We’ve all heard of the 7 deadly sins of greed, sloth, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and pride but how does this relate back to Web SEO? Good question. In their desperation to increase Search Engine rankings quickly, some companies can be sinful or use black hat or dubious methods to achieve their high rankings or become smug, boastful or complacent about their page #1 ranking. But are these really long-term strategies for success? Read more and find out.

Greed: Paid links or linking to bad neighbourhoods

Greed is never good especially when it comes to link building. It’s best that a natural link building profile is built over time with links to credible and trustworthy websites that are related to your industry. Paying for links may seem like a good idea at the time but you may be linking to bad neighbourhoods or disreputable sites like gambling or pharmaceutical sites. Read more about link authority.

Sloth: No back links

Not having a link building program in place is just pure sloth. In simple terms, a link from a website which is trustworthy, credible and has link authority is seen as a validation of your website by Search Engines. Maintaining a link building campaign should only take a few hours per week but it can pay dividends in increasing your Search Engine ranking and improving your Web SEO. Read more about link building strategies.

Lust: Using black hat SEO techniques

You may be lusting over your competitor’s rankings but taking the easy way out and using black hat techniques to improve your Search Engine rankings is never the answer and not a long term solution. These techniques may include keyword stuffing (see below), cloaking, using link farms or doorway pages on your website. Read more about black hat SEO.

Envy: Eyeing your competitor’s rankings

Envying your competitor’s number one ranking can lead to many hours of unhappiness. However, you can put your envy to good use in Search Engine Optimisation. By analysing your keyword competitor’s on page and off page Web SEO, you can improve the optimisation of your website and your Search Engine position. Read more about competitor analysis.

Gluttony: Keyword stuffing

SEO copywriting is not about keyword density, it is about using keywords throughout the copy in a natural and seamless manner that is unobtrusive to the reader. By spamming your copy with the same keywords, you not only risk offending the reader but you can arouse suspicion with the Search Engines who may not index your page or give it a lower ranking. Read more about Search Engine keywords.

Wrath: Duplicate copy

Not only will you incur the wrath of other websites if you are caught duplicating their copy on your website, Web pages with duplicate copy will not rank as well on a Search Engine. Search Engines prefer content which is original, interesting and updated regularly and not only will your website be ranked higher as a result, it will also serve as excellent link bait. Read more about SEO copywriting.

Pride: No ongoing SEO maintenance

You know what they say – pride comes before a fall. In the context of Search Engine Optimisation, this can only mean one thing – a drop in Search Engine rankings. You may be patting yourself on the back for having a page #1 ranking for important keyword phrases but it’s never a good idea to become complacent. Web SEO requires ongoing effort. Read more about SEO maintenance.

You may be guilty of one or even seven of these deadly sins but there is always time to redeem your ways and save your SEO soul. A good SEO company can get you back on the straight and narrow and show you the best ways to optimise and manage your site for long-term results. Contact us to keep you from the perils of committing these deadly sins and making sure you get the most out of your Web SEO.

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Creating new content

With the launch of Google Caffeine, it is more important than ever to update your website with fresh, new and original content to keep abreast of your competitors. An expert SEO company should show you how to write keyword rich content for your website. Look for ongoing opportunities where you can add fresh content to your website and update your content. This may include adding the following to your website:

• media releases
• testimonials and case studies
• blog articles
• seasonal offers
• competitions and promotions

New content should not only be created for your website but you should also update any other related online marketing properties that you may have such as a Google Places page, video hosting pages and social media networking accounts.

Competitive keyword analysis

Keyword selection is an ongoing process and your list of keywords should be continually expanding and growing. A professional SEO expert will show you how to use keyword research tools and check whether the keywords you are targeting are still relevant for your website and whether there are any missed keyword opportunities that you can capitalise on. Keyword research includes analysing your website and also doing competitor analysis.

Link building strategies

A good SEO marketing company will tailor a link building strategy for your online business that will provide links back to your website from trustworthy and relevant websites. Link building is an important part of SEO and it is up to you to not only maintain and audit your existing link portfolio but to grow and increase your link profile. These strategies may include:

• writing quality blog posts
• blogging on related websites
• writing guest posts
• participating in forums
• social networking

Every three to six months depending on how large your website is, you should check for broken links and that you are not linking to bad neighbourhoods and that link submissions to directories are still current.

Analysing Web data

This is very important for the ongoing optimisation of your website. A specialised SEO company should work with your website developer to firstly install Google Analytics on your website and show you how to analyse your Web pages. This data can be used to evaluate the success of online marketing strategies and understand where to best allocate your online marketing budget. This will include analysing the following:

• traffic sources
• visitor analysis
• content analysis
• conversion tracking

Google Analytics provides great insights into where your site visitors come from, and what they are interested in – this provides major input in your SEO marketing strategy. You need to regularly review the data a minimum of once a week and adjust your internet marketing strategy accordingly.

On page optimisation

Ongoing page optimisation is important for the SEO marketing of your website. A professional SEO company should teach you how to a regular health check or SEO audit of their websites every three to six months. The duration would depend on how many pages your website has and if the website needs to be updated. Your SEO company will show you how to Web pages with an SEO-friendly infrastructure such as:

• correct filename structures
• optimised title tags and headings
• optimised meta description tags
• keyword rich anchor links
• alt tags on all images

As aforementioned, you also need to run regular checks to see whether there no broken links on the website and whether there are any more opportunities to add new content.

Getting the best SEO results requires an ongoing commitment. At SEO Works, our Business Analysts have years of experience and are taught to share their knowledge and expertise with our clients so you can be confident in maintaining the SEO of your website. Contact us to find out more about our SEO Growth Plans and SEO Maintenance Plans and how we can help you with your SEO marketing strategies and improve your return on investment.

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Web SEO is not all about your Search Engine rankings. Better positions on a Search Engine usually correlate to better click-through rates which equal more visitors. However, for at least 20% (and sometimes up to 50%) of the visitors on your site, it isn’t the first click you have to worry about … it’s the second that’s a real fight to get. Here are the top 7 tips to maximise the value of your web SEO, reduce your bounce rate and increase your conversion rate.

