MS Exec Steve Sirich

Since launching in the Australian market in 2013 Bing Ads has grown in market share from five per cent to double digits (10 per cent) in 2016. Sirich told B&T: “You want to get to a per cent where you pass the ‘straight face’ test with a marketer. Which means we can actually ask for a marketer’s time, that the investment I’m asking of them is actually meaningful.

“We’re very grateful for small wins because we know we’re in a competitive market with the likes of Google and the strong-hold they have globally with search.”

MS-Exec-2013-12-05-Sirich-Steve-039
Steve Sirich
For Sirich, the main thing which differentiates Microsoft’s Bing from its biggest competitor Google is Microsoft’s perception of search technology and the future of search.

“Search is really relevant to people’s lives, it’s about connecting information with their intent and allowing them to take action. Search is strictly about linking information with intent, without linking it to intent it can be very irrelevant information.”

For those in the know; Siri’s voice search is powered by Bing’s technology, Mac’s Spotlight search interface is Bing’s technology and Amazon Kindle is powered by Bing’s technology as well.

“I’ve been involved in digital marketing for 20 years, but I’ve been around search really intentionally for the past seven. We’re still very much at the tip of the iceberg in terms of how people engage with search, when you think about it it’s pretty archaic that it’s still a keyboard and it’s a query box.

“We think about the search experience a little bit differently than Google, Google Adwords has their destination experience and we have our Bing.com, but we believe search is quickly moving beyond the destination experience.

“We believe search to be more of an intelligent platform that is a part of all the multiple experience that you engage with in terms of technology; it could be a wearable experience, it could be a phone experience, an xBox or gaming experience, it could be your technology in the car.”

The future of search will shift towards an emotional interaction becoming the technology and the human. “Now we’re really starting to think about, especially with voice search, a much more natural interface to the search experience. It’s more intuitive and more natural in terms of how people want to operate with technology.

The post Bing! The Next Big Thing, Bing Making Huge Strides To Compete With Google first appeared on Agile SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.

Google AdWords on the right side of the screen are gone.

Right hand AdWords have come to an end; the roll-out started on 19th Feb 2016. At present, ads will only show towards the top and base of the SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS PAGES. It also looks very possible that Google has increased the quantity of ads from 3 – 4 and in some cases even 6 Ads – 3 at the top and 3 at the bottom.

Just what, exactly, does this suggest for on-line marketers and consumers alike?

The continuous ‘pushing down’ of organic and natural listings will surely be a concern for many individuals.

For businesses this will likely mean that the organic room or space is a lot more precious and may therefore cause an even greater focus on SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION

For Paid Search, the transformation will certainly increase average CPCs as the levels of competition for the leading spots increase. Hold on to your credit cards, people, it’s likely to get unpleasant.

So why reduce the amount of space or room for organic results on the Search Engine Results Pages?

The reason for this could be as simple as Google having established the average click-through-rate for right side AdWords is poor. This, of course, means less money in the Google coffers. The expected COST-PER-CLICK inflation out of this major change is probably forecast to be a lot more profitable in the end.

However, as a result of the change, ranking 10th for a particular keyword may no longer get you on the front page, banishing you to the top of the second page.

Will all organic results eventually start on the second page??

We think this change could have a huge impact on many of our clients, and could affect many of their rankings but at this point, it doesn’t look like Google will go that far.

The roll out should have been completed on Monday 22^nd February 2016.

What are your thoughts?

Is this good or bad?

The post Google’s Paid Ads on the Right Hand Side Are Gone! first appeared on Agile SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.

In the last month or so there has been significant volatility in Google’s search rankings. While volatility is hardly unusual for Google, the detail available around the unexpected upheaval is fascinating for SEO specialists and provides a perfect example of how outsourcing your SEO to an SEO company can pay off.

Generally, when Google is planning a change to its algorithm they will release advance notes and SEO specialists will spend hours poring over those notes and interpreting them. When the release hits, SEO experts around the around the world begin A/B testing; refining their understanding of what the changes will mean for their clients. All of this takes time. And knowledge. And time. And persistence. And did I mention it takes time? In addition to all that, it takes someone skilled in analysing and interpreting the results.

In other instances, as seen with the latest unsteady ranks, updates will be rolled out with no advance warning whatsoever and everyone drops everything in order to unravel what’s changed.

So if you’re wondering why use an SEO company, the answer is simple – the average business doesn’t have the time, resources or experience to interpret, prepare for and respond to algorithmic changes, especially sudden ones. That’s where Agile SEO Brisbane come in.

SEO has changed drastically over the years and tactics that produced stunning results even 2 years ago can result in heavy penalties today. With an increasing focus on search experience, Google rewards SEO’s who focus on answering questions, as opposed to those who simply try to ‘tick all the boxes’.

