Internet Marketing and Digital Strategy Blog
SEO
Paid Links – Don’t do it… Again
Feb 13th
So the first high profile paid link hit has occurred in JC Penney. Just maybe not as we expected, the NY times had to do an expose on paid links for something to happen. Mat Cutts of Google also admitted some manual adjustment to search results. Bruce Clay himself has also been talking about why you should not buy links.
Link buying or media spend, conveniently forgetting the rel=nofollow is common in Australia and we have this discussion on a weekly basis with clients, as to why we do not buy links and that this is against Google’s terms of service. When everyone is doing it and it seems getting away with it, it is tempting to join the so called club. After far too long, maybe there will be some change.
What will be interesting to me is the following:
- Whether clients are aware their agencies back linking practices?
- If they are, and they are buying links, are they going to stop? Roll back these links?
- More rigour into SEO firm selection given the potential reputation risk involved?
- Insist on a code of ethics
So if you are a large corporate and are uncertain about the practices of your SEO company, I would suggest the following:
- Find out what linking protocols and policies are in place for your website
- Get your SEO agency to confirm they are not breaching Google’s terms of service
- Understand your SEO agencies link building strategies in detail
- Analyse your back link profile and anchor text, Yahoo Site Explorer is a good place to start
Don’t forget Bruce Clay 1 day SEO training on the 23rd Feb in Sydney and 2nd March in Melbourne. We will be covering this…
SEO Copywriter Training
Sep 29th
Just so you know. SEO copywriter in Sydney on the 12 October 2010. Great way to spend a morning, even if I say so myself, learning about engaging structure, keeping people on the page and use of keywords and associated words.
Find out more about SEO copywriter training at Bruce Clay Australia
Nice article on Search in The Age today
May 24th
Good article quoting Jeremy Bolt and Des Odell the Directors of Bruce Clay Australia on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) in The Age today, written by Billy Adams.
Covers the estimated size of the SEO market and why every organisation should be considering SEO.
SEO Jobs in Sydney
May 20th
Bruce Clay is hiring and needs to fill a number of SEO jobs in their Sydney office.
Bruce Clay is one of the leading SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) agencies in Australia and has the largest pure play SEO team in Australia, We only do SEO, we do not mix SEO and SEM. We also provide the global and highly rated 3 day SEO training to all of our staff, as well as on the job training from highly experienced managers and directors on sme of Australias best known and largest websites. Bruce Clay also has their own SEOToolset which we use in house.
PLEASE READ THIS FIRST. We are looking for graduates, or graduates with up to 1 year experience to start as SEO Analysts in our Sydney office.
We offer:
- Dynamic learning environment in the CBD, near Circular Quay
- In house training and ongoing technical updates
- Access to our global offices for technical and other ongoing updates
- The opportunity to work on well known Australian brands
- Remuneration in line with the market and the industry
- Bonus scheme
- Career opportunities totally linked to your performance
- Great working environment
- The best grounding and experience for a new SEO starter in the business
Who we are looking for:
- Smart, energetic individuals with a passion for the Internet
- Team players, who fit with our high performance culture and yet are down to earth
- People who are competitive, have initiative and have drive
If this is you. Send us your resume, we look forward to hearing from you. Apply here.
SMX Sydney 2010 and Bruce Clay Australia
Apr 25th
SMX Sydney 2010 was held Thursday and Friday this week at the Hilton. SMX has grown in stature in recent years as the event for the search industry. Bruce Clay was an exhibitor and during my time at the booth met a number of interesting people and companies, all looking for more traffic from search online.
For more on SMX Sydney 2010 you can get the complete coverage from the Bruce Clay blog, the whole event was live blogged by our very own Bruce Clay blogger Marc Ellison. Read all the detail on the Bruce Clay SEO Blog, here.
Recruiting SEO Staff – My Frustrations
Mar 6th
As I work in an SEO agency we are constantly recruiting SEO staff. The challenges we have include:
- Recruiters do NOT understand our business, no matter how much they say they do
- People overstate their own capabilities
I always joke and say when I see a resume, the person looks so good I feel I should report to them. When you interview, you get about half of what the resume said, thanks to the resume writers and online resume tools. Then what you end up hiring is about half of what was represented in the interview. So 25% of the initial resume. The other side of this I accept is that with all the resumes this way, we take the best looking ones, which may be a somewhat flawed approach, but it is hard selecting from multiple applications.