What is a bounce rate?

Your bounce rate reflects the proportion of people that leave within around 10 seconds of arriving at your site, and is expressed as a percentage of your total number of visitors.

Given that the web is so enormous, and people aren’t always sure what they’re looking for, even the well-established sites with good web SEO practices often have a bounce rate up to 20%.

Bounce rates over 30% are usually cause for concern, and if your bounce rate is over 50% you may need to do a major re- think of your website design, website copy or linking and advertising protocols.

Where are your ‘bounciest’ visitors coming from?

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen identifies 4 separate sources of traffic for the purposes of analysing bounce rates. You’ll want to know which of the following traffic sources contributes most to your bounce rate:

• Web SEO traffic, either from organic results or sponsored listings
• Links from other websites
• Repeat visitors (who may arrive by typing the address into their browser bar or have it bookmarked)
• Digg/Delicious or other low value or social bookmarking traffic

Ideally, your bounce rate from paid and organic web SEO traffic will be the lowest, because users have arrived at your site based on a keyword search that you are optimised for.

Deliver what was promised

The biggest reason why your website is more elastic than a pair of your grandfather’s pants is that the keyword that you are ranking for on Search Engines does not mirror the content on your website. A high bounce rate would indicate your site is not relevant to the search they performed or they judged your site to be of poor quality.

Invasive advertising

Web surfers landing on your website may be turned off by intrusive web advertising that makes the website difficult to navigate and read. While advertising may be a necessary evil for some websites, a web designer needs to achieve a workable balance between the level of advertising on the site and usability of the website to improve your web seo.

Take off your autoplay videos and music

Often, companies love autoplay videos and music; they feel it adds to the ‘experience’ of the site. However, this can be quite annoying to a new visitor to your site. If you’re able to set your bounce rate analysis parameters, check how many users leave within three seconds of the time it takes your music or video to load. This will tell you if they’re the culprit behind your springy site.

Give your visitors 5-7 choices

Put the most popular links and call to action buttons on your site in the ‘best real estate’ of your pages. The location, location, location rule of web pages is that close to the top and towards the left of the screen is better. Consult with your web SEO experts to determine if your site structure and home page design is ’scaring’ visitors away. Too few choices and people see no value; too many choices and they feel paralysed.

Check your page load time

If the average user has to wait longer than 10 seconds for most elements of your page to load, there’s a chance they’ll either assume something is wrong with the site, or simply get impatient and leave. This is not to say that you can’t have an engaging site – just make sure this doesn’t affect the user’s experience. Site loading time is now one of the signals Google uses to determine your Search Engine ranking.

De-corporatise

Most people that constitute ‘target audiences’ on the net don’t think in corporate speak. If your site is filled with headlines like “Key considerations for deploying integrated collaborations successfully”, you’ll need to cut them down. The most successful headlines are 5-7 words long … do you notice a pattern? You need to speak to your target audience in a language they understand.

Consider a redesign

If the simpler tricks to reduce your bounce rate fail to make an impact, you should consider redesigning your site. A redesign with a focus on usability and simplicity has been known to reduce bounce rates by a massive 25% or more. Ensure when you re-design that you follow best practices such a testing for usability, designing with web SEO in mind, and targeting a specific demographic.

There are a lot of factors that can affect your bounce rate. Sometimes you are simply too close to, and too familiar with your own site to be able to judge where improvements need to be made. If your bounce rate is persistently high despite your adherence to best practices, there is help available. Contact us – a full-service SEO Works expert can help you fight for, and win, that second click and improve your web SEO.

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Over optimisation of your website in SEO marketing campaigns is different to knowingly using black hat SEO techniques and wilfully ignoring the Search Engines guidelines to artificially boost your Search Engine rankings. However, being too diligent and over optimising your website can also result in a drop in Search Engine rankings. We show you how too much of a good thing can hurt the optimisation of your website and when to say stop.

Think of your reader: Remember Search Engines don’t buy your products or hire your services, people do. Make your keywords flow naturally and blend cohesively with the content. With Search Engines becoming more sophisticated, keyword density should be a thing of the past. In your SEO marketing strategy, use related keyword phrases in place of your targeted keywords in some instances to make your copy seem more natural and seamless.

Variation is the key: A sure fire way to arouse suspicion with Search Engines is to use the same exact keyword phrases in all your on page elements such as your title tag, headings, descriptions and so forth. Try to use different variations of your keyword phrase and in the primary text. This also applies to image optimisation as well. Give each image a unique name that reflects the content on the page.

Deliver what was promised: Your on page elements of your SEO marketing campaign should also reflect the content on the page. Search Engines will look at all these elements to try and understand the content on the page and then rank your Web page for relevant keywords. If you do not deliver what is promised by the Search Engines, your visitors will bounce off your page and visit a more relevant website.

Build a natural link profile: Avoid creating a link profile with too high a ratio of targeted keywords. If you use too many internal links with anchor text containing your target keywords, you may find your Search Engine ranking may actually drop. Search Engines want to see a natural link profile so create anchor links with related keyword phrases and elements such as your company name, domain name etc.

Build backlinks progressively: A sudden influx of thousands of links can raise a red flag with Search Engines and may cause your ranking to drop. In your SEO marketing program, create backlinks from a wide variety of sources and build them gradually over months not weeks. The websites you are linking to must also have high authority and be trustworthy, quality websites which are related to your industry.

Avoid duplicate content: You may have various websites and while it may seem like a great idea at the time to copy and paste from one website to another, duplicate content is a no no in the eyes of Search Engines. Search Engines have a preference to websites that update their websites with unique, fresh and interesting content. There are tools readily available on the Internet to check whether copy has been duplicated from your website.

Monitor your search results: Your SEO marketing aim is to progressively improve your rankings for targeted keywords. With organic Search Engine Optimisation, it may take up to three months for a new website or Web page to start ranking. Don’t expect to appear on page one from nowhere. If you see a sudden ranking drop look for possible over-optimisation issues and without doing anything drastic, de-optimise.