Our SEO experts are highly experienced in interpreting, predicting and responding to search engine algorithm changes. By utilising only ethical, white hat tactics and by creating content that adds to a positive user experience, we work hard to ensure that your site doesn’t just get to page 1 but stays there.

With a spotlight on user intent, unique content and organic, long term growth, Agile SEO Brisbane is an SEO company that takes the long term view, ensuring that the actions we take today are unlikely to have negative consequences tomorrow, whatever the future of algorithmic changes may hold. So if you’d like to get to the first page of Google, why not call us and discover the benefits of using the experts at Agile SEO Brisbane to help you improve your ranking.

The post Why Use An SEO Company? first appeared on Agile SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.

You wouldn’t think that poker and SEO had a lot in common, but you’d be wrong. As enthusiastic poker players, the specialists at Agile SEO Brisbane put together our top 5 poker lessons that you should apply to your SEO efforts.

1. Don’t Play Every Hand

It’s supposed to be one of the biggest mistakes that rookie players make in poker, but it’s pretty common in AdWords, too. When setting up your AdWords account, don’t just click on every keyword option that Google gives you. Do your research, select 10 – 25 keywords per ad group and then weed out peripheral keywords to focus on action keywords so you don’t lose money.

2. Don’t Stay In A Hand Just Because You’re Already In It

To paraphrase the great man, you gotta know when to hold ‘em, when to fold ‘em, when to walk away and when to run.  Competitive keywords can take 6 months of consistent SEO efforts to start showing results, but by 6 months, you should be seeing something for your money. If your site still doesn’t have robots.txt or a site map, or you still can’t find your site on the first 5 pages for common search terms for your business or industry, it might just be time to walk away from your current SEO provider. If, on the other hand, your SEO company has gotten you 1000 back links from Uzbekistan, it’s definitely time to run.

3. Do Pay Attention To Other Players

When you play poker, one of the single best things you can do is watch your competition, the same applies in business and SEO. Your SEO company should be able to provide you with data on what your competition is up to online, from where their links are originating to what keywords they’re ranking for. Rather than spend hours doing your own research to arrive at the same conclusion, check they’re on the right path then piggyback off their efforts and gain the benefits.

4. Work Out Your Odds

When deciding how much you’re prepared to pay for a click in AdWords, calculate your odds – what are the chances of that click becoming a sale? And if it does become a sale, how much is that sale worth to you? If you’re selling a product that retails for $20 and it costs you $10, you’re not going to want to pay $10 for a click. But if a sale is worth $500 to you and you know it’s going to cost you $20 for a click, odds are, that’s worth it.

5. Don’t Expect To Win Every Hand You Play

Unless you’re holding a royal flush, there is always the chance that someone else at the table has a better hand. In SEO and AdWords, there’s always someone with a bigger budget, a better quality score or who is further along the path of onsite optimisation. That’s reality. So work smarter, not harder. Target action keywords and use negative keywords to make sure that your AdWords campaign is being shown to people most likely to click and convert to sale.  Use Google Analytics to get to know your audience then write thoughtful, relevant articles that can be shared with 1 click through plugins like AddThis.

Want to know more about peripheral keywords, action keywords, onsite optimisation, competitor analysis and more? Contact us today to find out how Agile SEO Brisbane can help you play it right.

The post Agile SEO Brisbane: Lessons From Poker first appeared on Agile SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.

Tom Jones Syndrome

It’s not unusual for brands to create content without stopping to think about who is using it, why they’re using and how they’re accessing it. Often, they’re more focused on what they’re trying say. Jonah Peretti, the founder of Buzzfeed, takes a very different approach – he constantly encourages content creators to stop and think about just how the audience will utilise the end result.

How will it be shared? What will it add to the users’ life? These are questions that we should all be asking ourselves, every single time we produce content, because whether it’s for a blog, a press release or a static web page, it’s all part of content marketing.

Buzzfeed was created for today’s mobile and social media world; over 70% of users access the site using mobile technology, meaning that not only does any content created for the site need to be mobile friendly, the site itself has to be fully optimised for mobile, a practice that many businesses would be wise to follow.

Why Mobile Responsive Sites Help Your Content Marketing

While not every business can expect 70% of their traffic to come from mobile devices, it’s worth noting that Google informs us that approximately 50% of people visiting a site are using their mobile devices to shop or research. This means that if it’s not the case already, then pretty soon, the majority of visitors to your site will be using their mobile device to find out about who you are and why they should use your business.

