large corporation. These could become important contacts later down the road. I know I have met many clients at the conferences I have done here in Australia.

Take all the information in you can. Carry plenty of business cards, and don’t be afraid to give them out. That’s my take on it.

Johnny Smoes is an IT Programmer and SEO Experts with SEO Experts Australia.com.au, an Australian based company that specializes in SEO in Australia, Asia, and Europe. Johnny often does conferences on SEO, and writes about the subject of SEO frequently. You can reach him at http://ping.fm/R4mi3 or @seoaus2010 on Twitter.

Friday, October 22, 2010

The Basic of SEO

SEO stands for search engine optimization. We optimize websites, in order to make them easily found by the major search engines. We constantly strive to make our website more attractive by also improving parts of the website, in order to increase the traffic a website gets from search engines. There are a lot of different parts to this puzzle. But they all have this basic goal in mind. We want to get people to the website. And the truth of the matter is that search engines really control the information most often found on the Internet. If it can’t be found, it can’t be shared.
SEO is different, though, than website conversions. The process of conversion involves getting people to “do something”, while they are on your website. Perhaps you want the people who visit your website to buy something, or leave an email in a contact form. This is a whole different subject from search engine optimization. In fact, a great deal of the techniques used to capture material from website visitors can be less than helpful to the process of making the website search engine optimized.
The whole Internet system is held together by links. It is how we get from one place to another. Sometimes, we know the link , and can just type it in. For the rest of the time, we simply have learned to rely on the information provided to us by search engines. Search engines go out and collect information on websites, and present it back to the user in an organized fashion, called “search results.” We get these results by typing in words that describe what we want to find. In the industry, those words are called keywords, because they become key in helping us find our information.
The vast majority of all traffic comes from three search engines: Google, Bing and Yahoo. We depend upon these search engines to provide information about our website to the world. The better we can do this, by understanding the rules of play, the better our website will be found.
The cold hard truth is that your website will not be found easily by just putting it out there. In fact, you may never get any visitors. If you choose to ignore the need for search engine optimization for your website, you will be spending a lot of time trying to get the word out. You may also then have to settle for paying the search engine people to advertise your web site.
If you would like to get some temporary, or more ongoing, help from an SEO Expert, we would like the chance to talk to you. In the meantime, we invite you to continue to follow our blog, and learn about search engine optimization techniques with us at SEO Experts Australia.

Johnny Smoes is an IT Programmer and Principle with SEO Experts Australia, a company that specializes in SEO. You can visit Johnny's website and get a chance to talk to an SEO Expert. You can also reach him at @seoaus2010 on Twitter.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Class apart SEO Services in Australia

Internet marketing is a very efficient and low cost way of securing attention and interest of your business prospects. Per se, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a comprehensive service that includes every trick in the book to garner better ranking in search engine result pages across top search engines. Be it Google, MSN Bing or Yahoo, an internet market consultant provides SEO professional services to achieve optimized web presence.

You can expect all professional SEO professional services to take care of every SEO need applicable. The services undertake everything from tweaking the structure of your website (to render it hospitable to the ‘crawlers’ of all top search engines) to running projects like Pay Per Click (PPC), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Email marketing and Social Media Marketing for your website. An Australian internet marketing consultant in specific offers free consultation to identify your online business goals and suggest suitable strategy to increase brand awareness and more qualified clicks to translate into more business.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Keyword Density and Placement

Keyword density and placement is a topic that is becoming very popular these days. There are many SEO Experts that think that keyword density is not even an issue, or at least it is a small issue. So, I wanted to dedicate this edition of the blog to my take on the issue of keyword density and placement.
First off, key placement is easy to deal with, from my opinion. You have to get your keywords into articles, titles, meta-tags and meta descriptions on your website. They also need to be used in meaningful ways. You have to place the keywords in and around rock solid content for your website, unless you are using them in the title. Spamming the keywords does not work well. So, if you are going to write content, make sure you are placing keywords often. I try to have my big keywords in at least every other article I add.
So, let’s talk of density for a bit. The search engines are not currently using a metric that includes keyword density. Yet, the use of well placed keywords can make a difference. Here is the question you may want to ask yourself: “ in relation to the use of my keywords, have I covered all aspects of the topic on my website, in my blog, on my information pages?” If you can answer yes to this question, then you probably don’t need to cram more keywords in. If your answer is no, then you need to add more keywords. A good rule of thumb, for me, has always been to use a 3% or less keyword density. Most of the time, you can thoroughly cover a topic in that amount of keywords. I don’t freak out, though, if I need to use the keywords more than that, to get things to make sense. Search Engine Optimization strategies will not fall apart because I used my keyword one too many times.
I do, however, feel it is important to use keywords in Titles. Getting your keywords in your title can really help to get the article noticed. Then, the good content of the article will only help to drive the overall SEO for the whole article. Subtitles are also a good place to get keywords hidden. This is an old SEO Expert trick that still pays dividends. Not all titles yield to the use of certain keywords. However, witty little subtitles often do, and can help to get the article noticed.
Johnny Smoes is an IT Programmer and Principle with SEO Experts Australia, a company that specializes in search engine optimization. He frequently writes about the topic of SEO here, and in other publications. You can reach him at SEOExpertsAustralia.com.au or @seoaus2010 on Twitter.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Valuable SEO from Social Media Sites

