Unlike running reports for our clients on a monthly basis, for our own website we only run reports every 4-5 months, we don’t do as much SEO work on our site as we should and now in early 2012 we have decided to step it up abit and try and become a decent player in the Web Design Melbourne and SEO space. Everytime we run these reports, there is a lot of manual work checking rankings and competition and seeing what everyone else in this space is up to. It is very interesting that so many web design companies are now starting to offer SEO as a service, by the looks of things these small time web companies do not get very good results, as they are sticking to what they know, and that is the basics when it comes to SEO, add a little meta tag here, write some relevant content, add an alt tag on a picture and because I have seen other companies do this, lets make a footer at the bottom of the screen with a few key phrases on it, that is what I have been seeing on a lot of sites that have a web and SEO link by the same company on websites.

Here at rankONE we want to be different, we specialise in SEO and do the web design work because we can, not the otherway around, we have even hired a few web design specialists, some Graphic Design specialists and the best of the best web developers Melbourne has to offer.

We have now signed up 20 new SEO clients for 2012 and there are more to come.

Thanks for all the supports and lets kick goals in 2012.

Search Engine Optimisation is free because all you need is an Internet connection to do it, right? Not exactly. In order to [implement, apply, execute] a good SEO strategy it takes time. First, it takes time to learn the complexities of search engine optimization. Sure, there are tons of free resources out there to learn the basics, but SEO is really one of those things that you can’t truly “get” until you actually start executing it. It takes years to truly understand the procedure and even then, it’s always changing. SEO is entirely different now than it was even just a few years ago. Second, it takes time, and lots of it, to really carry out an SEO strategy. It can take months or even years to see profitable results. Once results are seen you can’t take a break because they can disappear much quicker than they appear. The only way to say that SEO is free is if you believe that your time isn’t worth anything.

Since many businesses and website owners don’t have the kind of time needed to dedicate to SEO, they look to hire an in house SEO expert or an agency. In some cases they are surprised to find out what kind of salary an SEO expert expects to earn or an SEO agency is expected to be paid because they maintain the mentality that “anyone can do it”. This is where some companies make some unwise decisions.

Some companies decide that a current in-house marketing person can handle search engine optimisation duties. However, in most cases, that employee’s plate was already full. There is a reason that SEO is a full time job. In order to get the attention that it deserves, it can’t just be a small part of one’s job. Since SEO is more about the future and long term rather than the “right here, right now” short term goals, SEO and web work will be the first to be pushed to the side when things get busy. Optimisation plays a crucial role in the growth of a business today and the overall web presence of your company and it really can’t be ignored.

Another approach that companies may take is to hire a company that promises to deliver amazing results at a cheap rate. Well, it’s cheap for a reason. It’s cheap because it’s low quality and often will process no results, and if results are achieved, they will not be for competitive key phrases – so it will still be no value. While the short term benefit might be appealing, the headache that it will cause in the long term just isn’t worth it.

What it comes down to, is realising that website optimisation is an art, and although anyone can do it, not everybody can do it well. If you want to see an increase in quality traffic to your website, it’s going to cost you, either in time or money, and if you don’t have the time to dedicate to the hard work that it takes to learn SEO and develop and implement a strategy (which none of us do), you need to be willing to spend the money.

Google Goggles, and it’s newly acquired ability to solve sudoku puzzles and deliver search results for magazine ads printed since August 2010.

Sure, it might take some of the fun out of the game, but hey, you can’t say Google isn’t out there trying to solve the world’s problems. (As long as they are in 9 by 9 squares that is)

rankONE donated our time to help with the Ronald McDonald House Charity. Kids aged 3-10 from the Monash center all needed to draw a picture of things that made them happy while staying at the house. From the 68 pictures submitted, we created an A1 Poster that is now hanging up in the main hall way of the Monash Ronald McDonald House.

Ronald McDonald House Charity

Today Google formally rolls out its new presentation of local results, called “Place Search.” It offers a dramatic change to the look and feel of SERPs on Google.com. The first and most obvious change is that the “7 Pack” is gone. And there appear to be some fairly major SEO implications, which should provide many hours of enjoyment for the SEO community as it tries to reverse engineer the algorithm.

The changes won’t come as a surprise to close Google watchers. A number of people previously spotted Google testing these pages in the wild and have written about them in some detail, including Chris Silver Smith, Mike Blumenthal, David Mihm and Andrew Shotland. Google sees the changes as an extension or evolution of universal search in the local context.

Google said that the algorithm has been improved and refined for Place Search. We also shouldn’t see any more of the “mapspam” that has plagued the 7-Pack in the past. Previously the local and general search algorithms were distinct. I asked whether they had now been consolidated or merged in this new release and was told “yes.”

On to the physical SERP changes. The best way to make this concrete is to show the “before” and “after” pages.

Place Search

Immediately below are two screenshots for the results to the query “San Francisco Dentist.” The first page below is an “old” SERP with my annotations. Below AdWords comes the “7 Pack,” which is followed by mostly local web results. This was the “old” arena for third party local SEO.

Here’s the new page for the same local dentist query:

Visually the page has changed quite a bit. The map has been moved to the right column and “floats” or scrolls down the page as users move down results. The 7-Pack is gone, as mentioned, and a richer presentation of local results with images fills the entire SERP.

Selected third party sites referencing the particular dentist are “clustered” with the listing. From my spot checking, these clustered sites appear to be mostly the same sites that appear on Place Pages under “reviews from around the web.”

