Search Engine Optimisation - WEBGATOR · 2018-10-10 · Search engine optimisation requires specialist know-how, vari-ous analysis tools, years of experience, and a budget for building

Search Engine OptimisationThe Most Logical, Accurate, Honest, Revealing, Down-to-Earth, and

Entertaining Information on SEO that You Will EVER Read

Are you wanting more customers for your business? There are many ways to market products and services online and off-line. For many businesses though, their custom-ers mainly come from people searching for their products or services on the internet. Search engine optimisation is the process of optimising a website so that it shows up when customers are searching online using a search engine like Google.

Advertising in Search EnginesSearch engines like Google make money by selling ad space. Currently, it is common for Google to display ads in the top 4 positions of a search engine result page (SERP). Each time a user clicks on one of the ads, Google charges the advertiser a fee. Google will still charge this fee even if the user doesn’t buy anything! This means that business owners who pay for these ads can end up spending a lot of money and not getting enough business from it to cover the cost of their investment. Of course, paid ads like this can also be very effective and can make it possible for a business to scale quickly. It can be tricky to achieve this and more often than not, business owners will stop their ads after a few weeks or months just because they aren’t seeing enough of a return to justify the expense.

Below the ads at the top of the SERPs, there are other websites listed – usually 10 per page. These ten listings, referred to as ‘Organic’ results, are free listings that Google shows for the benefit of the user. These websites are not paying for ad space. In fact, they get many customers from people using Google to search for the services and products they offer. They don’t need to pay anything to Google when a user clicks on their website. Would you like your website to be displayed in front of potential customers all day every day and never have to pay anything to Google for it? Having your website in the top 10 listings on page 1 is like having your business situated in prime commercial real estate and not having to pay rent for it!

How to Get to Page 1 of GoogleGetting your website listed in the top 10 is not easy. Since these are free listings, Google has created a very complicated set of rules to judge and grade each listed website. These rules make up Google’s Algorithm. Google uses ‘bots’ to in-spect each website regularly to see how it measures up to the rules and how it compares to other websites in the same category. Google’s algorithm then assigns a rank to each website in that category. The websites that follow the rules the best get a higher rank. The sites ranked in the top 10 are the ones that Google chooses to display on page 1 of the SERPs. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of optimising a website so that it follows Google’s rules better than other sites in the same category.

Doing SEO requires a clear understanding of algorithm that Google judges and grades websites by. The tricky thing is that Google is very secretive about what their specific rules are. This means that to really understand what helps a website get a higher ranking, much research and testing is required. Having a lot of experience and a knowledge of how websites and search engines work is also necessary. Just like any trade, search engine optimisation needs to be done by a specialist.

Search Engine Optimisation is a specialist field. Some business owners presume that anyone with a knowledge of IT, computers or websites are able to do SEO. This is not true! Web designers and IT companies usually outsource their SEO projects to a SEO specialist, taking a commission in the process; or, they attempt to do it themselves which can lead to disaster.

Another common mistake is comparing apples to apples. This just doesn’t work in the SEO industry. Business owners have succumbed to the spammy emails and pushy sales tactics of overseas marking companies selling cheap off-shore SEO services. These off-shore companies have zero accountability, and their ethics are on a similar level. Repair-ing the damaged caused by unethical or out-dated SEO practices can be a very long road to recovery. There are even reports of much more malicious tactics being used that have left business owners with no option other than to start fresh.

Common SEO Mistakes

What Does Google’s Algorithm Look at When Ranking Websites?Google’s algorithm looks at these main areas when determining the ranking of a website:

• the quality and quantity of optimised content on the site• the website’s health, speed and mobile compatibility• the quality and quantity of relevant and authoritative incoming links• the number of relevant visitors coming to the site• social signals (likes and shares)

In a perfect world, the word that Google would like us all to live in, is one where a site naturally is built very well, has amazing content that authority sites choose to link to, gets shared by visitors on social media and brings lots of traffic in. This ‘perfect world’ happens on occasion, like when there is an Aldi special buy that draws lots of attention.