Social media is becoming more valuable every day. There is so much that a website marketer can do with a good social media campaign. But some people forget about the valuable SEO Expert style help that you can get from a good social media website.
One of the best things that social media websites do for the SEO of your website is that they allow you to link directly back to your website. Many of the sites will also allow “do follow” style links, but that is not the biggest benefit. The big benefit is that search engines find other valuable sites linked back to us, so our website gets some credit. In a more practical fashion, people can follow those links directly to your website. Be your own SEO Consultant, and make sure you take advantage of those opportunities to link directly back to your website.
Another great advantage to social media sites is that they can help you with SERP control. SERP is an acronym for “search engine results page.” In this sense, we are talking about trying to control the top 10 organic results for our keywords. On every search engine result page, there are 10 free returns; not just the paid links.
SERP’s will often make use of social media connections. So, sites like Facebook and Twitter can help you dominate the top ten results for your keywords. There are some things, though, that you have to be willing to do, in order to get this help. You have to be willing to be engaged in the social media site. Spend some time interacting with people, and providing good information to folks. Just spamming these sites with useless junk, or just constantly asking people to buy something will not give you the results you’re seeking.
One good way to help provide quality content to these social media sites is to connect them to any articles or blogs you are writing. Every time we add a new article to the SEO Experts Australia Blog, we also have a tweet go out on Twitter, and a post go out on Facebook, so a larger variety of people can take advantage of reading the information we provide on search engine optimization here.
Following some of these simple ideas can really turn social media sites into SEO machines for your website also. Just remember: participate in the site a little. It will have big dividends in the long hall.

Johnny Smoes is an IT Programmer and Principle with SEO Experts Australia.com.au, a company has specialized in search engine optimization for years. He frequently writes about the subject of doing good SEO. You can reach him at SEOExpertsAustralia.com.au or @seoaus2010 on Twitter.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

SEO Optimization is Vital for Ensuring the Success of Your Online Business

SEO optimization is vital in ensuring the success of any online venture today. In order to ensure that your website is visible (that is searchable on the various search engines) to the Internet users, you would need the services of an SEO company in Australia or elsewhere.

The Search Engine Optimization or SEO company you hire must possess rich experience in the industry and a proven track record of success. The SEO firm should also ensure guaranteed results with the help of its team of SEO experts. The SEO consultants working with the company should have a thorough understanding and practical knowledge of all the aspects of SEO, SMM, PPC, and SEM etc. The company should also provide dedicated customer support, report and account management.

There are various reliable SEO consultants such as SEO Experts Australia who offer their services to companies throughout Australia. Their services can be availed by the businesses operating outside Australia as well!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Boost your web presence with SEO Services

In today’s web-enabled age, almost everybody turns to the internet to search for any product, service or information. Most people, however, do not go beyond the first page of the search engine results. So, if you want your website to grab the attention of the target audience, you need to be on that first page. That is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services come in to the picture.

Search engines list sites for free, but SEO services help you get to the top of the search listings.

What an SEO company effectively provides is to increase the brand visibility, ensuring higher recall and credibility. Executed effectively, they can help generate massive increase in traffic, besides an improved search profile. Potentially, this means a higher sales and more revenue.

A cost-effective marketing tool, it is often said that having a higher search engine rank beats the best of advertising campaigns. SEO company services offer great Return On Investments (ROI) with enduring results.