Remember the end goal of SEO is conversion so keep your eye on the prize and don’t lose focus on providing an optimal user experience on your website and interesting and engaging information about your products and services. Contact us to find out more about SEO marketing and how to walk the fine line between good SEO and over optimisation of your website.

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301 status code: The code 301 is interpreted as moved permanently. In SEO terms, a 301 redirect is the most Search Engine-friendly method for Web page redirection.

302 status code: A 302 code means that the file has been found, but is temporarily located at another URL. In the context of SEO, it is typically best to avoid using 302 redirects.

404 status code: A 404 code means that the file has not been found. This may occur when there is a dead link on your website, when a page has been moved on your website or someone has typed in the wrong URL to find the page.

Algorithm: The technology that a Search Engine uses to deliver results to a query. The search algorithms are frequently being updated to improve the integrity of search for users.

Alt tags: Stands for alternative text. This is displayed for the benefit of vision impaired users in a web browser and when images are not shown. In the context of SEO, Search Engines cannot read images so they look at the alt text when indexing the page. The alt text should not be a list of keywords but should briefly describe the image.

Anchor text: This is the actual text part of a link (usually underlined) and is used by Search Engines as a ranking factor. Effective use of anchor text involves linking targeted keyword phrases. For example, in this sentence ‘Search Engine Optimisation‘ is the anchor text, which in this case links to the homepage of this site.

Auto-generated pages: Using a script or software program to create thousands of keyword-stuffed pages with content of no value to human readers.

Backlinks (or Back Links): These are incoming links to a website or Web page. Two tools you can use to check backlinks are Google’s Webmaster Tools and Yahoo’s Site Explorer. Not all backlinks have equal weighting.

Bad link neighbourhood: This is a group of non-related sites all linked together in an attempt to strengthen a website’s link profile or build PageRank. The links usually include pharmacy, porn sites, casinos, and so on.

Bing: This is a Search Engine owned by Microsoft.

Black hat SEO: Search Engines have rules which you must abide by if you want your website indexed. Black hat SEO are strategies that do not comply with these rules and guidelines. Find out more about black hat SEO.

Blogs: A company blog is an important part of an SEO strategy. As well as being able to add fresh, updated copy to a website, you can create blog articles that target relevant keywords for your website. Read about the importance of company blogs for SEO.

Bounce rate: Google defines this as the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. This metric is used to measure visit quality – a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors.

Cache: In SEO terms, this refers to the way Search Engines “memorise” or “take a picture” of Web pages, allowing you to quickly navigate to the cached version of a page. This is an indication of the last time a Search Engine spider visited your website.

Call to action: A call to action is copy within text or an image used to encourage a person to complete an action defined by the website such as making a sales enquiry, booking a hotel room or downloading an application form.

Citation: Citations are defined as “mentions” of your business name and address on other webpages. Even if there is no link to your website, the number of citations is a key component of the ranking algorithms of the major Search Engines. If you can complete this with a link and/or anchor text, you will also get some link value coming to your website.

Cloaking: A technique involving the presentation of different content to Search Engine spiders and human visitors. Cloaking is essentially a deceptive practice which will likely get your site banned or penalised by the Search Engines if detected. This is a Black hat SEO technique.

Content: This is also called body text or text. In the context of SEO, content is generally considered to be the readable text within the body of a page underneath the H1 heading as distinguished from subsequent headlines, subheadings, captions of illustrations and so forth.

Conversion: Conversion doesn’t just refer to a direct sale. Conversions are related to the goals you have set up for your website. This could be downloading a brochure, making a sales enquiry, signing up to a newsletter subscription and so forth. This is the rate at which visitors get converted to customers.

CMS: Stands for Content Management System. This is a system that is inbuilt into a website that allows people to create, edit and delete content without needing any knowledge of HTML. Read more about how to choose a SEO friendly CMS.

Crawl: When a Search Engine spider visits your site they are said to “crawl” your site. This is the process of collecting data and returning it to the Search Engine. The more frequently you update your site, the more spiders are encouraged to visit and index new pages.

DMOZ: Also known as The Open Directory Project. DMOZ is a free, human, edited directory run by volunteers. A listing is considered beneficial for SEO, but getting listed can be a real challenge.

Dofollow link: A standard link which hasn’t been Nofollowed. This type of link will pass PageRank or link equity or link juice to another website or page on a website.

Doorway page: A doorway page is a black hat SEO strategy whereby a page is created on a website that has no useful content and exists only to redirect visitors to another area of the site. This is not be confused with a targeted landing page which is a white hat SEO technique.

Duplicate content: This is content that is duplicated on other Web pages and/or other sites. If you have duplicate content on your website for a legitimate reason, you can use robot.txt to direct Search Engines not to index those Web pages.

External link: An inbound link to your site from another site on the Web.

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Facebook: This is a popular social networking website. You can share photos, notes, groups, events and posted items with your network.

Feed: A common feature of blogs. This allows readers to subscribe to frequently updated content by adding the feed to their reader software or email client (e.g. Outlook). Feeds are typically created in a format called RSS.

Flash: Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to Web pages. Although Search Engines have gotten better at understanding the content of Flash files, most SEO companies would be reluctant to recommend creating a website that consisted entirely of one Flash file.

Footer: Footer navigation is displayed at the bottom of the page on every Web page. Typically, it appears as a block and be in a different colour to differentiate it from the rest of the site.

Google: Currently the Web’s largest and most influential Search Engine, accounting for the great majority of searches performed.

Google AdWords: This is one of Google’s flagship products and offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads. It is located on the right hand side of the page in Google searches.

Google Analytics: A popular analytics tool created by Google to monitor your website statistics. Find out more about Google Analytics’ popular reports and tools.

Googlebot: Google’s Search Engine program which visits your site and returns data to Google. Also known as bots, internet bots, Web robots and Web crawlers.

Google Buzz: This is a social media website which integrates with your existing Gmail account. Find out more about Google Buzz.

Google keyword tool: A popular tool used to find keywords. Find out about other popular keyword research tools.