Unfortunately, for most business owners in the real world, they don’t have the time to build out amazing content. There aren’t authority sites in their industry looking to link to them. Customers couldn’t care less about what the business is doing on Facebook, let alone share anything from the website. And there is no way to generate viral traffic to their website.

The goal of search engine optimisation, in the real world, is to make a website more attractive to Google than the websites that it is currently ranking in the top 10. Approaching SEO in this way makes ranking on page one much more achievable.

In theory, the approach to SEO is pretty straight forward. It begins with using various SEO tools to gauge the strength of all websites that are currently ranking in the top 10. After the tech-nical analysis is complete it can be determined how much work will be required to out-perform those websites.

Key factors that of the SEO campaign will be achieving precision with the content optimisation and building the power of the web-site with authoritative incoming links.

Winning with SEO Precision and Power

Getting a website ranked in the top 10 for a major search term is a great achievement. The downside is that it takes time- usually several months. Then again, it all depends on where a website is ranked before the SEO starts. In some cases, a small tweak could move a website to page one of the SERPs!

In most cases though, it is a long-term goal with long-term wins. In any case, ranking increases will be seen throughout the course of the campaign. Some improvements could be seen within the first 24 hours of changes being made.

Business owners may decide to pay for Google ads while they are waiting for the SEO to take effect, or they may use other forms of advertising, such as word-of-mouth. There will be very little, if any, business from the SEO campaign until the website reaches the top 10.

How Long does SEO Take?

Search engine optimisation requires specialist know-how, vari-ous analysis tools, years of experience, and a budget for building authority with relevant backlinks.

Typically, a SEO specialist will charge anywhere between $150-$700 per hour for their time. This fee has to cover the cost of their time, as well as the the third-party tools and services they use to supplement the campaign. These overheads can be quite high.

Possibly the most expensive part of SEO is obtaining quality links from authoritative websites. High-quality content needs to be developed and usually a publisher fee is also required. For ex-ample, to get one link from a website like Forbes.com could cost over $2000! In most cases though, backlinks can be obtained for $200-$500 each.

How Much Does SEO Cost?

How Much Does SEO Cost?

The SEO costing would typically be worked out like this:

Let’s say, for example, a technical SEO analysis showed that on average, the top ten sites ranking for a certain keyword have quality links from 10 sites. The project website is already built and is structurally sound.

The work would be spaced out over 3-6 months in most cases, and an admin fee of $250+ would be charged per month. So let’s say for this example, that this first campaign is going to be spaced out over 6 months. The monthly cost would be worked out as follows:

This is just a basic example. Typically, the lowest-cost SEO that has some quality to it will start at $750+GST a month.

(If a company tries selling you SEO for $200 a month, you have to wonder what they’re doing. If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.)

Website Optimisation: 10 hours labour x $150 per hourAuthority Links: 15 x $500 eachTOTAL: $9000+GST

$9, 000+GST / 6 = $1500Plus Admin: $250 per monthTOTAL: $1750+GST per month

SEO is often referred to as a ‘murky world’. There is very little transparency, many conflicting views, and no regulatory body. In many ways, SEO is still like the Wild West! There are lots of SEO cowboys who recklessly use unethical SEO practices with the hopes of quick and cheap wins. These types of approaches usually involve some kind of brief website optimisation and a cheap and nasty automated link building machine. When things go South, they blame their failure on some Google update or spin some other rubbish.

There are many good SEOs out there though, and these are the ones who are getting results. Due to the many horror stories circulating around about negative SEO experiences, here are a few common signs of SEO scum.

How to Identify SEO Scum

Once a site ranks in the top ten, on-going maintenance is usually required. This maintenance involves on-going website updates and linking. The reason for this is owners of competing websites will be trying to get their websites ranked in the top ten. Without on-going maintenance, rankings will inevitably start to slide. In any case, the cost SEO maintenance will usually be less than the initial monthly cost to get ranked.

How Long Do I Have to Pay for SEO?

Zero Transparency

Many SEO agencies don’t tell their clients what they are doing. When asked, they say they use confidential techniques that they can’t share. While this may be true, the question remains – What loophole are they trying to exploit? Likely, it is not an ethical method and will not have lasting results. In any case, there should be some transparency with what they are doing each month.