Monday, September 13, 2010

SEO services for improved web presence

Search Engine Optimisation services marketing is a highly efficient means of spreading brand awareness (and generating business leads) – all at a cost that is just a fraction of the investment required in a conventional advertisement procedure. However, like every specialised practice, SEO is a complex task that requires adept understanding and professionals to handle the helm of affairs. If Asian countries have held on to the prominence by virtue of their cost-effective services as internet marketing consultants and SEOs, SEO services in Australia are the emerging names that promise for a better presence for businesses on web.

SEO or search engine optimization services include multifarious aspects – starting from analysing your current standing in the World Wide Web to suggesting steps to make your website friendlier to the search engine ‘crawlers’ and human users. SEO experts help you in optimizing your website for improved prominence and more clicks translating into more business.

An Australian internet marketing consultant will help you set up your online strategy that makes your site found and referred.

So, if an effective website is what you need, you should take the help of internet marketing consultants. And, if you are in need of experts in SEO, Australia is the place to check for a help.

Monday, September 6, 2010

http://ping.fm/h4HET Google ramping up Speech Recognition Technology

Sunday, September 5, 2010

SEO Testimonials

The SEO value of testimonials is an often misinterpreted principle. As a general rule, people who own their own website grasp the value of comments. It is someone saying that they love your stuff. With any luck, those people will tell other people about the website. The real contest, though, comes from finding strategies to make this happen regularly.

The first thing that someone can do to help build good testimony for their website is to produce a simple video. The video should outline the product or service, and then define how that particular product or service was able to help solve some particular situation. The overall goal of the video is to be helpful. Post the video to places like Youtube and Metacafe. Make sure that you place links to your website.

In videos like this, it is good to not be too glitzy. Give a unbiased testimony about how the product or service can help. You can consider doing the testimony yourself, or you can get others to do it for you. The trick here is to not make the video look like a professional production. Slick graphics, video effects, and the like can make people distrust the testimony.

A second step that anyone can do to help build testimonials to do them for other websites. One might think that this is counterproductive, but it is not. As you give good comments to others, they will be more apt to give good testimony back. A brief request for comments exchange can also happen at a later time, after the process is already started. People respond to kind, genuine offers to help mutually build business. You just have to be willing to give a little first.

In this circumstance, it is most often probable between people who do not compete for business. The products or services need to be relevant, though. For example, our company has traded testimonials with other companies that write quality content for websites. In exchange, they have shared comments about our company’s ability to do quality search engine optimization. The businesses of quality website content and search engine optimization go together hand and glove, as it were.

Finally, comment trades can also take place between companies that do business in different geographic regions. A company doing business in Australia, for example, could develop a relationship with a company in Japan. As long as there is mutual benefit, both can benefit from this sort of collaborative effort.

Johnny Smoes is an IT Programmer and SEO Expert with SEO Experts Australia. He frequently writes on search engine optimization. You can reach him at SEOExpertsAustralia.com.au or @seoaus2010 on Twitter.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Affordable SEO Services in Australia

Every online business wishes to stay ahead of its competitor and what best can be to achieve it with the help of an expert in facilitating affordable SEO services. The good news is that businesses that run from Australia have an opportunity to seek a similar solution from an Australian counterpart. With options aplenty, the provision of affordable solution also beings many benefits for business running from others parts of the world as well.

From all the many SEO services available in the Asia, Americas and Europe, Australia is treading fast as an emerging destination for affordable SEO services. There are many Australian SEO companies specialised in PPC, SMO and other services, offering expert services at a far cheaper price than the services offered anywhere in Europe or Americas. Experienced professionals as SEO consultants and Social Media Optimiser boost the repertory of capabilities of almost all of these experts.

So, be it about social media optimisation - one of the best marketing strategies to build relationships with the customer, or a smart PPC campaign in Australia – the specialists offering affordable SEO solutions are popular for their service comprehensiveness as well.

Now benefit from the SMO marketing solutions offered by an SEO expert in Australia, readily available across mail, fax, telephone, and if required, in person to ensure setting up of an effective communication channel with your visitors and prospective customers to build a lasting relationship. The experts providing inexpensive service help you build your online identity and add to company’s brand reputation.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

The Social Media Mantra


Driving traffic to your website via social media has become a mantra for the 21st Century. I have called this phenomenon simply the social media mantra. Kind of catchy. I am often reminded that it has become the yellow pages of today. Sites like Twitter, Tumblr, and Plurk have changed the way that Users of the Internet find out about information, goods and services. It is like having our own online encyclopedia driven by other users of the Internet. Having a strategy for social media marketing cannot be ignored any more, unless you are just bent on self destruction.