Google Local Business Listings: See Google Places.

Google Places: Formerly known as Google Local Business Listings, Google Places are different to organic or pay-per-click listings in a Google Search. These listings typically show in Google Searches when the when the user types a service oriented business followed by the city for their search eg ‘Hairdressers Parramatta’. Find out more about Google Places.

Google sitemap: A file placed on your Web server and submitted to Google indicating which pages on your site need to be indexed. See XML sitemap.

Google sitelinks: In some search results Google lists multiple deep links rather than one single link. See example below.

Google Social Search: When you are logged into your Gmail account, it combines Search Engines results with your social media networks such as Twitter, Digg and blogs. Find out more about Google Social Search.

Headings (heading tags): In the context of SEO, heading tags can be used to seamlessly insert keywords. Heading tags are constructed in HTML using a H1 to H6 tag. Styling can be modified using CSS. Headings are also important for readability on a Web page and breaking up text.

HTML: Stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is one of the most popular programming languages to develop websites.

Image SEO: Stands for image Search Engine Optimisation and is important for optimising your images. Search Engines cannot read images, they can only read text. Read more about image SEO.

Inbound links: An external link from another site to your site. The amount of quality inbound links to your site is one of the most important criteria used by Search Engines to rank Web pages.

Index: A Search Engine’s database in which it stores textual content from every web page that its spiders visit.

Internal links: Links from a page on your site to another internal page on your site. Internal link building is important in building a natural link profile. Search Engines also use internal text links to crawl pages within a website.

International SEO: International SEO, otherwise known as global SEO or multilingual SEO, is an important component to an effective global Internet marketing campaign. Find out more about international SEO strategies.

Internet Explorer (IE): This is one of the most widely used Web browsers.

Invisible text: This is putting keyword-stuffed text in the same colour as the background so it is invisible to human readers but not to Search Engines. This is a Black hat SEO technique.

JavaScripts: JavaScript is a client-side scripting language. It can be embedded into HTML documents to create and add dynamic features to static pages. Search Engines find it more difficult to read JavaScript than HTML.

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Keywords: Sometimes called Search Engine keywords. These are the words or phrases (long tail keywords) that web surfers type into a Search Engine. Read more about how to find the right keywords for your SEO strategy.

Keyword density: This measures how many times a keyword or keyword phrase is used in the content of the page.

Keyword stuffing: This is when keywords are inserted too frequently, unnaturally and out of context on the Web page for the purpose of artificially boosting the page’s ranking in Search Engines. This can lead to penalties if a website is seen to be manipulating the Search Engines.

Keyword research: This is a process to find the right keywords and monitor your ongoing keyword strategy. Find out more about keyword research tools.

Keyword rich: This is the aim of SEO copywriting; to achieve a balance of using keywords in a natural, seamless way within the text.

KPI: Stands for key performance indicators. These are benchmarks set by a company to measure performance.

Landing page: In the context of SEO, this is a page created on a web site which targets a specific keyword(s). A landing page will typically include the keyword phrase in the title, description, headings, links and body content of the page. Read more about how to optimise landing pages.

Links: In SEO terms, this is generally considered to be inbound links to your site. In basic terms, a Search Engine considers a link as validation of your website and factors this into its ranking algorithm.

Link authority: ‘Authority’ gained by a webpage through quality incoming links. This is for instance expressed in the PageRank given by Google. Also referred to as link equity.

Link bait: Content which is informative, engaging and interesting and encourages other websites to link to it and increase your link profile.

Link building: This is the process of acquiring inbound links to your website to create a natural link profile. This is an essential part of your SEO strategy. Read more about link building.

LinkedIn: One of the biggest professional networking Social Media sites.

Link Equity: See link authority above.

Link juice: Not all links have equal value. This is the value a Search Engine places on a link to your site. Some links will have a significant effect on your rankings e.g. from a high authority, trustworthy and quality site, while other links will have no value at all.

Link farm: In SEO, a link farm is any group of web sites that all hyperlink to every other site in the group for the purposes of inflating link authority/equity. This is known as a black hat SEO strategy.

Long tail keywords: This is the strategy of targeting less competitive niche keywords rather than the hugely competitive broad keywords. An example of a short tail keyword is ‘gyms Bondi’ while a long tail keyword is ‘female only gyms Bondi’. Long tail keywords usually have a lower search volume but a higher conversion rate. Read more about how to optimise pages for long tail keywords.

Meta tags (Metatags): HTML code which Search Engines read and use in various ways such as meta descriptions and meta keywords. Some meta tags have become less relevant throughout the years e.g. the meta keywords tag carries little or no weight.

Meta description: This provides a summary of the page content. Search Engines often use the meta description to display in their search results just below the title tag.

Meta keywords: A list of keywords relevant to the page which Search Engines read and use in various ways. Google has openly said they do not use the ‘keywords meta tag’ in their Web search ranking.

Mozilla Firefox: This is a free and open source web browser that has steadily grown in popularity over the last few years.

Nofollowed link: A link which carries the rel=”nofollow” attribute – this is implemented within common platforms such as Wordpress to avoid comment spam. A link with the rel=”nofollow” attribute, doesn’t carry any weight, and doesn’t count towards your overall PageRank.

Organic Search: These are unpaid search results delivered by Search Engines. This is a long term strategy to improve brand visibility and rankings in Search Engines. Find out more about organic search or organic SEO.

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PageRank (PR): As defined by Google, PageRank reflects their view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that they believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.

PPC (Pay per click): Pay Per click is where an advertiser bids on keywords associated with an advertisement in order to achieve higher position on Search Engine results pages (sponsored links section) for searches on that keyword. Also known as Paid Search. Find out how PPC can work with SEO campaigns.

Penalty: A drop in your Search Engine ranking when you have broken the Search Engine’s guidelines with black hat SEO – trying to manipulate the Search Engines or artificially boost your ranking. Read more about what to do is your website is penalised or banned by Google.

Ranking: This is the rank given by a Search Engine on the basis of its relevance to the keyword search, authenticity and popularity.