We all know the frustration of trying to find something on a site that isn’t optimised for mobile and if I asked you if you’d ever just given up on a site and gone to a competitor site instead, I know you’ll say yes. How do I know this? Google told me so. Google knows that rather than try to dig for the information they want on an un-optimised site, 61% of visitors will simply back out of a site and move on to a competitor site. 61%! Just stop and think about that.

If 30% of your site hits are from users on mobile devices and 61% of those people are turning to a competitor because they can’t find what they want on your un-optimised site, then that means you’re leaking between 15 – 20% of your total potential enquiries! By anyone’s standards, that’s a lot of lost potential.

Chances are, you don’t need a dedicated mobile site, you just need to optimise your existing site for mobile users. Once your site is mobile friendly, you need to make sure that the content you’re posting is also able to be easily used and seen by mobile users.

Save Money With A Content Creation Process

Time is money, so rather than creating content then going back over it to make it mobile friendly, ensure it’s factually correct and all the other steps you need to take before you hit ‘Publish’, it helps to establish a standard process and brand philosophy that anyone creating content for your site needs to follow from the outset. BuzzFeed lists the following elements as being a crucial part of their content marketing creation process:

Brand Guidelines. Does this content reflect who you are as a company? Is it in keeping with your values? Does it ‘fit’?

Integrity. Not surprisingly, ensuring that your content is factually correct is pretty key. Part of building your brand is ensuring that your users know that the information you provide, and therefore you, is trustworthy.

Consider Your Channel. Are you hosting this content on your website? Utilising a particular social media network? Where the information is going is almost as important as the information itself and certainly plays a large role in determining the format you’re going to use.

Format. Are you creating an article or quiz? What about video? Which format best suits the content you’re going to produce? Will people be most likely to view it on a desktop or a mobile device? What is going to add the most value, for example, if you want to show static data or screen shots, an article may suffice, however, if you want to show dynamic data, a video may be more suitable.

Promotion of Your Content. Now you’ve established which channel/s you’re using, you need to decide if you want to promote it organically and/or pay for promotion.

Metrics. How do you know if your content strategy is working? How will you determine which content is more ‘successful’? Success is about more than page views or average viewing time, consider things like the number of shares, likes and comments. Or does the content end up being shared over multiple media channels?

While these aren’t the only steps you can include in your content marketing creation process, we’d say they should certainly form the basis of any process you develop. After all, BuzzFeed thinks they’re important enough to include in theirs and if it’s good enough for the 125^th most visited website in the world, which – by using these steps – is now worth around $1B USD, then chances are it’s good enough for you.

Create Your Content For The Internet

I know, you’re probably thinking that that would be fairly obvious but honestly, it needs to be said.

Yes, really.

It’s actually surprising how often content developed for the internet doesn’t quite hit the mark. Think about BuzzFeed – they know that 70% of their visitors use mobile devices, so do you really think that it’s coincidental that they almost singlehandedly drove the rise and rise of online listicles, which are easily navigated and browsed on mobile devices?

The other thing that BuzzFeed do is tap into people’s emotions – content that makes people laugh, cry or think is content that creates a sense of connection and that is the content that gets shared.

Measure, Learn, Adapt, Repeat

BuzzFeed is a goldmine of information, through them, we can identify trends and new opportunities, then use these valuable insights to adapt and optimise our own campaigns across multiple channels. BuzzFeed isn’t the only company we can learn from, look at companies within your own industry as well as larger organisations and learn from their experience.

What we learn from BuzzFeed is to experiment, measure the results of the experiment, apply the learnings, adapt to the new information and implement it across the board (or to the appropriate media channels). It’s almost scientific but by adopting this process, you, like BuzzFeed, can make more effective content with a bigger impact, growing your audience – and your business – through effective content marketing.

In A Nutshell

• You need your site to be mobile responsive. Google is rewarding sites that are and penalising those that aren’t. You know which side of that equation you want to be on.
• Develop a content creation process. Don’t just sit down and create ‘stuff’ – think about what you need to create and the 5 ‘W’s’ – Who, What, Where, When, Why. Your grade 8 English teacher will be proud.
• Don’t forget you’re creating for the internet!
• Measure the impact of the content. Apply the learnings. Adapt your process to the new insights. Repeat the cycle.

And as always, if you have any questions about content marketing, or if you would like us to deal with this stuff for you, why not contact us today?

The post Content Marketing Success The Buzzfeed Way first appeared on Agile SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.

As Web Design Brisbane specialists, we know that the first decision you need to make when planning a new website or upgrading an existing one, is if you are going to do the work yourself or have a professional do it. Quite often budget is a determining factor, so let’s look at what sort of price range you can expect, depending on what your business needs and who builds it.

