On-Page optimisation & link building

On page SEO factors affect your sites rankings.

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. On page SEO primarily means making sure your website’s code, using your most valuable keywords, creating fresh cont regularly, making it a more attractive destination and specifically ensuring your site is identifiable to Google and the other local search engines’ web crawling robots so it will rank your site higher in the SERPs. (Search Engine Results Pages)

Below we have identified the key techniques your webmaster needs to implement if you want your site on page one or position 1 in rankings for your keywords. Whilst no one really knows how the algorithms Google (for example) uses it’s important you don’t overlook any of these methods.

They are all easy for your webmaster to implement, so just make sure they are all there. Your webmaster will understand all of these techniques. Often though they just concentrate on the site development and code structure so the SEO elements get left behind. We have seen this on about 75% of the sites we optimize for.

Keyword On Site SEO Elements are the doorway to your web site and are a huge piece of the SEO puzzle. After you have researched your top keywords eg ‘SEO firm Australia’ or English College Sydney’ you need to make sure you know effectively how to utilize y our keywords.

Important places for keywords: Keywords Must Be In Your Title Tags – A title tag located at the very top of your website’s page (look up at the very top 1st line of this page to see examples. These keywords show up in Google’s results. They are also the assist in identifying the page which you are looking at.

You will want to place your most relevant, highest searched and lowest competition keywords into your title tags as Google does consider this one of the most important factors when they index and place a ranking on your website page. In other words do the keywords in your Title tags match what’s actually on the page and give the user (you and I) the right content to match our keyword search.

Keywords In Heading Tags (H1 + H2): Using the right headline tags additionally lets Google know what is most important on your website, and judge content relevancy. Most people read pages top left sections first so your most important message combined with your most important keyword needs to be located be here preferably using the H1 tag. Your secondary most important keywords need to be placed in your H2 tags (Headline number 2).

Keywords In The Actual Page Copy: Undoubtedly one of the best places for your keywords to be used is in the body contenbt of the actual page. You do not want to use the same keywords dozens of times per page as this is called keyword stuffing and could end up getting your page or site penalized. The rule of thumb is to use you main keyword/s 2-3 times per page and just make your copy natural not ‘made for search engines’

Using Your Keyword/s In Your Domain Name: We know for a fact this works wonders. Our firm and many of our clients have reached position 1 (not just page 1) with really great URLs with the keyword in them. Take a look at ‘www.StudyinAustraia.com’ which is not only a highly searched term it is also the exact and most important keywords overseas students use when first looking around for study destinations. Bingo! It’s been number 1 -3 for over 8 years and still going strong.

There is some dissension about this but frankly we know it works as we have tested it almost 500 times on 500 URLs (yes 500) and also looked at the time taken to get to page one and position one with URLs using the URL as the keyword. You must do your research first but once done and the other factors mentioned here are in place your task becomes a whole lot easier. As your website grows you can utilize SEO friendly sub-domains with your keywords in them.

How long before your rankings start increasing (often significantly) for keywords that are relevant to your local business clients?

For starters If you’re an Australian business, you aren’t worried too much, if at all, about ranking in other countries search results.

Again as a rule of thumb it takes between a few weeks and few months maximum to achieve a first page ranking for local keyword phrases. This does not apply to tough keywords like jobs, real estate, banks, credit cards, hotels etc as you are up against 900 pound gorillas all seeking that top spot. Having said that we do rank highly for very tough keywords like jobs. Ie We have a site that is in the top 5 searches for just the keyword ‘Jobs’ and many other similar tough, singular keywords but it does take more time and requires a much greater effort with quality link building.

So Google Local SEO is a 3-Stage process

Stage 1) IDENTIFY LOCAL MARKET AND DO YOUR KEYWORD RESEARCH
Stage 2) ENSURE YOUR PAGE GETS TO PAGE ONE IN THE SERPS
Stage 3) KEEP YOUR FIRM ON THE FIRST PAGE OF THE BIG SEARCH ENGINES

If you don’t maintain rankings on the first page of the search engines your competitors will eventually take your rankings position over and they will start to drop fairly quickly. You need to ensure you have a constant maintenance plan in place much like your car or house for example.

