Firstly, the good news: SEO North Sydney is OPERATING AS NORMAL during the time of COVID-19 because Google is the cloud. And quite honestly, the cloud is the safest place to be right about now!
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The only difference for an SEO company like us during this pandemic, is that our team are now working remotely rather than coming to the office. Which is something they do from time to time anyway and we’re obviously already set up for this, as staff have access to our secure cloud, and only need internet access and a computer to do their jobs. So, rest assured the SEO work is still being done each month and that your Google rankings are safe!

We’re living in crazy times. There are no two ways about it. And amidst all the chaos there are a few questions that keep popping up from current and prospective clients that I thought warranted a post to answer them.

Existing clients ask:

1: How will my SEO rankings be impacted by what’s happening with COVID-19?

While new SEO clients ask:

2: Should I start a new SEO campaign now or wait for COVID-19 to pass?

And new web build clients ask:

​3: Should I launch my new website now or wait until the COVID-19 pandemic is over? Let me answer these in order, as they’re all very valid questions given what’s happening in Australia and the world at large.

The short answer is: THEY WON’T.

There’s not much to smile about in the midst of this pandemic, but the good news is that so far as Google and your digital marketing is concerned, it’s business as usual, as all of Google’s algorithms exist in the cloud. And all the SEO magic we have to do on a week by week basis for your website, also happens in the cloud. And when people search for what you do and where you do it, they’re doing it in the cloud. And the cloud is the one place COVID-19 can’t get to!
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Now, more than ever, it’s IMPERATIVE to maintain your Google rankings. Because while all small businesses are suffering in the short-term during this pandemic (to a greater or lesser degree) it’s now more important than ever that we keep working on your Google rankings, because if we don’t, your rankings will plummet, and it’ll take six months to a year to get them back up to where they need to be to make the phone ring. And in three to six months, when we all come out the other end of this craziness, you’ll be needing the phone ringing more than you ever have before. And if you’re not doing SEO on your site during this time, your rankings will drop as surely as the sun sets in the west. And you only need to see the chart below to see how dropping even a few positions in Google can impact how much traffic your website gets. And by extension, how many phone calls or enquiries you get. 

Everyone knows that it takes Google a minimum of three months to start caring about whatever SEO we do on or for a website, today. It’s the very reason that a standard SEO contract is 12-months long, because it takes a MINIMUM of 3 months for Google to start trusting whatever we do on or for your website, today. And it takes on average 6-12 months (or longer) to properly convince Google to trust and rank your website. The rule of thumb being: the more competitive your industry vertical is, the longer it’ll take Google to trust (and rank) it.

The first three months of an SEO campaign is always ‘Getting your house in order’ (or ‘fixing whatever someone else has done wrong!’). While the second three months is all about ‘Getting Google to understand that your website is legit and that they should start to trust your website – and by extension, rank it’. With months six to twelve (and onward) being all about continually reminding Google that ‘Your website is THE most important website in your industry vertical’.
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Anyone who’s ever done SEO knows and appreciates these facts. They know how long and hard it was to get those Google first page rankings in the first place. They also know how competitive it is online to maintain their hard-fought rankings. And they know how easy it is for those rankings to fall away if regular week by week, month by month SEO isn’t being performed.

If you’ve read the above section, you’ll already know the answer to that question is: YES – YOU SHOULD START YOUR NEW SEO CAMPAIGN NOW because it’ll take the better part of 6 months for you to start getting some serious rankings for your site. And if you want the phone to ring when this pandemic is over, you need to START IT NOW. Because if you only start it when things have returned to normal, the phone won’t ring for another six months. And as stated above, when you come out the other end of all this COVID-19 craziness, you’re going to need the phone ringing IMMEDIATELY, not six months later. Because by that stage you might not have a business to market.
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As the old saying goes: ‘You don’t wait for the well to run dry before you start looking for water’.

This question is a little trickier to answer, and depends on how you plan to market your new business website once it’s online.

If you’re not planning on doing any SEO for your new website, and are basically just wanting a website built as a kind-of ‘on-line brochure’ that you can direct clients to for information, then maybe you can think of holding off launching your new website until COVID-19 is in the rear view mirror, and business is getting back to normal.