For some businesses, the biggest investment they’ll make after stock is their website. The cost of a beautiful, free-flowing and functional site can be eye-watering, especially if you’re not aware of market prices. But rather than a financial burden, a high quality, well designed, custom website can be a smart investment, repaying its initial outlay many times over. It’s all in the planning.

Who Can I Get to Build My Site?

Brisbane web design specialists Agile SEO follow a simple process; we look at the brief provided by our client, determine the number of man hours required for designing and building the site then factor in internal business costs such as labour and general overheads in order to determine a price.

Unlike many of our competitors, Agile SEO Brisbane has put in place systems and processes that allow us to work more efficiently while still maintaining our exceptional level of service and quality. This includes allowing some staff to work from home on certain days, reducing our expenses. These savings are passed on to you when calculating our prices.

Freelancers, as a one-man band with reduced overheads due to working from home, may also be a little more flexible on price however difficulties you may face can include a lack of expertise in the various skills required to build some sites as well as an inability to meet all of their deadlines if they’ve overcommitted. You don’t want the launch of your website to be delayed because your freelancer got sick, had a family emergency or underestimated the hours involved in building a site for another client.

Some web design companies use offshore staff, thus lowering their rates however challenges include delays in communication due to time zone differences as well as general quality and reliability issues.

There are also web design companies who offer website ‘packages’. While this is an effective way to sell a website, it’s often not ideal for several reasons –

1. In order to sell a site and make a profit, the inclusions have to be very limited with little flexibility or scope for change.
2. These kinds of deals frequently include an ongoing arrangement whereby this company will ‘manage’ your site for you, allowing them to overcharge for additional (yet basic) services such as hosting, maintenance, SEO, etc.
3. These companies tend to rely on several templates, meaning that your website is going to end up looking a lot like every other website they’ve built, just with your logo and colours. It hasn’t been designed with your customers in mind, so is less likely to impress.
4. If that wasn’t enough, many businesses who offer this kind of service retain ownership of your site and/or domain, meaning that if you want to leave them at some point in the future, you may need to start from scratch.

Finally, you can build your site yourself. There are many different options available, but if you’re going with a self-build, we recommend WordPress. With a variety of themes, features and plugins available – not to mention a ton of information available online to assist you in building your site – if you decide you’d like an expert to finish the job or take over the role later on down the track,  WordPress is easy for a professional web developer to walk in ‘mid-job’ (so to speak) and take over.

What Type of Website?

For the purposes of this post, let’s assume that you, as the client, will provide the Agile SEO Web Design Brisbane team with a logo and text content, as well as product photos and information for the e-commerce sites.  Now let’s look at some types of website and the general going rate for each:

1. A simple, informational style site, generally no more than 6 pages in total. No online store but may include features such as a blog, newsletter, gallery or slideshow.

The market says expect to spend between $5000 – $10 000          Agile SEO Charge: $3 000 – $7 000

2. A mid-size informational style site, with up to 20 pages. No online store, but may include features such as a blog, newsletter, gallery or slideshow.

The market says expect to spend between $11 000 – $20 000       Agile SEO Charge: $5 000 – $10 000

3. A simple e-commerce site, generally no more than 6 pages and the online store includes up to 100 products. May include some general features such as a blog, newsletter sign up, gallery or slideshow.

The market says expect to spend between $8 000 – $15 000         Agile SEO Charge: $4 000 – $8 000

4. A mid-size e-commerce site with up to 20 pages and up to 500 products in the online store. May include some general features such as a blog, newsletter sign up, gallery or slideshow.

The market says expect to spend between $16 000 – $40 000       Agile SEO Charge: $7 000 – $12 000

Once I’ve Been Given a Price, is There Anything That Could Cause it to Increase?

There is always that possibility. The biggest cause of increases that we encounter are clients who are unsure what they want and / or cannot make up their mind. When quoting, Agile SEO Web Design Brisbane allow a certain number of hours for design, including additional design work and revision, however sometimes a client will request significant additional work that takes us over the allocated time.

Clients can also be unaware of the cost of certain features, so they may give us a brief for a ‘simple’ site but then, mid-build, direct us to an example site that contains certain elements they desire but which are, unfortunately, well outside of their current budget.

The second biggest cause we encounter is clients not having content ready for the site or sending through unusable content. This can not only impact the delivery date of your site, it can impact your budget, especially if we have to write all the content ourselves.

If a client is unable to clearly articulate their vision, make up their mind, provide content as required or find a compromise between their design goals and their budget, then we may need to increase the time allocated, thus impacting the final cost. At all times, we will work with our clients to do our level best to ensure that budgets, design goals and deadlines are met.