Unnecessary Upsells

Many digital agencies are artists at pitching upsells as necessities. They may try to convince you that you need to get a new website, a Facebook marketing campaign, or regular content developed each month. All these things can help sup-port an SEO campaign, but 9 times out of 10, they are not necessary to get ranked in the top 10. A good SEO specialist can work with just about anything. There may be other reasons to buy upsells like these. For instance, the poor design of your current website could be affecting conversions and a new website would help get more sales. But if they try tell-ing you it’s necessary for SEO, then get a second opinion before making the investment. In the case of a new website, if transfer isn’t done properly, all rankings can be lost.

Jack of All Trades – Master of None

An agency that claims to be specialists in everything are usually specialists in nothing. You will get better results by going to a specialist for each aspect of your marketing. Search engine optimisation is a highly-specialised field and the success of a SEO campaign comes down to the person working on the project. Big digital marketing agencies will have click-bait articles and ‘trip-wire’ lead generation tactics (there’s a “big gorilla” down south that does that), slick sales staff on commissions, and a bunch of interns or junior staff doing the actual work. Once locked-in it can be hard to get away, and their fine print protects them from any liability for the carnage that results from their lack of skill. In other words, use a specialist that has experience and proof of great results. Don’t let them convert you with vague testimonials which represent agency results. You want to know exactly who is working on your SEO campaign and what results they personally have achieved in the past.

SEO Pirates

There are a number of digital agencies which are unskilled and unscrupulous. They prey on the ignorance and inno-cence of hard-working business owners. They attempt to get control of all digital properties, convincing their clients that it will be easier if all properties are managed by just one company. They want to build the website, host the web-site, manage the domain, the Google properties, and do the SEO. Once they get control of everything they can lock the business owner out and hold everything to ransom if the business owner ever tries to leave. If the owner does pay to get control of everything again, the cost is usually very high. Once a client moves on, the agency will then remove much of the linking they did for the client’s website and redirect it to a competitor to try and sign them up, or they will setup another website in the same industry and point the links to that. These SEO pirates are everywhere in the industry.

Most SEO specialists hold their strategies pretty close to the chest. Since SEO is unregulated and forever changing, each SEO profession-al is trying desperately to stay ahead of the curve and on top of Goo-gle algorithm adjustments. There are, however, a plethora of common techniques that have been used over the years and are likely familiar to all in the SEO community. Some techniques have been tried and tested for years and still work well. These techniques are referred to as ‘white-hat SEO’. Others were developed to exploit loop-holes in the algorithm and are referred to ‘black-hat’ SEO. Most SEO specialists use a mixture of white-hat and black-hat SEO – although few will ever admit it.

Google has forced SEO consultants to include techniques that are clearly manipulative. In many cases, using a white-hat-only approach will mean that a site never ranks in the top ten. Google’s algorithm actually rewards black-hat SEO, sometimes more than white-hat SEO.

The skill comes in balancing the use of black-hat methods with white-hat methods, and having full control over them so that they can be removed or adjusted when Google stops responding to them. Get this wrong, and a site could land in big trouble and may never fully recover.

SEO Techniques - The Good, the Bad, and the Shady

Private Blog Network (PBNs)

It’s common knowledge the backlinks are a fundamental aspect of SEO. Without links, most sites will never rank. Get-ting backlinks is really tough sometimes and it can cost a lot of money. Each week there are thousands of domains that expire. Some of these domains have already had years of use and already have backlinks coming to them. Introducing the PBN! SEOs will buy these expired domains and then setup mock websites on them. Then the website will be used to link back to a client’s site. These links are purely manipulative, the websites completely faked, but can be more effective and cheaper to setup than purchasing links elsewhere. Some SEOs have thousands of websites in their network. This is a black-hat technique. Some rankings are supported purely with links from PBNs.