However, if you’re launching a new website in order to GET LEADS, then you’ll naturally need to do SEO on and for your website in order to make that happen. And as stated above, SEO TAKES TIME MANY MONTHS TO WORK. So, if you want the phone ringing in 3-6 months, then absolutely you need your website built now. And if you don’t, then by all means hold off until your cash flow is back to normal.
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Though as SEO North Sydney now offer the ability to get your website built today, BUT PAY FOR IT IN A YEAR, INTEREST FREE, there’s never been a better time to get your new site live. And with websites starting at just $68.20 p/m and all of them coming with 12-months free hosting (and many with also including free content), maybe you might want to reconsider waiting, and build your new website today. 

​The other thing to consider during this time of COVID-19  (and we’ve got many clients doing just this) – is that if your business is quieter than usual, now is the PERFECT time to do whatever you can to it to help with the SEO and to help with conversions. That can be either involve adding LOTS OF NEW CONTENT to the website (because Google loves well SEO’d new content added on a regular basis) or else it could mean GETTING A WHOLE NEW WEBSITE BUILT. Because with things being quieter than normal, now is the perfect time to do what you’ve been talking about doing on or for your website for year, but never seem to have the time to do.

Call me direct, business owner to business owner, on 0425 204 887 today and let us help your small business during the COVID-19 pandemic.  As the old saying goes:

‘A Year from Now You’ll be Glad You Started Today’. 

Google have just announced that they have this week started rolling out the new and improved Panda algorithm. The roll out is expected to take a week to two weeks to totally proliferate the internet.  

This Google Panda update is influenced by webmaster and user feedback, which has allowed Google to eek out a few more signals to help Panda identify low-quality content. This will result in a higher percentage and greater diversity in search results, and will enable high-quality small and medium-sized sites to rank higher against larger and traditionally more powerful sites.

This is a nice touch from Google, as the quality of the content should be the ultimate deciding factor in a page's worth, not the overarching power of the TLD it comes from. Sure, great content doesn't exist in a vacuum, but just like each individual page has its own page rank, so does each individual page have its own on-page ranking factors, with how great the content is being by far the most important.

It is expected that approximately 3-5% of all queries will be impacted.

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Looking for SEO Sydney for your website? Then you've come to right place. Simply call 0425 204 887, today. The first page of Google is only one click away!

The underlying framework and methodology driving social media development in 2010 was visual. In a social media landscape lorded over by words (think the original incarnations of Facebook and Twitter) 2010 saw both Pinterest (March 2010) and Instagram (October 2010) burst onto the scene with a focus on the insatiable human appetite for visual stimulation, via pictures and videos.

Instagram was founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and is an online social networking service that focuses on mobile photo-sharing and video-sharing. It allows users to take pictures and videos and then easily and conveniently share them via a number of other popular social networking platforms such as Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr etc. Users are also able to apply a variety of digital filters to the pictures and videos they post.

Like many internet trail-blazers, Kevin Systrom went to Stanford University, graduating in 2006 with a Bachelor of Science, majoring in Management Science & Engineering. His initial foray into internet start-ups was as an intern at a company called ‘Odeo’, a search and directory website for RSS-syndicated audio and video that allowed users to record, create and share podcasts with a Flash-based interface. You’ll be forgiven if you’ve never heard of Odeo. But you probably will have heard of what Odeo would eventually morph into. A little known company called, ‘Twitter’. 

After graduation, Kevin cut his teeth with a couple of very productive years working at Google, where he was tasked with developing Google Reader, Gmail and associated products as part of the Corporate Development team. 

Kevin has a longstanding love for photography, which he and co-founder Mike Krieger combined brilliantly with the launch of Instagram.

Mike Krieger, like his long-time friend, Kevin Systrom, also graduated from Stanford University, where he studied Symbolic Systems, specialising in Human-Computer Interaction. 

While doing his undergrad, Mike interned with Foxmarks (now Xmarks) as a software developer, and at Microsoft's PowerPoint team as a Product Manager. 

His Master's thesis was a brilliant discourse on how user interfaces can be utilised to support large scale collaborations.