How Can I Make This Easier (And Avoid Blowing My Budget)?

The single biggest thing that you can do is be absolutely clear on what you want to build. Look at competitors websites and bookmark or screenshot things you love. Do the same for things that you definitely don’t want on your site – the team at Agile Web Design Brisbane can assure you that knowing what you don’t want is almost as much help as knowing what you do want.

Questions to Ask Yourself:

What sort of look and feel do I want?

When my customers land on my home page, what are the first things I want them to see? What best tells the story of who we are and what we do?

What are my objectives? Do I want to sell a product or service? Collect potential leads? Publish content that results in high engagement and frequent return visits? Am I helping customers find information? Am I raising brand awareness and loyalty?

What are my priorities for my site? Of the 10 different things that I want, which ones are ‘must have’s’, ‘like to have’s’ and ‘nice to have’s’?

What sites do I love using? What design elements do those sites have that would be useful for my site?

Who are my customers? Are they used to getting online?

If I use this design element, are my customers going to be able to navigate my site easily?

What things do I want on my website to be easily editable? I.e. Do I want to be able to add / remove things easily? How customisable do I want my site?

We can’t emphasise enough how important it is to provide set specifications of exactly what you want – without this, it will be very difficult to get an accurate price from any web design / development company. Clear requirements, along with an overview of your company, including brand goals, products/services and desired features all help give your design company a clear picture of who you are and what you want, meaning  you’re that much closer to getting the site you want.

Here at Agile SEO Brisbane, our Brisbane web design team use a standard document that all of our web design clients need to complete in order to provide a clarity for both them and us of just what our clients are looking for, saving them time and money.

So if you have any questions, or you’re looking to get your site built or re-vamped, contact us to find out how we can help.

The post Web Design Brisbane: What’s The Cost of a Website in 2016? first appeared on Agile SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.

Welcome to the second part of Agile SEO Brisbane’s ‘Tips for Small Business’. If you missed Part I, you can read it here.  

After hearing 1 too many horror stories of clients whose sites have been hijacked and months of painstaking work undone due to a bad breakup with past SEO companies or a previous Brisbane web design company, we wanted to let small business owners know how to get their business set up and in such in a way as to help provide protection from malicious / unprofessional individuals.

In Part II, we’re looking at key points around your site content and architecture. As Brisbane web design specialists, we suggest that you keep the following in mind – especially when talking to your design team (if you have one) or while building your site yourself.

Part 2 – Next Steps

Site Content & Architecture

There are certain pages you just have to have –

• Location Page: this needs to include your business name, address, a map, business hours, contact info (phone numbers and email) and – preferably – a list of the areas your business services. If you have multiple locations, its best to create a page for each site which lists the different services each location provides and the areas each one services.

NB: If you make a separate page for each location you have an office / base, you need to make each page unique, duplicating pages (except for the suburb / city name) will have a negative impact on your ranking with search engines as they simply see duplicate content. Remember that computers aren’t smart enough (…yet) to realise that the reason the content is duplicated is because you intended to duplicate it.

• All Services Page: You need to list each service your business provides, along with a brief description and a link to each individual service page.

• Service Pages: each service you offer should have it’s own service page detailing what you do – remember this is part of what sells YOU, so take the opportunity to say why your potential client should use you and your product or service, rather than a competitor.

• Reviews Page: Collect customer testimonials! These are incredibly valuable to any business, potential customers love being able to find out what previous or existing customers think of your service so always allow somewhere to put these.

• Complaints / Feedback Page: Give your customers somewhere to complain if they need to, if they can complain directly to you, they’re less likely to complain elsewhere (like Face Book, which has the potential to undo all your good work if their complaint goes viral).

• Discounts / Offers: If you’re planning to offer special deals, have a page just for this.

• FAQ’s: As a general rule here at Agile SEO Brisbane if we get the same question twice, we add it to our FAQ’s page. This isn’t just because it helps prevent having to answer the same old questions over and over again. If you adopt the same policy, you’ll find that your FAQ’s page has the potential to become a popular gateway into your site. For example, if you run an IT company, most people will try to Google for an answer as to what’s wrong before they call someone to fix the problem.

Here’s an example of the above site structure:

Content

I can’t say it enough – content is king. Either blog or hire someone to blog for you. Google can’t get enough of fresh, unique content so you need to be posting quality content on a regular basis.

Each page needs to contain information that is unique and helpful. Do not copy content from elsewhere, search engines are very good at picking up plagiarised content and they will penalise you for it. Use actual search terms that real people are using throughout your content but only as appropriate – don’t try and cram key words into your text to the point where it’s ridiculous, readability trumps keyword numbers.