Reciprocal linking: The process of exchanging links from your website to another website.

Robots.txt: A robots.txt is a permissions file that can be used to control which web pages of a website you want a Search Engine to index. The text file must be placed in a websites root directory.

ROI (return on investment): The benefit gained in return for the cost of investing budget into advertising or project expressed as a percentage or ratio. To calculate ROI, use the following formula: “Total Revenues (generated from campaign or project) minus cost of investment divided by cost of investment.”

RSS feed: This stands for Rich Site Summary or Rich Site Syndication. RSS feeds can be read using software called an RSS reader or feed reader which can be web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based.

Search Engines: A Search Engine is a web portal to find information on the internet through using keyword searches. Major Search Engines include Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Search Engine banning: This is when your website has been removed from a Search Engine indexes. Do a site search in Google by typing in ‘site:yoursite.com’ and see if Google returns any results.

SEM: Stands for Search Engine Marketing. This is a form of Internet marketing which includes all aspects of building traffic through search, including natural (organic) Search Engine Optimisation and PPC (pay per click) Search Engine advertising.

SEO: Search Engine Optimisation (Optimization). This focuses on natural (organic) Search Engine ranking. See below.

SEO audit: An SEO Audit is like a health check for your website. It looks at the technical infrastructure of your website, the on-page elements and off-page essentials to maximise any Search Engine Optimisation activities.

Search Engine Optimisation (also spelled optimization): In basic terms, the process of optimising a page through it’s on-page content, structure and link profile to rank highly for specific search queries. In broader terms, SEO can increase revenues & profits for businesses marketing their products or services online.

SEO consultants: Act as a business consultant and partner with you to reach your Search Engine Optimisation goals. Also known as SEO experts. Read more about what really makes an SEO expert.

SEO copywriting: SEO copywriting is copy written for a website that is keyword rich and designed to attract Search Engines spiders but still be compelling and interesting for readers. Find out more about SEO copywriting.

SEO toolbars: Toolbars that can be downloaded and integrated seamlessly with your Web browser to give you important SEO resources at your fingertips to optimise your website and analyse your competitor’s websites. Read more about SEO Toolbars.

SERP: This stands for Search Engine Result Page. This is the list of links and descriptions listed by a Search Engine in response to a keyword query.

Social bookmarking: A sub-category to Social Media that allows you to share, organise and manage your bookmarks, or favourite websites, with other users that use the same social bookmarking tool, such as Delicious, Stumbleupon and Digg.

Social Media: This is sometimes described as Web 2.0 and used to describe user generated websites and blogs that encourage engagement and allow interaction. Popular sites include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs.

Social networking: A sub-category to Social Media encompassing ‘networking’ activities and includes social networks such as Facebook.

Spider: Sometimes called Search Engine spiders. These are programs written to scour the web automatically for various reasons (to index web pages, for spam detection, etc.) aka web robots, web crawlers, bots, internet bots.

Technorati: Technorati is one of the biggest blog Search Engines.

Title Tag: This is also known as the meta title. It is shown at the top of a browser window and is considered to be very important in on-page SEO.

Traffic: This refers to the number of visitors to your website. A program like Google Analytics can help you monitor traffic on your website.

Twitter: Twitter is a popular social media networking site that lets you write and read messages of up to 140 characters.

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URL: This stands for Uniform Resource Locator. This is the Web address of a document and an important on-page element for Search Engine Optimisation.

XML Sitemap: A list of pages you want the Search Engines to find. This is created in XML format and submitted to the Search Engines.

VSEO: This stands for Video Search Engine Optimisation and is the process of optimising videos to drive traffic to your website. Find out more about Video Search Engine Optimisation.

Web 2.0: This refers to social media websites which encourage user generated content and social interaction online. Popular sites include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs.

White hat SEO: This is a process of boosting your Search Engine ranking by using methods approved by Search Engines. Read more about white hat SEO.

WordPress: WordPress is an excellent open source web publishing system or content management system. Find out more about how WordPress SEO can benefit your website.

Yahoo!: One of the oldest and established Search Engines.

YouTube: A video hosting website owned by Google. Find out more about how to optimise your YouTube videos.

Contact us if any SEO terms need clarification or you would like any SEO terms to be added to the list. Alternatively find out more about our SEO Packages and SEO Services and how our SEO experts can partner with you in your business to increase your Search Engine visibility and improve your bottom line.

The Search Engine Optimisation industry has long suffered a public relations problem and is rife with SEO myths and misconceptions, not helped by companies who practice black hat SEO techniques to artificially boost your Search Engine ranking. However professional SEO is an important and necessary part of your marketing strategy so how do you tell a snake oil salesman from a bona fide SEO expert? We debunk 10 common SEO myths and misconceptions and help you separate fact from fiction.

SEO is a dirty word: One of the most widespread SEO myths is that it is shrouded in mystery and beyond the realm of marketing experts. Search Engine Optimisation is not rocket science but like any other good business decision, hiring an SEO company is about delegating SEO of your website to an SEO expert who has the time, knowledge and resources to pull off a successful SEO campaign and is solely focused on the optimisation of your website.

SEO can guarantee rankings: This is one of the biggest SEO myths perpetuated by unscrupulous SEO companies in the industry. SEO rankings cannot be guaranteed because your ranking is dependent on Search Engines algorithm changes, what your competitors are doing and countless other ranking factors. SEO is a profession like being a lawyer or accountant. They can’t guarantee their services to keep you out of jail or a humongous tax return so why would you expect it from an SEO company?

Keyword density is very important: Your primary keyword should be used in your on page elements such as your title tag, heading tags and body text. However, SEO has evolved and Search Engines have become more sophisticated. Using modifiers, synonyms and both the plural and singular versions of a keyword is a more natural way of copywriting and casting your net wider for related keywords.

Meta tags have no relevance: The keywords used in your title tag, description tag and keyword meta tags should reflect the content on the Web page and assist Search Engines in understand the content on the page and thus ranking it for relevant keyword searches. Google has openly said they do not use meta keyword tags in their ranking algorithms. However, Google is not the only Search Engine in existence and other Search Engines still use this tag.