Automated SEO Software (ASS)

Many SEOs have found using software to create thousands of backlinks to be effective. This kind of linking is rarely done directly to a client’s site as it is quite dangerous. However, these automated links are sent to social properties that are already linking to the client’s site. Clearly, creating thousands of backlinks at the push of a button is a black-hat method. Nowadays, Google is getting very good at identifying these kinds of automated links. They are being used less and less due to diminished results, and in most cases, negative results. If you’ve ever heard of Web Spam – links like these are a classic example. If your SEO company uses this kind of software, you may have your ASS handed to you by Google.

Guest Posts

The SEO world is currently in the era of the guest post. Due to the demise of PBNs and the seeming ineffectiveness of other SEO methods, Guest Posts are really taking off and are branded as white-hat SEO. Guest Posts are articles that are written for legitimate websites owned by others. The articles contain a link that points to the SEO client’s website. These links are usually powerful and relevant. Google’s algorithm seems to respond well to these high quality guest post links. The problem with Guest Posts is that many agencies are submitting articles to the same list of sites, and this is causing them to become a little bit spammy. Since these guest posts are paid for, clearly manipulation is involved. So technically, Guest Posts are a black-hat method. Having said that, they are the whitest black-hat method available. Google will find guest posts very hard to disqualify from their algorithm.

White-hat Links

There are certain links that Google expects a business to have. Google understands that businesses like to have their profile listed on various blogging platforms and business directories. There are hundreds of platforms and business di-rectories that businesses can use to showcase their business. Most of these properties will allow a backlink back to the business’ site. These kinds of links are not manipulative – they are just branding and online exposure. The good news is that many of these platforms are high-quality and trusted by Google.

In summary, there are various SEO techniques that are well known in the SEO community, and many more than are listed here. The rabbit hole gets very dark and very deep indeed. Usually, achieving success with SEO depends more on knowing what not to do rather than trying to do everything.

Protecting yourself and your business from digital abuse is vital. Many business owners wouldn’t know where to start. Here are some basic things that can help protect you:

How to Protect Yourself from SEO Bullies

Never let a digital agency take over everything. Buy and control your domain name. You can give them access to the domain registrar to make changes to Name Servers if needed, but never let them transfer your domain name to their domain registrar – especially if they own the registrar! Never let them register a domain on your behalf. If they register it they will own it.

Be AutonomousOwn & Control your Domain Name

Never let a digital agency take over everything. Buy and control your domain name. You can give them access to the domain registrar to make changes to Name Servers if needed, but never let them transfer your domain name to their domain registrar – especially if they own the registrar! Never let them register a domain on your behalf. If they register it they will own it.

Own & Control your Domain Name

Host your website with a third party not with your web developer or SEO company. You can give them access to your cPanel or hosting if they need it, but don’t let them convince you to move your website over to their hosting. Whoever owns your hosting has ultimate control over your website. When you host with a reputable third-party hosting company, you can easily just change the cPanel or hosting password when you change SEO providers.

Host your Website Elsewhere

Choose a Reliable Website Platform (CMS)

When getting a website developed, you want to make sure that the website platform is one that is easy to work with. Some web developers insist on using their own content management system (CMS). The problem is that you could end up stuck with that developer forever because nobody else knows how to work with their code. Or, they may try to sell a ‘premium’ platform saying that it is more advanced. Advanced platforms are just complicated platforms – rarely better than standard ones. Many websites are built on the WordPress CMS these days. WordPress has various issues, but the pros out-weigh the cons by far. WordPress is relatively easy to use and just about any developer in the world knows how to work with it. Even business owners who know little about web development can do basic things with WordPress. SEO agencies also like WordPress because it makes the optimisation of the site easier. Some SEOs won’t take on a client if their site isn’t on WordPress.

Whether you choose WordPress, Wix, Big Commerce, Shopify, Neto, Squarespace, or other mainstream CMS, you should be okay. Avoid custom platforms as well as clunky platforms like Joomla and Drupal. (The sound of these two is enough to make any SEO guy shudder)

Google’s algorithm has had so many different engineers mak-ing and removing patches and tweaks over the years that there is not one single person at Google that could say exactly how to manipulate rankings. Google has become a Frankenstein of updates that nobody really knows how it’s going to react. This explains why there are so many inconsistencies with rankings. For example, Google will say not to use spammy SEO software, but the algorithm will rank a spammy site in the top ten. Google says not to use keyword stuffing, but then goes and ranks a keyword-stuffed site at the top.

