Here are some vital statistics if you are marketing locally.
-13 million users are online every day in Australia.
-The internet has become part of their daily lives.
-The amount of potential new clients online has grown exponentially.
-The internet is the fastest growing marketing channel in history.
-90%+ of users utilize search engines when looking for services.
-Over 50% of these searches include location as part of their search.
-It’s easy to get your company name to number 1.
-It’s much harder to get your keywords to number 1
-Search engine traffic is very targeted towards potential customers.
-Most users don’t search page 2, they find what they want on page 1.
The changing landscape in the world of SEO
2011 has seen a number of significant changes in the world of search engine optimisation (SEO) for local marketers trying to get citations and higher rankings thus posing new challenges for internet marketers in Australia. You need your website to be found locally not necessarily in Cairns if your service only covers say Melbourne. The important thing to remember is that real local search in Australia has a slower uptake than in the USA meaning the time to get started is now!
Pure and simple. One of the most fundamental areas webmasters need to understand is how to ensure the on-site factors of a website are properly done when creating a new website or adding fresh content to an already existing site.
In Australia and the USA you will note that the number of citations displayed in the ‘Web pages’ tabs on Google seem to vary considerably on the industry you are in. For example sites that are in the tourism and hospitality sector eg restaurants certainly seem to get a bigger number of citations from industry related ‘review’ sites such as my247.com.au. Websites that belong to areas where there are much fewer review websites do not seem to be picking up citations at all.
One way to fix this is to use specific citation sources such as these ones which show up often in Australian searches. You can sign up at the sites below:
Hotfrog.com.au – Business directory
Truelocal.com.au – Business directory (This powers Yahoo! Local)
Whitepages.com.au – Government, business and residential directory
Yellowpages.com.au – Business directory– powers Google Maps, Whereis.com and 1234
There are also Map Providers who will supply local listings as points of interest to GPS devices. The big providers in Australia are:
* Google Maps, powering iPhones and Android devices.
* Whereis.com. Powers a range of devices such as Pioneer and Uniden.
* Street-directory.com.au. This site also has it’s own business directory
It’s essential you post your listings here:
Post Google PANDA update
One the key elements we tell our clients is to ensure that their sites reflect quality and relevance in regards to content. Google has been at the forefront with these changes in 2011 and are simply focused on delivering a targeted and enhanced user experience for searchers (That’s us) and delivering better , faster and closer matched search results than ever before.
One astounding fact is that Google has tested over 12,000 different updates (not just the 2-3 big ones you may have heard of) and are likely to retain approximately 4-5% of these changes. The types of changes I’m referring to include things like changing layout changes to SERPs results, colours, instant page previews and extended site links especially local search results showing up in search results.
MY RECOMMENDATION: Follow the instructions in this articles and make sure you get those local search listings up or hire an SEO firm to do it for you.
The major recent update called PANDA saw many huge sites suffer a severe loss of rankings for using techniques considered ‘black hat’. Most sites using honest and ethical online marketing campaigns were not affected badly, some not at all.
Some of the elements Google used (beyond traditional things such as Page Rank, quality and number of inbound links, Title tags, H1s etc) to measure rankings included Bounce rates, average amount of time spent on site by a user, social media metrics (facebook etc) and in particular the amount of new fresh content added to a site and how often this is done. You will also notice that Google has released it’s own social network called Google+ which is why you keep seeing sites with the +1 button. This is to assist them in further driving relevant results and showing consumer endorsement of a product or service.
NOTE: It is essential you update your site with relevant, quality content of all kinds including text, headings, articles, videos and even pod-casts where possible. Create a Blog if you haven’t already done so. Use an in-house team content person or hire someone to do this for you but just don’t keep your site static for months and months
So how do How do Australian business websites adapt to all these changes?
Marketing your site on the web is going to become a much more competitive area in 2012 so businesses must develop plans that maximise their web presence in order to get a good return on their marketing dollars. A detailed plan should be developed for your online marketing that includes a blend of search engine optimization (SEO), social media channels like FaceBook and Google+, creation of new and different conversion pages that laser focus customers straight to the page they want and of course a strong link building plan in order to make more sales and create a strong brand and a regular, loyal buying customer group. More than ever before businesses need to think about how they can do a better job delivering what their customers are looking for.
www.PageOneRankings.com.au use local SEO techniques in all of our packages which enables local businesses access to much higher qualified leads and helps grow their client base through increased Google rankings. You can achieve Page One Rankings in a matter of just a few months and start competing with the big brand names that compete against you with big budgets.
We recently had a niche antique dealer who specializes in selling beautiful vintage lamps primarily locally. Type ‘Antique Lamps’. He’s still there at number 1 almost a year later and can tell you how well local marketing works after selling several highly priced and hard to find antique lamps a few months after working with us. Way above and beyond he got his ROI.
How we can help
-Our Australian SEO company increases your Google listings
-Our SEO experts Research your business from Google’s outlook
-In-house Australia SEO experts research Your keywords extensively.
-Our search firm create/upload all necessary data for Google listings.
-We optimize your Business listing using tried and tested techniques.
-Our SEO Experts work to get you on Authority sites in your niche.
-We do SEO on your site or give instructions for your webmaster.
-We guarantee Page 1 Rankings (even if your niche is very tough).
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