Linking out to relevant sites helps with your SEO: This is one of the prevalent SEO myths. Your website linking to quality and authoritative web sites helps rankings. Not true. Your link profile will look unnatural if you are not linking to any sites at all but linking to other sites will not boost your Search Engine visibility. Websites linking back to your website is what you are aiming for and this will increase your ranking.

Web Designers are SEO experts: While your Web designer can certainly provide you with some guidance in regards to optimising your website, SEO is a specialised field and they may not have the knowledge and expertise to achieve top rankings for competitive phrases. However, it is important your Web designer work alongside an SEO expert to build a website with a Search Engine friendly infrastructure.

Flash is a no go for SEO: Search Engines have become a lot better at crawling and indexing websites that use Flash. However, most SEO companies still recommend having an HTML-style navigation and content template which will allow you to have the best of both worlds. With creating a website in one single flash movie, there is an absence of text and crawlable links which can create problems in Search Engine spiders reading the file.

Getting on the first page of Google will guarantee your success: Remember the end goal of SEO is conversion. There is no point ranking on page number of Google for an niche keyword that will just drive traffic to your website but will not result in increased enquiries and revenue. Keep your eye on the prize and target your pages for keywords that will drive better targeted, quality traffic to your website.

If you build it, they will come: Certainly having a great product, an engaging website and interesting copywriting is all very important but people have to find you on Search Engines first. Optimising your website is equally as important to ensure that your website ranks highly on Web searches for relevant keywords. Research shows that most Web surfers do not look beyond the first pages of Search Engine results.

SEO is a one time activity: One of the most common SEO myths or traps a company can fall for is that optimisation of your website is a one off activity. Search Engine Optimisation is not a ‘set it and forget it’ marketing activity. Whether you employ an SEO company or continue optimising your website in-house, it requires ongoing maintenance such as:

• keyword research
• page editing and optimisation
• link building strategies and
• website and competitive analysis

Find out more about our SEO Growth Plans and SEO Maintenance Plans to maintain your online growth and increase your online presence.

Contact us to find out more about our SEO Packages and SEO Services and find out why we are one of the best SEO companies in Australia. There are a lot of SEO myths and misconceptions but at SEO Works, our business analysts are encouraged to have an open door policy and share their knowledge and expertise with you to help demystify the world of Search Engine Optimisation.

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Your website SEO plays an important role in your content strategy and marketing and promotions campaigns. Whether you have outsourced your Search Engine Optimisation marketing or focusing your efforts in-house, it is important to know the basics of SEO and have a cohesive approach with all your communication tools. Here are 5 key SEO housekeeping tips to help you with the ongoing maintenance of your website.

Web SEO Tip #1 – Create a content schedule

Set a weekly schedule where you update content on your website, publish a blog post and update your social media networks. The more you update your website with interesting and relevant content, the more encouraged Search Engine spiders will be to crawl your website.

Web SEO Tip #2 – Develop a link building strategy

Set aside at least half an hour to an hour three times a week to building your link profile. This time could be dedicated to blogging on relevant websites, writing guest posts or concentrating on writing great content for your website that other websites will want to link back to.

Web SEO Tip #3 – Ongoing keyword research

Keywords are dynamic and search trends evolve continuously, so what keyword a customer may use for Web searches for now might change in six months time. Use keyword research tools to monitor your keyword strategy, expand your list of keywords and optimise your website accordingly.

Web SEO Tip #4 – Analyse your website statistics

Ideally, Web statistics should be monitored weekly to track your statistics and understand better how users are interacting with and navigating your website. You can use this information to improve the useability and functionality of your website and expand your keyword strategy.

Web SEO Tip #5 – Optimise your page content

Depending on how large your website is or how time critical the information is on your website, you should review your Web pages every three to six months. This involves:

• checking content to make it is up to date
• checking to see whether there are new opportunities to add content
• checking for broken links and that you are not linking to bad neighbourhoods
• checking that anchor text contain a variance of keywords

Optimisation of your website is an ongoing process but it doesn’t have to be an arduous task. By setting up regular tasks to regularly do an SEO audit of your website, your website will be operating at an optimum level. Contact us to find out how we can help you with your Web SEO and find out more about our SEO Packages and SEO Services.

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We’ve written before about how using the WordPress (WP) blog platform is a great SEO strategy but we’re going to dig deeper now and bring you what we think are five WordPress essentials in terms of hosting packages, themes and plugins. WordPress has a Search Engine-friendly infrastructure, great design templates and plugins available (to increase the functionality of your website) and an easy-to-use Content Management System (CMS). Find out more …

Five WordPress essentials: Recommended web hosting packages

To maximise the SEO benefits of WordPress, we recommend that you host your WordPress blog on your own domain with a hosting package. Domain names often come free with the hosting package. WordPress works best when it’s in a rich hosting environment.

WordPress can be installed from within the control panel for many hosting services – the following are five that are the best at supporting WordPress enabling its full potential and are recommend by WP:

Bluehost: Auto-installation of WordPress, unlimited disk storage, monthly data transfer and host unlimited domains on 1 account, 1 free domain name, 2500 POP / WebMail addresses, 50 MySQL, 99% uptime guarantee and no hidden fees. Voted best support in 2004 – 2008;

DreamHost: WordPress auto-installation and upgrade, 1 TB disk storage, 10 TB bandwidth, free domain, unlimited databases, 3000 email accounts, unlimited domain forwarding and much more;

MediaTemple: WordPress one-click installer and enough high-speed storage and bandwidth to run a blogging empire.

GoDaddy: Hosting plans include to unlimited disk space, unlimited transfer, unlimited MySQL databases, unlimited websites, and 1,000 email accounts and plans start at just US$4.25/month.

Laughing Squid: Hosting plans come in three packages; Mega Squid, Ultra Squid and Super Squid. The daddy of the plans, Super Squid offers 4 GB disk space, 200 GB bandwidth, 5 MySQL databases, 50 email accounts.

Find out more about these hosting companies recommended by WordPress.