Each page should have a unique SEO Meta, if you’re using WordPress as discussed in Part I, this is easy enough to modify. WordPress comes with a range of SEO plugin’s that practically do the work for you.

Design Elements

Brisbane web design specialists agree that when it comes to designing a website, the hardest part for most people is thinking like a customer, not the business owner. Your site has to be easy to navigate so try to group similar pages together and make them easy to find – you don’t want a potential customer to have to hunt through your entire site to find your ‘contact us’ page. Ensure there are lots of visible call-to-actions to prompt the user to follow through.

What’s Next?

After you’ve built the site, submit it to Google & Bing, then open webmaster accounts with each. These are free and will provide a lot of helpful information. If you have hired an SEO company, they should submit your site for you.

Submit your site to Google, & Bing by clicking on the links.

Building a website yourself isn’t as scary as it sounds, sites like WordPress are designed to be easy to use while still producing great results. Additionally, there are a lot of great plugin’s that can make your life easier. If you’re not ready to design or build a site yourself and you need a Brisbane web design company, why not contact us today to see how Agile SEO Brisbane can help you get your business online.

The post Brisbane Web Design – Tips for Small Business (Part II) first appeared on Agile SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.

For local business owners, getting online is an essential yet sometimes overwhelming part of running your own business. Agile SEO Brisbane recently discovered a client who had a terrible breakup experience with his previous SEO Company which included them hacking his email and deleting emails, changing every password for every online login they could find in his inbox and deleting both his Google Analytics & AdWords accounts, to name but a few.

Most SEO companies will draw the line at breaking the law to get back at you (something I never thought I’d have to type), but why make it possible in the first place?  Here are our tips and tricks for getting online in a way that helps to protect your business from the possibility of being taken over by a malicious individual or organisation.

Part 1 – Strong Foundations

A) If you’ve not already chosen something, think about your business name and try to create a name that includes a popular search term that describes your business and is easy to remember. If you have multiple search terms that you could include in your business name, try to use the most popular.

If you already have an established business name, think very carefully before making the decision to change it – as a general rule of thumb, the only time you would change your business name is if you’re starting a new company.

B) Once you’ve chosen your business name, set up a gmail account (and subsequent recovery account) as ‘yourbusinessname@gmail.com’. Make sure you have a VERY secure password for each email account.

This email will be used for ALL of the following steps. Do not, under any circumstances use your youremail@yourdomainname.com.au email address to set up your web hosting, business listings, social media accounts etc. By directing these to the gmail account instead you’re protecting yourself against a bad breakup or a malicious hacker. If someone manages to hack your site they will gain access to your youremail@yourdomainname.com.au email, but at least they won’t also gain control of all of your online services.

Use the youremail@yourdomainname.com.au as the display email address in customer communications and listing pages, but not for logins.

C) Beware of dodgy companies. Sounds simple, I know, but what are things you can look out for?

1. Ask what happens to your business listings and site if you stop working with them and who owns the site and listings.
2. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – if a company says they have a ‘special relationship’ with Google, NEVER do business with them, they’re liars!
3. If an SEO Company manages Adwords, ask what commission they charge – they’re going to charge you either a flat fee (payable up front each month) or a percentage of your monthly AdWords spend. If they’re not prepared to give you firm numbers, don’t trust them.
4. Ask if they offer Google Analytics integration and what type of reports they’ll be sending you.
5. Find out if you’ll have weekly or monthly meetings to go over the reports to ensure that you understand what they’re sending you and what they’re doing for their money.
6. Every SEO company should have standard tasks that they do each month like optimising meta tags for all pages, auditing your local listings, adding new listings if required, adding you to quality local directories, add content regularly (if this is a part of your package; and it should be). Make sure they provide you with information on what they will do each month and that they report back on it as promised.
7. Check their portfolio and make contact with their existing clients via the ‘contact us’ page on the client’s website to check references.
8. NEVER sign a long term contract, 3 months may sometimes be a little short to really start seeing results but 6 months will allow you to see if things improve. After 6 months, if you’re happy, then consider a longer term. Either way, avoid lock in contracts until you’re sure that you’re happy with their service. Agile SEO Brisbane offers a 6 month Service Agreement that can be terminated with 30 days’ notice for this exact reason.
9. If you don’t follow up with an agency after signing with them, anything that happens (or doesn’t, as the case may be) is at least partly your fault – you need to track their progress and ensure you are across what’s happening with your site and SEO.

D) Buy your domain name. Try to include the main search term for your business but make it short and easy to remember. A really good test is to read it to your friends over the phone, if they enter it correctly the first time, it’s a winner!