Despite the inconsistencies, unfairness and Google’s own ad stuffing in the SERPs, it still remains the search engine of choice. It still delivers better results than any other search engine and it brings in the traffic. Without Google many a business would perish.

With the above in mind, if your SEO company tries hard to do the right thing but still can’t get the rankings you wanted, remember that they don’t control Google – nobody does!

Google’s Algorithm - the Power of Frankenstein

SEO isn’t for everyone. It’s important to find out if your key per-formance indicators are going to bring in a return on investment. Don’t let a SEO company sell you on rankings alone – you need know your numbers. In some cases, it may be better to just go with AdWords.

ROI differs from industry to industry. For example, in some industries one client could be worth millions. In this case, just 1 lead a year from the SEO would make it worth it. In others, perhaps just 5 leads a week make the SEO pay for itself. Yet, in others there might be a very low profit margin and it could take many conversions just to pay for the SEO.

SEO KPI ROI - LOL OR OMG

The way to work out if SEO is going to be a good investment or not, is to work out how many searches are being done in Google each month for the products and/or services you are selling in your service area. If you are positioned on page 1 of Google, you’ll likely get 10-40% of those visitors come to your site depending on where you are positioned on page one. Out of those visitors, you will convert 5-20% of them. Will those conversions give you enough of a margin to cover the cost of the SEO? Once again, it will just depend on your market.

To get an idea of how ROI could be estimated, let’s look at a local example here in Brisbane.

Imagine a web design company wants to start selling SEO services here in Brisbane. They employ a local Brisbane SEO consultant to do market research to find the best performing keywords. The research reveals that the best keyword to go after is ‘SEO Brisbane’ with 3600 average searches per month.

If they ranked their website on page one for SEO Brisbane they could expect at least 360 of these visitors to come by their site and at least 18 could be expected to sign up.

The web design company works out that their standard profit margin averages $3000 per client per year. A page one ranking, therefore, would bring in $54, 000 in new client profits each month. Likely, these profits would make the invest-ment into ranking for SEO Brisbane very worthwhile as it would be much more than whatever the SEO consultant would charge.

Keep in mind though, that this case study is not entirely realistic. The SEO industry’s keyword search volumes are mostly made up of SEO agencies checking their rankings, not customers looking for SEO services. The irony of it all is that many business owners don’t know what SEO is or how to find it. They know Google – but they don’t know the term ‘SEO’. So the service they need to rank in Google is a service many potential customers don’t know how to find. SEO agencies still compete to rank for those keywords because it’s a sign that they know what they’re doing and that they are better than the rest. At the end of the day though, Google can only rank 1 site #1, and any agency ranked in the top couple of pages should be pretty good. It costs a lot of money for an SEO company to maintain a top ranking for a key-word that brings in little business. However, the case study above still shows how ROI could be calculated in just about any industry.

SEO ROI Case-Study

Getting a site ranked in Google naturally carries some risk. Google’s algorithm triggers a range of algorithmic and manual penalties for both on-page and off-page SEO.

A website will get penalised by Google (aka ‘Spanked’) if there is too much keyword optimisation on a page. This is especially true if a page is optimised to rank in a certain geographic location. In these cases, having the city name in the page is important for SEO, but if overdone, Google can apply an over-optimisation penalty and the site will drop.

A website can also be spanked for spammy linking, or even too many keyword anchors. There are many things that could trigger an algorithmic or manual penalty which will result in rankings tanking.

There are a number of very public updates to Google’s algorithm that have resulted in sites losing rankings overnight. Let’s learn about some of them:

Get Ranked, Not Spanked

Many of Google’s updates have animal mascots – hence the ref-erence to the Google ‘zoo’. If you’ve lost rankings in recent years it could be because of one of these updates.