These hosting packages are all based in the US. However, if you are trying to attract the local market, you may want to find a locally based service provider as geographical location of the hosting is an important factor.

Many WordPress hosting packages offer shared hosting however this can be a trap – these usually come with too few databases and restrict the number of domain names allowed. Developer support should be a key focus when choosing web hosting.

Five WordPress essentials: Best themes for WordPress blogs*

If you are setting up a blog or a personal website, you may only wish to install a free WordPress theme to get you started. Some themes can be customised by adding different widgets and WP plugins.

You can also edit the template files, image files, style sheets, custom pages as well as any necessary code files to change the look and feel of your website to reflect your company’s branding or your personal style. Some WP themes also have advertising built into the theme.

WordPress offers over 1000 free themes from children’s themes, business themes and fun fashionable themes. Five of the most popular WordPress themes include*:

Five WordPress essentials: Must-have WordPress plugins**

Plugins are tools to extend the functionality of WordPress and are designed by third party developers. When installing WordPress on a new site, there are five plugins you can’t do without. These include the following:

All in One SEO Pack: This generates Meta tags automatically, automatically optimises your titles for Search Engines, create canonical URLs and fine tunes navigational links.

Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress: This creates an XML-sitemap of the blog that is supported not only by Google but also by Ask.com, YAHOO and MSN Search. The plugin supports all kinds of WordPress generated pages as well as custom URLs.

Dagon Design Sitemap Generator: This is another sitemap plugin that creates a user sitemap on your website.. This plugin is highly customisable from its own options page in the WordPress admin panel.

MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer: When you create a new post, your blog will ping and notify all the ping services that it has been updated. This encourages Search Engines and different blog directories/services to index your updated blog properly.

Redirection: This is an essential WordPress plugin that manages 301 redirections, keep track of 404 errors, and generally tidy up any loose ends your site may have.

You can find other useful plugins at the WordPress Plugin Directory. You may also want to read our article on WordPress SEO – Ten Useful Plugins.

Five WordPress Essentials: WordPress copywriting tips to optimise your website

Search Engines have a preference for websites that are updated regularly with fresh content. Ways to do this are to create a company blog, add media releases, case studies and testimonials to the website and update the website with competitions and special offers.

The easy-to-use WordPress CMS makes it easy for you to add and edit copy on your website. Here are five SEO copywriting tips to take advantage of the SEO features included with the WordPress platform.

Permalinks: Create an SEO friendly permalink. Make the link your title minus the stop words (and, the, if, etc) with dashes (not underscores) between each word.

Title tags: Use your keyword in the post title. Important keywords should be used towards the start of the title tag as it has greater SEO value. 5 – 8 words are best.

Meta description tag: A meta description tag is a guide for Search Engines to use as summary text (beneath the title) when a site is listed in the Search Engines. Word counts should be aimed at 25-27 words and less than 165 characters in total.

Page headings: Make sure that your primary keyword or keyword phrase is included ideally at the start of the H1 heading. Use H2-H5 headings to optimise for secondary terms – make sure these are used as sub-headings.

Body copy: Insert keywords naturally and seamlessly into the text. Use your primary keyword as well as synonyms throughout the copy.

Contact us and find out more about how we can develop a beautiful WP website or blog that not only fulfils your design brief but will also delivers on the SEO goals for your website, drives quality traffic to your website and improves your conversion rates. WordPress was designed with SEO specifically in mind but with these WordPress essentials, you will be able to further customise your WordPress website or blog, enhance the functionality and improve the SEO.

*As of 25 May 2010

*Disclaimer: Please note that we have not tested all these WordPress themes and plugins. Before you install a plugin, make sure you read all the documentation, make notes of any changes to WordPress files or templates and remember to backup your database and files.

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If you are looking to update your website content more than once a month then it is likely that you will require a content management system and choosing an SEO friendly CMS isn’t always an easy task if you don’t know what to look for.

Let us walk you through the essentials to help you select a CMS that is going to give you all the editorial functions you need while optimising your website and enhancing your Search Engine visibility in the process.

Here are 10 things to consider when selecting your SEO friendly Content Management System(CMS):

Keyword rich URLs: An SEO friendly CMS should include custom URL creation. An automatically generated and dynamic URL may look like this http://www.mysite.com.au/blog-articles/thread.php?threadid=12345&sort=date but an SEO friendly CMS will allow you to create a keyword rich, static URL such as http://www.mysite.com.au/blog-articles/seo-friendly-cms. Static URLs are easier for both Search Engine spiders and the end-user to understand what the page is about.

Title tag customisation: Each title tag must be able to be edited or customised on a page by page basis. It can be helpful to also create rules so that all pages end in “mysite.com.au” or “mysiteblog.com.au” depending on the page.

Meta Tag customisation: Meta description and robots tags must be editable via the CMS for it to be considered SEO friendly. The meta description is a guide for Search Engines to use as an accurate summary of a page’s content which (beneath the title) when a website is listed in the Search Engines results.

Custom HTML tags enabling: A Search Engine-friendly CMS should offer the function of putting <hx> tags or “nofollow” tags on links. These features can be built into the menu or allowed through manual editing of the HTML in a text editor window.

Anchor text editing: Optimisation of the internal linking anchor text is critical for your SEO. An SEO friendly CMS will allow you to customise the anchor text of all internal links.

Sensible site structure: Poor category or site structure can be a killer for your sites performance in the Search Engines. When designing your sites architecture, there shouldn’t be any limits on your structure based on your CMS’s inflexibility. A good content management system will offer customisable navigation.

301-redirects: An SEO Friendly CMS should allow the proper re-direction of content where necessary. 301’s are a valuable asset when new page versions are created, content expires or you are moving to a whole new website.

RSS / XML: The ability to add an RSS feed to your website can boost site optimisation efforts whether it’s feeding off your website content or refreshing content on your website from another source. Just like HTML web pages, with a SEO friendly CMS, RSS feeds can be optimised to perform better in Search Engine listings.