In the not so distant past, back links to websites were one of the strongest indicators of how well a website was doing. Search engine ranking also looked heavily into the number of back links that were attached to any specific website. Links meant quality information is here, in a sense.

The problem with this "quantity style" way of ranking websites became apparent when people started buying and selling good links. There were also many other so-called black hat tactics used to just simple push traffic to websites. With these tactics, many websites achieved high search engine rankings by just throwing money at the links, and using sneaky tactics. As a result, the quality of information to be found on various high ranking websites suffered. These sites are easy to find, it looks like chidren in Primary school wrote the articles.

That is why you have websites like Bing now talking about so-called intelligent search engines. Their media ads have also poked fun at the same issue. I just love the gibberish ads from Bing coming out the States. Those Yanks can be funny.

Social media, on the other hand, is built on a "likeability factor" Users of the social media sites can vote with a "like or dislike," or thumbs up or down on whether content is good, or crap. In many respects, word of mouth via these types of social media engines is often driving what Users will see as fact or fiction.

So, on a site like Twitter, one can see who recommends a website, on Digg one can actually do research on who originally submitted a web page. If an Internet User finds quality social communities, like Hub Pages for example, they can, over time, have a certain expectation of the quality of the information found there. In a web link, you might find a consumer report from CNET, let's say. The link might just as easily have come from a Pay per Click ad, or an affiliate sales page. One never know for sure, till after the link is clicked.

In the final analysis, people don't want to waste time clicking on garbage websites. So, in true human fashion, people have banded together on social media websites to help each other find quality information, goods, and services. It's that simple.


If you happen to be one of the business people who can provide quality information, quality goods, or quality services, then the website in question will need to be driven by a social media campaign. Driving traffic with social media can mean the difference between Internet survival and prosperity.

Johnny Smoes is an IT Programmer and Principle with SEO Experts Australia, a company specializing in search engine optimization and website development. He frequently writes on issues about social media and search engine optimization. You can reach him at @seoaus2010 on Twitter.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

SEO consulting: A must for all businesses online

SEO consulting is a need of the hour for every business online – big or small. It is a comprehensive subject with a growing body of knowledge and methodologies. A business, whose core area of interest is not Search Engine Optimization and internet marketing, would always find it tough to stay up to date with the latest information of the essential steps that only an SEO specialist can guide about.

If you run a business online and wish to attract potential customers, there’s no other way than either engaging an in-house team of SEO specialists or subscribing to one of the many search engine marketing services online.

Either ways, if you know what to expect from an SEO expert, you would stay benefitted.

And yes, there are free consultation options available. Just ensure that the suggestions are inline to your business uniqueness and complexities involved with it. A free consultation before an SEO service help you ideate on the works to be done and arrange/allocate budget accordingly.

Free or paid, an SEO consulting solution helps you gain a better insight on how your present marketing strategies are faring and what are the future steps likely to be in the future course of time.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

A 5 Step Approach to Building Links

Getting people to link to a particular website is not always an easy proposition. But it is possible to stack the odds in one's favor just a bit. So, let's discuss a five point process for getting quality back links to a website.

Point One: Link to the Best
The first process of better link building is to find people who are interested in a particular website's overall theme. Right off the bat, this increased the odds of getting people to link back. Take time and look at the Google PR rating of the site, the Alexa score, etc. Determine which websites are the best in the industry. These are the type of influential websites that can help. The goal is to link to these.

Point Two: Link to a Rising Star
The second process involves further use of the research done in point one. Also take time and link to a website that is on the rise in a particular subject. These types of websites are often easier to get, and will pay dividends down the road.

Point Three: Write Content that is Interest to These Sites
The third point is fairly self explanatory. Get content on a website that is of interest to the best in any particular industry. It makes take some time to determine what is of interest to any particular site. But once the answer is found, it will pay dividends to include content like that on the website being developed.

Point Four: Contact the Website and Offer an Exchange on Promoting Links
The fourth point involves contacting the owners of the other websites, and offering an exchange of links. One simple idea is to offer two links to your one. This may help to make the deal more attractive. Offer links to only quality material. Ask about what is important to them to be promoted about their website.