A Day at the Google Zoo – Understanding Goo-gle Updates

The Panda Update: This update was no cuddly little bear – it was more like Kung-Fu Panda on steroids. This update was applied in February 2011 and was aimed at sites with low-quality content. Before this update, many SEOs knew they could get good rankings by keyword-stuffing their pages and filling sites with lame content. Google wants to provide the best UX for users of their search engine, and having horrible content rankign on page 1 was damaging their reputation.

The Penguin Update: Don’t confuse this update to be anything like the cute little animal – it’s more like the evil Penguin from Batman. The Penguin update, released in April 2012, targeted sites using spammy backlinking methods. So many sites got hit with this update it’s not funny. In fact, many aged sites that are ranking now are actually sites that had no SEO done to them before 2012. Penguin used to be applied and reassessed only a few times a year. This made it really difficult for webmasters to know if they had done enough to be released by the evil Penguin. However, Google later made Penguin run in real-time. This means that a site that has been Penguin slapped can be recovered much faster than before.

The Humingbird Update: This little fella was released in 2013 and was made to target content quality, similar to Panda. The difference is that rather than just attack poor-quality content, this update focused on natural language usage and contextual meaning more than individual keywords.

The Possum Update: This update was actually named by the SEO community – not Google. This was a major update that landed in September 2016. It was aimed at local business rankings – specifically rankings in Google Maps. It was called the Possum update because it seemed like some businesses’ map rankings had disappeared. Google hadn’t removed them, instead they were being filtered out of the results, playing dead.

Other Updates: There are a number of other notable updates from Google such as Rank Brain and the Fred update.

Common Questions about SEO

? What is SEO?

SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimisation’. Technically it refers to optimising a website or webpage for selected keywords. However, it is generally accepted that SEO is the process of increasing a site’s rankings in Google and other search engines for selected keywords. To increase rankings involves both website optimisation, commonly referred to as ‘on-page optimisation’, and link building which is a part of ‘off-page optimisation’.

For further clarification, Wikipedia gives the following definition for ‘Search Engine Optimization’:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the online visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine’s unpaid results—often referred to as “natural”, “organic”, or “earned” results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a website appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users; these visitors can then be converted into customers.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, the computer programmed algorithms which dictate search engine behavior, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines, and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, adding content, doing HTML, and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.

? What are Keywords?

Keywords are search terms that people type into Google (or other search engines) when they want to find goods or services. We use Google’s Keyword Tool to find out the monthly search volume of each keyword so that we can focus on ranking for the keywords that have the most traffic and best user-intent.

For example, we have optimised the homepage of Webgator.com.au to rank for the keywords:

• SEO Brisbane• Brisbane SEO• search engine optimisation Brisbane• Brisbane search engine optimisation• SEO

and similar terms.You’ll see the keyword ‘SEO Brisbane’ placed in various locations on this page in both the text and HTML elements. This is referred to on-page optimisation.

? What are Rankings?

The term ‘rankings’ refers to the position where a web page is located in search engines like Google for select keywords. Most internet traffic will go to one of the web pages positioned on page 1 of the search engine result pages (referred to as the ‘SERPs’). This means all businesses compete for one of the positions on Pg 1 of Google. We monitor our clients’ rankings for their target keywords using a software called a ‘rank tracker’. The rank tracking software can send ranking reports daily, weekly, or monthly.

? How Long Does it Take to Rank?

This depends on a number of factors. So that realistic expectations can be set, plan for the SEO to take at least 3 months to get your site to page 1 of Google. In more competitive markets it can take much longer. In some cases we can get rankings within the first week. It all depends on the current state of the website. For example, if a website is aged and powerful, but has on-page issues, we can fix those issues in a couple of hours and the site can jump to page 1 within a couple of days! This is not common though.

? What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO is a calculated, and data-driven approach to search engine optimisation. It is done by true SEO technicians, those passionate about accurately interpreting data and drawing conclusions based on extensive research and development and apply-ing that data to the SEO methodologies used to optimise a website for search engines. Technical SEO goes far beyond the super-ficial and commonly known principles of search engine optimisation. Technical SEO is a “white-hat” (ethical) implementation of SEO techniques which are in line with Google’s guidelines, and is not to be confused with the technical exploitation of temporary loop-holes in Google’s algorithm which is webspam. Webgator are very passionate about technical SEO and use a very thorough process. Most SEO agencies do not.