E) OWN your domain name – don’t ever let your designer, developer or anyone else buy the domain for you; don’t allow anything that may call into question your ownership of the domain! (And remember that you’re going to use your yourbusinessname@gmail.com account to set this up!)

You will need to provide details to your host, developers etc so make sure that you change the sign in details once they’re done. Ditto with your SEO company. As soon as you part ways, change your passwords to something secure, it needs to be unrelated to your previous password and not your name, your business name or anything similar. I can’t even begin to list how many horror stories I have heard about designers, developers or SEO companies hijacking a company’s site and either destroying it or holding it to ransom when they stop working together.

F) Create a simple site using WordPress. You can buy good, clean designs for as little as $100, just make sure it’s responsive, mobile friendly and professional. Above all, it must be fast – Google loves fast.

Agile SEO Brisbane is a fan, why? WordPress is one of the most common CMSs around, making it easy for you to find someone else to manage your website / SEO if you decide to move on from your original providers. In addition, search engine robots can crawl the whole site easily, which isn’t possible if you build the site in FLASH or AJAX. If search engine robots can’t crawl your site, it will have a negative impact on your rankings.

Agile SEO Brisbane works with businesses of all sizes and we know that starting a new business or website can be tough, but with a clear roadmap, it’s a lot easier. Tune in for Part II, which will cover site content & architecture, while subsequent posts will deal with how to get business listings, tracking your results, marketing, reviews and social media. Alternatively, if you’d like to speak to us directly about how we can help your business, contact us for more info.

The post Agile SEO Brisbane – Tips for Small Business (Part I) first appeared on Agile SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.

In a lot of ways, the Search Engine Optimisation industry is like the wild west – there are a lot of cowboys. In an industry that really has very little oversight and about which there is little ‘general knowledge’, rip-off merchants flourish and it can be difficult to find an ethical SEO company. Sure, everyone’s website claims that they’re legit and above board, but they’re hardly going to brand themselves ‘Dodgy Bros Inc’, are they? In this article, we wanted to share some of the things we’ve seen ourselves and been told by our clients, so that you know what to look out for.

Client 1

This client was paying $1200 / month for his SEO from a very well ranked SEO firm. He decided to leave them as he just didn’t feel that he was getting the results he wanted. Every time he called them to cancel, they used scare tactics and told him that without the Search Engine Optimisation they were doing, his site would quickly drop in the rankings and he’d end up dropping off Google altogether.

When we spoke to the client, he was unwilling to commit to the same monthly spend, so we came up with an SEO strategy that started at around half of what he had been paying for the first couple of months, then increased each month thereafter, giving him time to see the value in our service.

But wait, it gets better. When we took over his account, we logged into his website and couldn’t find ANY SEO tools – no Google Analytics, nothing. When we called his web hosting & development company they were only too happy to turn on the SEO tools section of his site. This allowed us to create his Site Map and add his new Google Analytics account, among other things.

This begs the question – what, exactly, was his last Search Engine Optimisation company doing? They didn’t build any links back to his site, they didn’t even create, let alone install a Google Analytics account, there was no site map and there were certainly no articles created or any content added… The mind boggles.

Client 2

This gentleman was using an SEO group that typically appears on the first page of Google search results. He was paying $900 / month for his Search Engine Optimisation and while the company had gotten him to rank #1 for a particular keyword, he didn’t feel like he was getting the results he wanted. He contacted us for a quote and when we analysed his site, we discovered that the key word that he was ranked #1 for only attracted about 10 searches per month.

It turns out that when he signed on with them, this SEO company guaranteed him that he didn’t have to pay a thing until they got him a number 1 ranking, which they achieved; they just failed to mention that the keyword they were going to get him to #1 for, was a keyword that wasn’t actually going to drive any business to his site!

He decided to move his business across to us because with no lock in contracts, it wasn’t a risk for him to sign on with us, knowing that he could walk away this time if he wasn’t happy. Since he joined us, we’ve been working on a mix of high and medium value keywords, targeting words that we can get quickly in order to start driving business his way while we go after the high value words that, while more commonly used in searches, will take longer to rank for.

Client 3

This client came to us more to confirm that his current SEO provider was doing a good job than because he really wanted to change. While he hadn’t seen an increase in traffic or business, he could see that his SEO company was building a lot of links and optimising his website for certain key words.

These links, when analysed by our software, were identified as being potentially toxic. We discovered that his SEO company was using free directory submission pages to build his links, which is a big no-no in the new world of Search Engine Optimisation. Search Engines often regard these types of links as spam, meaning that it was likely Google would penalise the client for these links, impacting his search engine ranking and, worst case scenario, getting his site black listed with the search engines altogether!