Point Five: Develop an Ongoing Relationship
The final step in quality link building just involves continuing to build a relationship with that website owner over time. Stay in touch. Periodically check out the website and make notes about new and important events, ideas, pages, etc. Keep coming back and promoting.

This five point concept is simple in nature, but highly effective. It is built on age old principles of doing business through relationship building. Over time, the technique can help to build lots of quality links that will bring new readers to any website.

Johnny Smoes is an IT Programmer and Principle at SEO Experts Australia. He frequently writes about issues surrounding search engine optimization. You can contact him at @seoaus2010 on Twitter.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

How Private is Personal Information?

How private is personal information? Privacy in the internet age is almost impossible to maintain. One may think that they have set up one’s computer to provide anonymity, but if anyone is on the internet their personal information is up for grabs. While there has been serious work done to keep names, as well as personal banking information safe, other important information about individuals is for sale everyday.

What exactly constitutes personal and private information is the real issue. Laws protect the selling of individual names. That is the definition, per se, of personal identification. However, with the advent of the internet, companies gather information about every aspect of personal and corporate life except names. Does that still mean that one’s identity is still anonymous?

I would contend that no, it does not. By the use of cookies and beacons, companies gather information about what users look at on the net. It then stores that information and continues to add to that file on some distant server. This information is also for sale.

That does not sound like anonymity to me. For instance, say that I look at fly fishing sites or home beer brewing sites. That is enough information to let company “A” sell those little bits of information to other companies in those businesses. So I have never been on those sites, but I am suddenly getting ads tailored to those companies. Many times, this is based on storage of an IP address for login.

The search engines of course, are privy to that information and my queries will be directed more towards my personal preferences. At that point, I no longer have wide open access to all the information available on the net. My world has been narrowed down considerably. Do I need access to everything available on the internet? Probably not, but I would like to be the judge of that, rather than some server somewhere looking at my past searches and keeping me in the same information pool. That is, essentially, my argument.

Laws will probably have to be enacted to protect not only personal names and identifying account numbers as personal information, but also personal preferences. While it is not too concerning that companies know about favorite hobbies, there are implications regarding other areas of personal life.

Here are some other theoretical possibilities for and against the collection of statistical data. It is based on the issue of medicine. If a person has medical symptoms that they investigate on the internet that would take them to sites about diabetes or cancer, can their insurance company then decide not to cover them for a pre-existing condition? On the other hand, looking up the symptoms of the flu does help world medical organizations keep track of infection rate. It gives a fairly accurate picture of where flu cases are more numerous, perhaps a bit better than even local health offices. There are always going to be a fair number of people who will be able to ride out the flu at home with over the counter medications. So tracking may not always be a bad thing.

It is always a good thing to remember that personal information is being tracked. Login IP addresses, locations, times of day, etc., are being stored. Maintain the best software that you can to keep the cookies, flash cookies and beacons to a minimum. At this time it is hard to find software that can keep all tracking devices off your computer. Vigilance is the current best plan of action.

Johnny Smoes is an IT Programer in Victoria Australia. He frequently writes on issues of internet security. You can read more of his work at http://ping.fm/ywuiO or http://ping.fm/GUc9w

Sunday, August 15, 2010

The Chicken or Egg Dilema for SEO Experts



The chicken or egg dilema for SEO experts goes something like this: which Comes First, Web Design or SEO?


When you are likely to consider your next web design change, you may want to consider the SEO version of the old chicken and egg question. Which comes first, web design or SEO? Both will ultimately be important. One the one hand, web design can appeal to the human eye, and get people excited about sharing links with your site. On the other hand, good search engine optimization makes it possible to find the site in the first place.

What I am going to argue is that SEO considerations need to be built in from the beginning. Web design that is "out of the box," pre-designed, or even pre conceived can make it harder to get good search engine optimization. Yes, you have to consider the architecture of the site. You have to consider how you are communicating your message, and how you will get people to respond with contact information, sales, etc. The security of your underlying code and the overall functionality of that code are all important. But all of this must be designed with SEO in mind from the very beginning.

Poorly built sites may make it hard for search engine spiders to "crawl" the site. An SEO Expert that hasn't considered "how we are going to get links" may make it harder to get people to back link. We may have designed our site; so that the best potential links spots are buried too deeply, making it hard to get people to stay that long. We may have a wrong strategy about "do follow" or "no follow" linking.