Some other key pointers are: If you want to get top rankings in Australia, make sure you optimise for Australians. If you’re optimising internationally make sure you use the same methods and logical approach outlined above so you will still be targeting the local customers in that country or countries. Most search engine optimisation guidelines similar wherever you are located but there are certain differences between Australian SEO efforts and international SEO.

Australian firms must be appealing to Australian customers. The search engine algorithms analyze a huge number of elements when they determine how to supply relevant results to net surfers search queries and location plays an important piece of this puzzle. It doesn’t really matter where your site is hosted as long as you are letting Google and the other big engines that your website is about providing services and products to Australians.

Local Search and Long-Tail keyword searches: Most people do not enter broad and non specific keywords when they are looking to make an online purchase. Instead, more often than not, they use a variety of search engine strings that are related to the local area they are located in. Search engines also take into account the surfers recent online searches in order to provide an experience that is relevant and productive. Again don’t try and fool the engines as they are simply trying to provide a better service to their users and faster.

For much higher local search engine rankings in Australia ensure you are listed on Google Places which assists local businesses rankings that appeal to their immediate local area even down to suburbs ie ‘Bondi Plumber’. This tool of Google’s is terrific local businesses such as take aways, local hotels, restaurants, local service companies, gyms, clothing stores, doctors in fact most all businesses. There are usually one or several local business directories you should get listed in with your companies services and website address. When doing this use what are called ’long tail’ keyword search terms.

Ensure you utilize some keyword research by looking for similar businesses to yours and go that little bit extra to assist your efforts. A good example of a local search term would be ‘Bondi Beach Hotels’ or Gold Coast Scuba Diving Centre’. Sometimes there just are not enough hours In your work day to do all of these tasks which is where search engine companies come in. The good ones understand all these techniques and ensure you ask them for examples of their successes before engaging them to help with your search engine optimisation strategies. Ie Use an Aussie search company as most overseas companies won’t know the Gold Coast or possibly even Bondi Beach or which city it is in.

Most business owners who target potential customers using local search engine optimisation tend to find they have a better opportunity of increasing their search engine rankings when they focus on localalised keywords plus they also tend to have a higher conversion rate for their clicks as they are giving users exactly what they are looking for.

Just by optimising your website for your local area or suburb actually lowers your competitor’s chances of ranking higher than you. Many businesses tend to go for more broader keywords ie ‘Pizza Sydney’ or ‘Pizza Eastern suburbs where they should be trying to get high positions for phrases that hundreds of countless other firms (often nationally) are also trying to rank for ie IT services’ where it should be’ IT services Bondi Beach’. By using very broad short or single keywords you decrease your opportunities of strong competition by focusing on local, highly targeted and searched for keyword terms.

NOTE: Using local SEO also assists increase your new business for people using mobile for search as many browsers automatically search for local businesses searching whilst on the move. A great strategy for hotels, restaurants and other services.

Ensure your phone number with relevant prefixes and location is prominently displayed. This strategy will increase your phone calls. just remember a business that is located within a suburb several suburbs can optimise its site for the suburbs it operates in, local seo services are now essential to websites seeking new customers online.

Citations: What are they and why they matter? A citation is a short, description from a specific information source used to give credit to the original writer. To begin with local search in Australia is evolving slower than it is in the USA. As you may know or have seen, Google local search has now incorporated Yellow Pages and it has created a lot of duplicate listings.

In Australia the number of citations displayed in the “Web pages” tab of Google seems to vary depending on the industry searched for. For instance, sites that are related to the travel and hospitality arena seem to get a large number of citations from related “review” websites (such as www.menulog.com.au, igougo.com, my247.com.au). Websites that belong to sections in which surfer reviews are not common tend not to show citations.

In summary

-Focus on relevant keywords using key word analysis.
-Write fresh content using copy-writing experts.
-Combine On-Site and Off-Site optimisation with link building.
-Create monthly reports so you know your efforts are working.

If you are a local business, people in a 5-10 km radius should be directed to your website and local search engine optimisation methods help ensure that your site is what those people see listed as being highly relevant to their search. By looking at your competitors you’ll also be sure that you can appeal to that person over the other top 5 Google searches.

Most business owners just don’t have the time to learn how to optimise their websites and put these strategies to work. If this is you let our SEO experts who come from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Perth and Adelaide help your Australian business website achieve the best Google rankings.

Popularity: 13% [?]