Don’t get me wrong we have great staff, who are loyal and who field calls from recruiters at least once per week. Keeping up with rising salaries is also a challenge. Nobody calls me though, cannot understand why. Put it this way, we hire people with little or some experience, train them heavily, pay them increasing market related rates, and give them a performance based bonus, and all this time adding serious value to them, through skills, experience and education. Should they not be paying us for the opportunity? I ask myself everyday? Just kidding.
On average what we consider to be a senior SEO person for hiring is not what gets presented as a senior SEO person. In fact most of the so called 1-2 years experience people we hire are good as analysts and where he have hired managers this has ended in tears.
The impact on our industry is as follows:
- Agencies hiring in, to fill a competency, often do not know the ins and outs of SEO and are reliant on this person to deliver
- Companies hiring SEO’s are buying their past experience which is often small websites and expecting them to pull top rankings out of the hat for large dynamic websites
- There are few very experienced SEO people out there who have worked on and succeeded with large dynamic websites. I can probably name around 15, but hey maybe my SEO circle is small.
The ROI SEO Committment
Feb 28th
Are you Committed
Some of you may have heard the saying: Are you the pig or the chicken. When it comes to eating a breakfast of egg & bacon, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. When it comes to your online search campaigns, are you the chicken or the pig? Should the type of business you are in help decide whether in fact you should be a chicken or a pig?
We all agree ROI is important. We all agree that any marketing or business activity should have some form of ROI. How do we best manage the link between SEO and ROI, especially when there are very different players, angles, business models all trying to rank for the same keywords?
Consider the graph below and how the various players might interact or see SEO in their business model.
The Large Consumer Bank would have a large dependency on their website for operations i.e. Internet banking, applications and so on, however when it comes to sales they would have multiple, multiple sales channels from account managers to television spots to in branch activities, all driving people to convert either online or offline. Operations would be driven by complex systems integrating to the front end behind the scenes. May take a couple of touch points to convert a customer. While the need for SEO might be considered small, being found online for all the campaigns, slogans is not. SEO is integral, most of them just realize how integral.
Valentines Day Post Mortem
Feb 14th
So Valentines Day is over and we move on. Some interesting stats on Valentines Day. Assuming search engines are a good indication of the peoples intention, and we know that Google has in excess of 90% market share, we can say the following:
- People only start thinking about valentines day 16 days in advance, looking for general gifts
- They start to think roses are the answer 10 days in advance and alternate gift ideas 9 days in advance
- Those who are organised get it done 7 days before and then there are those that panic all the way up to the last minute
- Most people still search on the generic terms flowers and roses rather than including valentines day in the search phrase
Interesting and remember this for next year.
Flowers v Roses Search Volume Graphs
Mothers Day is more important than Valentines Day
Feb 14th
Valentines Day is the most important occasion of the year. Don’t believe me, check out the graph below:
Bruce Clay SEO Training Courses
Dec 23rd
Bruce Clay Australia has finalised dates for the 3 day SEO training for 2010. Bruce Clay himself will be over to conduct the training from March 10-12th 2010. The course will be held in Sydney at the luxurious Observatory Hotel in the Sydney CBD and I would advise booking early. The last 3 courses ended up being fully booked and unfortunately having to turn some people away. Prior to releasing the training date this time, we already have 10 bookings, so would advise that you book sooner rather than later. Find out more about Bruce Clay 3 day SEO training here.
For those of you with less time and who think the 3 day training may be a little to hectic, we are also running our global 1 day Bruce Clay SEO training course in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane during 2010. The dates for the 1 day training are as follows:
- 17th February – Sydney
- 7th April – Brisbane
- 12th May – Melbourne
- 9th June – Sydney
SEO is growing fast, let the leading Australian SEO agency with one of the largest dedicated SEO teams help you with your search engine optimisation training needs. The training is standardised globally, includes access to our SEOToolset, excellent value for money and is run globally to hundreds of students monthly.
I look forward to seeing there….