We need to take the process from a different approach. Start with developing a strategy for getting critical information to people quickly. Think from the other person's erspective. Design the site so the best "link bait" opportunities are easy to find. Follow simple, basic principles about designing content for search engine spiders. The results could be dramatically better.

As we consider the overall web design of our coming change, let's make sure we have asked and answered these types of questions:

  • What does my site offer to other website designers that would make them want to link to my website?
  • What does my site offer to any visitor that would make them want to share that content on their favorite social websites?
  • Out of all the information that exists, that I could put on my website, what relevant information is in demand (or soon will be). Out of that type of information, what part is not being communicated well on other sites?
  • How do I need to effectively keyword target that demand?
  • What functionality/organization will make my site more attractive to search engines?
  • How do I build ongoing SEO refinement and growth into my overall business plan?

The chicken or egg dilema for SEO Experts gets a lot easier with a little planning. A web design that is built around these guiding principles has a better chance of succeeding. It will be more easily found by search engines, and will ultimately rise in rank quicker. Further, you will get more people to want to connect to your website. This will make the job of your SEO expert much easier.

Johnny Smoes is an IT Programmer and Principle with SEO Experts Australia. The company is located in Australia, but does business world wide. He frequently writes on topics of search engine optimization, web design, and search engine marketing. You can get more information at SEO Experts Australia.com.au or Zanity.com.au.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Finding Good SEO Help

Finding an SEO expert is not always as easy as you think. There are lots of people out there who just want to con the public. There are also lots of people who know a little about SEO, and market as such. At SEO Experts Australia, we work very hard at keeping traffic moving for our customers. So, we wanted to share a little on what you should look for in a good company.

Rule One: check their customers. You need to be able to see the type of work they are doing for their customers. Ask for referrences. They should be able to provide actual testimonials, data, etc. that shows what they have done for their customers.

Rule Two: be aware of the tactics being used for getting traffic. On a very high level, anyone can tell you that SEO and PPC are good ways to draw traffic to your site. But how, exactly, will that happen? Quite frankly, that is just the beginning anyway.

You should have a working plan for email, direct traffic, organic searches, social media sites, and a host of other things. Your SEO person needs to be able to give you a clear strategy on how this will work.

Rule Three: what will be the budget? How much are you willing to spend on marketing your website? There are lots of good companies to use, to help you with getting Traffic to your website. If you low ball your budget, though, you should know the stretegy for getting the most bang for your buck.

You can only expect so much work for $25 a month. But if you choose to go that way, you should know what will be done for the, let's say, hour of work you will get. (You'll be lucky to get an hour!)

Rule Three: good SEO takes a long time. The best are spending the time to get it done right. Make sure you have a good idea of how much of the budget is going to PPC (pay per click), SEO, article writing, etc. Make sure you also know what part of your website needs SEO. You may want to focus all the work on just a couple of high hitting pages.

Rule Four: measure everything. You need to have analytics on the website that will tell you how many people are visiting the site. Good search engine optimization help from any SEO experts will require a knowledge of how many people are visiting the site. A Google account can start this for free. Content management systems like Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla and others can also let you install a plugin that will do the analytics you need. It is where the rubber hits the road.

Finding good SEO help can be a challenge, but these basic ideas will help you get it done. Good luck in finding an SEO expert to help you with your website. We are always glad to help. For more information, check out http://ping.fm/7cL8o for the SEO expert near you.

Will India Shut Down the Blackberry?

Will India shut down the Blackberry? Research in Motion is again negotiating with a foreign country to keep its Blackberry up and running. The issue is the encryptions that the Canadian based country has on all e-mails and IM’s. In this day and age of increased vigilance against terrorist activities, the encrypted messages make it impossible to monitor e-mails and instant messaging. That is of great concern to intelligence agencies around the globe.

RIM made a deal with the United States to have servers that handle Blackberry traffic there in such a way that is internal security friendly. Elsewhere Blackberry communications are handled and encrypted by RIM servers in Canada and other countries. But once the deal was cut with the US, other countries have jumped on the bandwagon.

RIM just recently came to terms with the Saudi Arabia to insure that service will continue in that country. European countries are also concerned about the encryption and are reportedly in various stages of discussion with RIM. India has set a date of August 31, 2010 to resolve their security concerns. If there are no terms reached, Blackberry service will not be available after this time.