In addition, we discovered that the SEO firm wasn’t just using a low value keyword, they had made up a whole new one (which also happened to be grammatically incorrect – a personal pet hate!) and ranked him #1 for it so that he had to start paying them their monthly fee. Even though it’s highly likely that they were the only ones entering it into Google!

Unfortunately, this client was locked in to a contract that didn’t end for another couple of months – it was a very long wait for him (and, I should imagine, a very frustrating one – having to pay a company that he knew wasn’t giving him what he was paying for) but now he’s come on board and loves our transparent reporting.

These aren’t the only horror stories we’ve heard, but they’re 3 of our ‘favourites’ and they demonstrate a few things to look out for when you’re choosing an SEO company.

1. Look for a company that is transparent and collaborative.
2. Make sure that if your SEO guru is choosing your keywords, they can tell you why you want to target that keyword – make sure it’s worth it! They need to be able to show you how many people are searching for that term, on average, a month, especially if gaining page 1 for that term means that you have to start paying.
3. Not all links are created equal, some can actually damage your site ranking, so make sure your SEO provider is creating quality Australian based (depending on your business – some of you may wish to target overseas markets) links.
4. Beware of any company that
   1. Guarantees you #1 ranking or
   2. Doesn’t charge you until you reach page 1 – there’s a very good chance that they’re going to rank you for keywords that don’t really exist.
5. If your SEO company doesn’t
   1. Create and add Google analytics to your website
   2. Create a site map for your website,
   3. Add robots.txt to your website,
   4. Add you to Google Business,
   5. If your site is new, submit it to Google, Bing & Yahoo or
   6. Ask you for your website log in details then run – don’t walk – away as they clearly have no intention of actually doing any SEO work on your site.
6. Beware of lock in contracts, companies will hold you to them if it is financially beneficial to them to do so.

If you’re looking for a transparent SEO company that believes in client education, why not contact us to discover how Agile SEO can help you grow your business.

The post SEO Company Rip Offs first appeared on Agile SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.

As experts in Web Design Brisbane and Australia-wide, we often encounter the question of ‘how much is too much’ when it comes to scrolling? It may surprise you to learn that most users spend approximately 80% of their time looking at information above the fold and only 20% below the fold.

Firstly, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page (pun intended); when you open a web page everything that you can see without having to scroll is called ‘above the fold’, everything below that is, unsurprisingly, ‘below the fold’. Users that are on the hunt for information tend to rely upon what is above the fold to decide if a site is going to meet their need. Even those that are more willing to scroll assign less value to information further down the page.

How Does This Impact Web Design?

From a design perspective, this is huge – as web design Brisbane experts, we’d suggest that you keep your pages shorter and to the point. I’m sure we’ve all seen sites that are effectively one long page; they’re easier to design but if users don’t like them, what’s the point? A combination of limited attention span, a basic reluctance to read any extra words and a preference for doing less work (scrolling) means less is definitely more.

In saying that, scrolling is still a better option than fragmenting a page. Forcing the user to make a decision (“Is this interesting enough to justify clicking through?”) is more dangerous than making them to scroll.

NN/g’s theory of Information Foraging tells us that people decide whether or not to continue an action, be it scrolling or clicking through to another page, based upon the current content. Like hunting dogs on a trail, your user is asking themselves one thing, is the information they are reading now, valuable enough to convince them to continue with your site, or should they abandon this scent and look for another? This leads us to our next point of impact:

How Does This Impact Content Design?

In terms of how you put your content together, it means that you’re always going to put your most valuable content at the beginning. It sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but the best way to get your reader to keep reading is to give them what they want to know upfront. Information provided above the fold is more likely to attract and retain the users attention.

Traditionally, we’re taught that an article has a beginning, middle, climax and (hopefully) a conclusion to wrap it all up. By writing in this way, you are less likely to keep your readers attention, instead, try using the inverted pyramid style of writing that is commonly used by journalists.

As seen above, this style focuses on getting the critical information to the reader ASAP. By doing this, you ensure that even if your user doesn’t scroll, starts skimming or goes to another page, you’ve told them what they need to know.

Take Aways

Try to avoid long pages that require a lot of scrolling, but better to scroll than require a click through

80% of your users attention is going to be on information that is above the fold, put your critical info there to grab their attention and entice them to keep reading.

People will scroll if the layout encourages it and the information they first looked at encouraged them to believe it was worth their time to do so.

If your user makes it to the bottom, the recency effect shows that the last thing that users read will usually be well retained, so don’t forget to put some great info at the end as a reward for reading that far!

Looking for great web design Brisbane? Contact us today and let us help you design and build your online masterpiece.

The post Great Web Design; Scrolling, Attention & Content Design first appeared on Agile SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.