Image handling and ALT tags: Search Engines cannot read images so all images should be optimised and alt tags are a must have from a SEO perspective. The alt tags serve as the anchor text and allow you to add keyword-rich text. Google Images is starting to be a large referrer of traffic to websites so image SEO should not be neglected.

Ability to access all areas: A Search Engine friendly CMS will allow you to edit all parts of the website including the footer and sidebars and allow you add cross-link paragraphs. Be wary of content management systems that say they automatically do that for you.

Contact us to find out about what CMS we recommend and how we can help you implement the system on your new or redesigned website. Choosing the right CMS allows you to easily add, edit and delete content on your website, add extra plugins to enhance the design and functionality and allow basic optimisation of your website without having to be an SEO expert. Choosing a SEO friendly CMS is one of the most important decisions of your design process and can make or break the Search Engine Optimisation of your website.

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Google Ranking penalties are issued to websites that Google feels are manipulating the Search Engine Page Rankings (SERPs). However, while a sudden ranking drop may be the result of black hat SEO and foul play, there may also be other less sinister reasons for your disappearing act on Google. Before you hit the panic button, start hyperventilating and send out a search party to find your missing ranking, read on to find out why your website may have taken a sudden dive on Google.

Don’t panic ….

Life is good … you have invested a lot of money in your website, created what you think is great compelling content, focused on your link building and now you’re reaping the returns of your investment and your website is steadily climbing up the Google ladder. However, one day you check your Google rankings, you have had a sudden ranking drop and your page #1 ranking is no longer to be found … now what?

If you’re doing all the right things and following Search Engine guidelines, there is no need to panic that your Google ranking has had a sudden ranking drop. The first thing you need to do is check whether you have been banned altogether. Do a site search by typing in– site:www.yoursite.com and see if Google return any results.

If your website returns results, good news! You’re not out of the woods yet and your website may be subjected to Google ranking penalties but your site isn’t banned from Google.

There are several reasons why your Search Engine ranking may have dropped and these include:

Search Engine stuff-ups: Before taking drastic action make sure isn’t just a temporary anomaly in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). It happens. Your Search Engine ranking may correct itself in a few days without any exertion, heavy breathing or action on your part.

robots.txt file: Another common reason your site can disappear from Google is that your web developer inadvertently changed the robots.txt file. A robots.txt file restricts access to your site by Search Engine robots that crawl the web. If the robots.txt file is written or set up incorrectly, this could be stopping the Search Engine spiders to stop visiting your website.

Server downtime: The most common reason that your site might disappear from Google is that your server was down when the Search Engine spiders came to leave their calling card and re-index your site. If your web server has too much downtime and its affecting your rankings, it might be time to get a new web host or new and stable web server.

Over-optimised text: Are other pages in your site out-ranking the page you targeted for the particular keyword? If so, de-optimise for the keyword you took a major drop on; look at the backlink profile and create new links or change existing links to target related keywords rather than exact match for targeted keywords.

Back-links: Websites that provide back links to your website also help boost your website Search Engine ranking. If those links are removed for some reason, this may affect your position in the SERPs. Contact the webmasters and find out why those links have been removed and a continual focus on your link building activities.

Link profile: Look at your link profile for the entire site – does it look natural? Are there too many anchor-text links on your targeted keywords? Create some links with only your URL as the link text and variations of it e.g. http://www.yoursite.com, www.yoursite .com, yoursite.com. Search engines expect to see this in a natural link profile.

Duplicated text: The drop in rankings may also be due to someone duplicating copy from your website and lead to Google Ranking penalties. It could be that someone has copied your site, and that Google, finding identical pages, has decided to give your competitor the benefit of doubt. There are tools readily available on the Web which can check for duplicated text.

Um … I’ve been doing something naughty …

In truth, a site banned from Google is a rarity. You’re more likely to get Google Ranking penalties where there is a sudden ranking drop. This may be due to black hat SEO activities that you may or may not be aware of. These include:

Keyword spamming: This involves stuffing a page with keywords that are out of context or have no relation to the body content. This is done to manipulate Search Engine results. Keywords need to be inserted seamlessly and naturally into text.

Cloaking: This involves developing highly optimised pages which are only shown to Search Engine spiders to boost the ranking of a website. These pages cannot be seen by visitors to the website. The cloaking is usually combined with doorway pages (see below).

Doorway pages: This involves creating pages designed purely for Search Engines to manipulate them into giving the website a higher ranking. Doorway pages contain no valuable content for human readers. A Google-friendly alternative is to create keyword rich landing pages on your website which direct readers to real content on the site.

Invisible text: This involves putting keywords in text that is invisible to visitors viewing the website but visible to Search Engine spiders. Google see this as trying to artificially boost rankings and can issue Google Ranking penalties for this black hat SEO technique.

Link farms: This is the practice of buying links or paying websites to link back to your website in the hope of improving your Search Engine ranking. If you are linking to ‘bad neighbourhoods’ or shonky websites, this can also affect your rankings. Link building activities will only affect your ranking positively if the links are related to your website, credible and trustworthy.

Whoops … you’re banned from Google, what now?

Google ranking penalties are far more common than banning and usually can be easily rectified by de-optimising. If your site is banned from Google altogether, this means you have to systematically undo the risky optimisation techniques you undertook and ask for re-inclusion. This involves contacting Google directly at help@google.com and including the following in your submission:

• acknowledge violation of the Search Engine guidelines
• outline what you have done to rectify this mistake
• reassure Google that you will not violate the guidelines again and
• ask for re-inclusion

If you hired an SEO company that spammed on your behalf, state the firm’s name and contact information and include full contact information. Google will usually react to such detailed requests and you may find some of your pages back in the index within a couple of weeks. It can take months before your whole website is re-indexed so the loss of traffic generation from Search Engines, Google ranking penalties or a website that is not indexed on Google can spell huge trouble for your online business.

A sudden drop in rankings or your website being banned can have serious implications for your website. If you have experienced a dramatic fall in traffic which is impacting on your leads generation and online revenue, contact us and find out more about our SEO Forensic Audit. This is usually requested in emergency situations when there are Google ranking penalties applied to a website or the website is banned altogether.

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