India and RIM will most likely come to an agreement before service is discontinued. The affect on the business community would be far reaching and disastrous for both parties. There are a little over 1 million Blackberry users in India and it is one of the fastest growing segments for RIM. Neither party wants service to end.

RIM is walking a precarious tight rope. Part of its appeal is its top of the line, tight security. Individual governmental demands are slowly chipping away at that security which companies absolutely demand. Proprietary information needs to be protected as well as national security. RIM so far has managed to do an excellent job of keeping everyone happy.

If you are using your Blackberry to work on your website, post SEO related articles, or even log into your website to do search engine optimization, you need to keep an eye on this topic. It could effect your ability to work from almost anywhere with the Blackberry.

Friday, July 30, 2010

SEO and Web Design

seoexpertsaustralia.com.au
The way you design a site can really make a difference in how many people visit. Many people do not make this connection with search engine optimization either. So, I think SEO and web design are connected. Here's why.

Put simply, the Google PR rating for your website is partly tied to the number of people that are visiting your site. The more people, the higher the rating. In addition, it can influence the relevance rating your website receives for informational content. In a purely logical world, facts should be facts. But in the world of the Internet, relevance plays a role. There is a kind of assumption that more visitors can mean better content.

Web design also allows you to bring the element of emotion into your overall scheme for getting people to visit your website. Pictures, graphics, colors, etc., can make a huge difference in how people perceive the value of your site. You can also use these design elements to promote a sense of what your product is all about.

Try this simple experiment. Establish a base line for how many people are visiting your website each day of the week, on average. Then, make some design changes to your website. Note the changes that are made. In a pure test, you will need to continue to add content at exactly the same rate. For example, if you always post a blog on Friday, don't stop! If you have made no content changes in a while, then don't add changes during the test for design. It can invalidate your work. An SEO expert can help you work through some of the design strategies we have discussed, should this be a task you would rather outsource. Read more...

That's my take on it,
Johnny Smoes

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Paid Links for Your Website?

A question that still comes up for us often is the issue of whether or not to have paid links for your website. In the day, i.e. the late 1990's and early 2000's, paid links were a way to be able to add traffic to your website, as well as increase ranking with search engines. In most respects today, those glory days are gone.

Part of the problem has always been the issue of verification. How can you know that the paid links are actually helping? In the business, we often perform correlation testing to try to determine is adding the links was better than not adding them. It sounds easy enough, but that was not always the case. In fact, it could often be hard to find any kind of correlation between increased rankings and adding paid links.

Another issue is that Google, Yahoo, and Bing started "dinging" your scores for having paid links. Part of the issue was that people were allowing any kind of paid link to their site. If you sold shoes on the Internet, why would you need a link to the top selling power tool site?

The links often tended to frustrate end users as well. People want to find answers and information quickly. No one is going to spend time clicking through 100 links, trying to find one relevant link.

Paid links for your website are not always helpful. If you are going to use paid links, it is better to do banner ads with a link. At least that way, you might get the traffic you desire.

That's my take on it,
Johnny Smoes
SEO Experts Australia

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Thanks for the heads up folks! We also were covered by SiteSword http://ping.fm/JWstB
SEO Experts Australia on Google News. Check out the story at http://ping.fm/gg2hY

SEO Experts Australia on Google & Bing News

We were pleased to find out this week that our website launch for SEO Experts Australia was carried on Google News. The folks at Google really don't miss a lot. In this case, we are glad they did not. You can find the information on Google News at SEO Experts Australia Goes Live.

The website will be used to market the company's search engine optimization efforts on Australia, Asia, and Europe. The company has also started a blog about SEO Experts Australia on Wordpress and Blogger. We will be sharing information on how to better market your website through simple, proven SEO techniques.

Our thanks to the folks at Google News for carrying our story. You can also find an article on Bing.com as well. Microsoft is not to be left out!

That's my take on it,

Johnny Smoes

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Why Aren't You Linking Pictures?

Why aren’t you linking pictures? It amazes me how often bloggers fail to do some simple things that add a lot of search engine optimization punch to their blogs. This blog’s take is on what we do with pictures. Here’s the story.

Pictures add a lot of class to a blog article, and help us get across the point of our blog. When done right, they will also help to draw people back to read again, because the site looks so professional. Often though, people forget to add links to those pictures, which can really help to draw traffic to your website.

