In the last month or so there has been significant volatility in Google’s search rankings for rusbank. 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.

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.