? Can I do SEO Myself?

Sure you can. Many business owners do. Learning SEO is like learning any other trade. But most business owners would prefer to stick to what they do best instead of spending the time learning and doing SEO. Search engine optimisation requires a big time investment, and strategic know-how to make sure everything is orchestrated properly. Note Google’s answer in their article ‘Do you need an SEO?‘

Here are some other resources that can help you learn about Search Engine Optimisation:

https://www.business.gov.au/marketing/websites/improve-your-search-ranking

https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

https://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo

? Why is SEO an On-Going Cost?

SEO isn’t something that is simply ‘installed’. After the initial optimisation of a website, on-going link building is required. Techni-cally you could stop the SEO campaign when your site ranks in the top 10 for your main search terms. However, on-going linking will help your site continue to gain rankings for related keywords and will help maintain your current rankings. If SEO is stopped, naturally the rankings will start to drop over time.

? When is the Best Time to Start SEO?

If you have a brand-new domain or website, it may be better to leave the SEO until the site or domain is at least 6 months old. Google rarely takes brand new sites or domains seriously. However during these early stages, on-page SEO and foundation links should also be completed during this time. These would include links from social profiles (Facebook, Twitter, G+) and business directories (Yellow Pages, True Local, White Pages, etc). There is no problem with starting a fully-fledged SEO campaign on a brand new site, however just prepared for it to take a bit longer to rank than it would an older site. Considering SEO is quite an investment, starting at the right time will help you see results with the minimum spend.

? What is Off-Page SEO?

To rank well you need to be seen as an authority in your industry. This authority is built through association with online properties which search engines consider high-authority and trustworthy. This is off-page SEO. It refers to the SEO done outside a website.

To build this authority for your website we need to do a backlinking campaign. The good thing is that by using various tools we can estimate the level of authority that your competition have. Using this information we can provide a few different options for your to consider.

? How Many Backlinks do I Need?

If SEO were as simple as sending backlinks, the agencies with the biggest budget would rank #1 everywhere. This is not the case. Different tools can be used to reverse-engineer the backlink profile of competitors’ website. However, due to the Google ‘zoo’ of algorithm updates (Panda, Penguin, Possum, Hummingbird), along with old sites that are grandfathered in, it can be hard to de-termine how many links will be needed. It’s not just the links which are important either – the anchor text used in the links is also very important. This is another reason why SEO is an on-going process. Typically, what most ethical SEO agencies do is continue linking until results are achieved.

? Where can I Get Backlinks?

You can get backlinks from business directories, blogging platforms (such as WordPress, Blogger, etc), Social Media sites, and by asking other website owners for a link. Some website owners allow backlinks in exchange for high-quality content for their site, or simply for money. Some sites allow sponsorship links, which are fine too. Just remember that building backlinks is fraught with danger. Getting a website penalised is all too easy these days, and many times this is a direct result from poorly-built backlinks. That is why SEO should be done by a specialist – just like any other trade. Fixing a penalised website can be very expensive.

? Which is the Best SEO Company?

A sign of a good SEO company is one that either has a good reputation through word-of-mouth referrals or an agency which is ranked on Pg 1 of Google in any major city for ‘SEO City Name’. We hold a number of other SEO agencies in high regard even though they aren’t on Pg 1. Having considered that, if an SEO provider can get results for themseleves, then obviously they have the ability to get results for other businesses too. It is important, however, to consider a company’s reputation before choosing them.

? How Much does SEO Cost?

SEO costs are usually based on the competition level of the keywords that need to be promoted. The on-page optimisation is usually done up-front, while the off-page SEO is done on an on-going basis. The off-page SEO is ultimately just link building. This can be a very time-consuming task to do properly, hence the bulk of the cost goes towards labour. Check out our pricing page for more details.

Typically we can estimate how much a SEO campaign will cost when we do the initial research. If the budget is available, we could do just about all the required work in the first three months. However, due to the cost of the work, most companies prefer to pay for SEO over a period of time to make payments more manageable.