As mentioned Place Pages now appear with each listing on SERPs. This will raise the profile of Place Pages considerably and increase usage accordingly.

In my quick checking yesterday it seemed that I was seeing the map and local results appear more frequently than I remember for ambiguous or category queries without geo-modifiers. I asked about this and Google said that there should be no more local results and no fewer web results after these changes. However for this particular dentist query some of the general web results in the “before” version appear to be “missing” or replaced by local listings. I clicked through to pages 2 and 3 and didn’t find them.

I did, however, find the same web results continue to show up in response to a query for “sushi.”

Places Mode

In cases of ambiguous queries, if Google isn’t sure whether users are seeking local information, there’s another type of result that will appear, which Google refers to as “Places Mode.” This SERP may show some local information (indicated by the red pushpins) intermixed with general web results. Here’s an example for the query “museums”:

To see just local results, you can now click the “Places” icon in the left vertical nav, which replaces “Maps.” Previously, clicking Maps took users directly into Google Maps. Like the other icons Places is now a filter that triggers new results and keeps users on the Google.com SERP.

Here’s the same “museums” result after being filtered by Places, which brings up the all local Place Search results:

Implications of Place Search

How should we think about Place Search and its impact on users and “the market”? Is it a major change? Is it merely incremental? Beyond the significant visual changes to the page, as I suggested I think there are going to be some fairly major SEO implications flowing out of this.

Local SEO was starting to focus on “getting into the 7 Pack.” That’s all gone now. Now, fully fleshed out Place Pages will assume much greater importance, as will being present and reviewed in the various sites featured in the “clustered” links. I’m sure someone will put together a pretty comprehensive list quickly but Yelp is one of the winners here, as are Citysearch, Insiderpages, Urbanspoon, TripAdvisor, Yahoo Local, Judysbook and others depending on the category. I will leave more nuanced SEO discussions to others more knowledgeable than I.

I’ll say one more thing however. Third party publishers (such as local and vertical directories) that had been relying on Google for traffic found some time ago that the available space for their links was diminished by the 7-Pack. Now that the 7-Pack is gone how will they be affected? Unfortunately for them they may be shut out almost entirely unless they’re among the clustered third party links associated with each listing.

Take the following example for “Denver Plumbers.” The first screen is the “old” page, with the highlighted section showing a link to directory Superpages.

The new Place Search features only local businesses on the first page. Again, unless publishers are among the clustered links they will likely have to resort to paid search now to gain exposure on page one of Google. I haven’t had time to do extensive or systematic checking on this, but I would imagine this pattern carries through across all local categories.

Upon further investigation I was able to find a couple of instances where directory sites sill appeared so the impact on local publishers may not be quite as severe as it appears at first blush. In the context of a search for “Chicago Dentists,” for example, I found a Yelp and Superpages link above the local results:

Google’s Commitment to Local (and Mobile)

In the near future these SERPs will also come to mobile search. But more generally the changes reflect Google’s commitment to local and its overall importance in Google’s strategy and product development.

Google began its discussion with us yesterday with a repeat of its previously released statistic: “More than 20 percent of searches on Google are related to location.” The key words in that sentence are “more than.”

By making local results (and Place Pages) more prominent than even they were before, users will likely respond with more local queries and rely on Google more heavily for local information. The overall volume and percentage of queries on Google seeking local information may in turn increase.

Stepping back and looking at the totality of Google’s efforts in local and local-mobile I’m struck by the scope of the commitment that Google has made. From Android and local-mobile search to Place Pages improvements, to the new simplified Boost ads, Click2Call, location extensions and expandable map ads in mobile — and now Place Search — it’s more than impressive, it’s totally comprehensive.

Is social media really the new way people are going to search for products and services. Word of mouth has always generated qualified leads, but will word of mouth take over the search engines. I don’t think it will ever take complete control, just like the internet hasn’t taken complete control over marketing – but it something that needs to be looked into in the coming future.

An oldy of Matt Cutts, but a good one…

We personally learnt something from this presentation and it was exciting and fun to watch. If you have about an hour in your day to learne something new, I recommend watching it, here it is:

Just a quick video explaining the importance of adding an alt tag to pictures on your website. Matt Cutts works at Google and gives hints and tips about how to get your website better rankings. His hints will increase your rankings, but he doesn’t give away the secrets of getting the competitive phrases onto the first page.

For your web site to succeed, you must optimise your website for the search engines. Website’s NEED top rankings in major search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN and the newly formed BING. The higher the ranking, the more likely viewers will come and visit your web site. For your site to attract the largest amount of traffic it needs to be in the top positions in the search engines.

Website promotion and Google Optimization involves making your website relevant via content for the search engines to read as well as giving your website the popularity it needs to that when Google visits your website they believe YOU! have the best services/products to offer. Keywords help not only viewers find your site but the web crawlers the search engines also. They scan your site’s content and pick up on keywords. If you use the keyword or phrase several times within the body of your content, the web crawlers notice. The most your web site relates to the keyword to the search engine, the more likely it will rank high when that keyword is used in a search by a consumer.

Another guaranteed website promotion technique is the use of the Title tags within your web site. That’s the heading at the very top of the page white letters on a blue background. Inside the HTML code, you place a Title tag that describes your web site in a few words. Using the keywords again is a must. Although stuffing this area with keywords may not bring in the customers, this area is what comes up in the search engines that people see when they search your website, this area needs to sound inviting as well as having your key phrases placed to that the right target market coming into your website.

Adam Rose – Sales Manager