For many, the main website for a business is separate from the blog site. Many people use Blogger or WordPress to help draw traffic to their main website. (Probably need to blog on this too some day!) Links back to the main website will draw people there. But few remember to do the same thing with the pictures they place in the blog.

There is an almost irresistable urge to click pictures. If you system allows you to do so, put a link back to your main website, or a landing page for sales. All of these links help to add SEO valaue to your main website. More importantly though, it can draw readers there. So, why aren’t you linking pictures?

Happy blogging! Link em!

Johnny Smoes

Monday, June 21, 2010

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Keep up with the latest information.

That's my take on it

Johnny Smoes
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Sunday, June 13, 2010

Want to do one simple thing that adds power to your SEO? Get the Title Right on blogs articles http://ping.fm/5CBfm

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Microchips that make themselves? This was a good article http://ping.fm/eYqGG

Saturday, June 5, 2010

How to Friend People Online

There are some definite rules about friending people online, that can keep you out of a lot of trouble. Here are some basic thoughts on connecting with people online.

1. When making business contacts, be careful which networks you add them to. LinkedIn is good. Twitter is pretty good. Probably would not add them to Facebook, unless you have a Fan Page for your business life. Keep Facebook for your inner circle.

2. If you make a new personal friend, you may want to apply the opposite logic. Don't add them to LinkedIn, unless you are doing business with them. Facebook is OK. Twitter is OK. Remember with Twitter, though, that it gets hard to follow more than around 100 people well. Then, it becomes a business tool.

3. If you are trying to use social media to meet new people for romance, good luck! Stay away from LinkedIn. Facebook may be OK, but if you strike out, do you want all your friends to know you crashed and burned? Twitter no. Just use common sense, too much stalking can scare the heck out of anyone. Better stick to trying to get a phone number, or permission to send an email sometime.

That's my take on it.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

The iPhone search engine stir? Man, this is created a swirl http://ping.fm/Ytgip

New iPhone Search Engine?

There is a good chance that the new iPhone will be sporting a new search engine this June. If all is correct, the new iPhone will be using Bing, the so-called new “intelligent” search engine. It would represent quite a chance for iPhone, and for Google.

This whole discussion started by in January, when Business Week Magazine reported that Apple was considering a switch to the Bing search engine. The stories have been flying ever since. Unfortunately, we will not know the truth till the new iPhone comes out June 7, 2010.

This could also end up biting Apple in the proverbial backside. Most end users of IT products really have a favorite search engine. Right now, Google hold about 60 percent of that market. We’ll have to see if people are willing to give that up to keep an iPhone, should the switch be made. Of course, Google has a search ap for the iPhone, so we’ll see if that weighs in to this discussion.

It is quite a battle from whichever side you look. Add the new Android fans into the equation, and they could muddy things up even further, as many of those folks are now using Alta Vista or Digg. At the end of the day, it is all about market share. Anyone surprised?

If the decision to go with Bing happens, we will have to see how that plays out for Apple. Hopefully, there will be some kind of strategy in place to try to keep buyers from feeling “dumped on.” Never the less, this might mark the first slap back at Google for getting in the phone market!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

How Important Are Links?

How important are links to developing a quality website? Do they still play any kind of important role in search engine optimization? There are many today that could argue that linking to other website is old news. But I would like to make a case for the importance of links to your website.

There was a day, not too long ago, when you could get all the important links you needed by just buying them from a service. You could add a couple of relevant links from sites that had a good PageRank, and you were in business. It did not take Google long to start "discrediting" this type of link. To make matters worse, you had plenty of scam artists out there offering to sell you instant SEO link success for $99. So, people began moving away from trying to trade links.

There is still a place, though, for good links (in and out) for your website. The secret is keeping them relevant. As far as outgoing links go, make sure you are adding links that make sense for your site, and have a PageRank of 3 or better. Add a couple, and you are good to go. One good rule of thumb is, add outbound links to sites that you read, and you use to learn.

In terms of incoming links, you can also get into trouble from doing too much "one for one" linking. It is far better to get your links from quality material, that people bookmark or comment on. If you do add inbound "link trades," you again need to make sure the links are relevant. Don't add links from a hardware store to a cupcake website. Simple enough.

Be careful with links that are placed in comments also. The world only needs so many links to free credit reports, quick loans, and herbal remedies.

That's our take,
Johnny Smoes
SEO Experts Australia