After graduating from Stanford, Mike worked for a year and a half at Meebo as a front-end engineer and user experience designer, before eventually joining the Instagram team doing design & development.

In March 2010, Burbn Inc. (the parent company of Instagram) received seed funding of $500,000. This was seven months before the actual photo-sharing social networking service was made available to the public. 

In February 2011, a few months after the public launch, Instagram raised their series A funding round of $7 million from a consortium of venture capital funds. The company was valued at $25 million during this funding round.

Some 14 months later, in April 2012, Instagram raised another funding round of $50 million from venture capitalists, with a valuation of $500 million.

Immediately after launch, Instagram started gaining huge popularity and reached a registered user base of a 100 million people in April 2012. This was technically only one and a half years after the official launch. At which time the company was acquired by Facebook for a mouth watering $1 billion (paid via a mix of cash and stock).

This purchase was by far Facebook’s most significant acquisition and was a definite indicator of how important mobile and photo sharing were becoming to Facebook. An interesting parallel for this purchase can perhaps be drawn with Google’s $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube in 2006. In as much as it demonstrated an internet behemoth with expertise in a particular area (search, in the case of Google, social media in the case of Facebook) acquiring expertise in an adjacent (but different) area, via purchasing a fast-growing start-up.

This purchase was unusual for Facebook, as its previous purchases of other start-ups were modest by comparison.  

“This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired 
a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. 
But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook 
and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together.”

Facebook CEO and Founder, Mark Zuckerberg 

Instagram allows users to upload photos and short 15-second videos, apply digital filters to create colour and contrast effects, and then enables them to share this content through social networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Instagram deliberately restricts images to a square shape, in a nod and a wink to those wonderful instant Polaroid photos many of us grew up with. Instagram users can interact with content posted by other members by ‘liking’ it, or by following the user that posted it. They can also search for content using hashtags.

The Instagram mobile app is distributed primarily through Apple’s App Store, Google Play and Windows Phone Store. The app is supported on iPhone, iPad, iPad Touch, Android and Windows handsets, while third-party Instagram apps are available for BlackBerry 10 and Nokia-Symbian handsets and devices.

Boasting 200 million active users in 2014, Instagram’s user-base growth over the years has been nothing short of phenomenal:

Other important milestones and achievements for Instagram over the years include:

• Instagram was declared the ‘iPhone App of the Year’ in December 2011.
• Instagram app for Android Froyo version 2.2 launched in April 2012 got downloaded more than a million times in less than a day.
  
• By July 2012, Instagram was rated more than a million times on Google Play, to become the 5th app ever to reach a million ratings. 
  
• As of April 2013, Instagram was rated more than four million times on Google Play.
  

A look at statistics from September 2013 reveals that a total of 16 billion photos and videos were shared via Instagram, with an average of 55 million new shares being made per day. At time of writing (August 2014) Instagram users are making an average of 1.2 billion new Likes per day.

According to another 2013 study, some 13% of all Internet users worldwide were found to be using Instagram. And some 70% of Instagram users were found to be logging on to the site daily, with 35% logging in more than once a day. 

A 2014 study revealed that the Instagram mobile app user base registered a 25% growth between December 2013 and May 2014. And as of March 2014, a total of some 20 billion photos had been shared via Instagram. It has also been reported that in 2014, an average of one thousand new comments get posted on Instagram every second.

Unlike something like Google + (where people sign up, but hardly ever use it), Instagram demonstrably shows us that people come back again and again to the platform to both post and interact with other users.  And it’s this interaction (much like Facebook itself) that allows us to see why Facebook valued the company at $1 billion in 2012.

As the following Statista chart demonstrates, Instagram has been found to be the 2nd most popular social media app among American smartphone users aged between 18 and 34:

According to a 2013 study, some 25% of the Fortune 500 companies were using Instagram as a social media networking platform. A 2014 study indicates that some 43% of the top 100 brands post daily on Instagram, with the average number of posts made by these (top 100) brands on Instagram per week standing at 5.5. Some 65% of the world’s top 100 brands had Instagram accounts (as at 2013).

In 2014, the average value of sales orders generated via Instagram referrals has been found to be a very respectable $66.75. In a late 2013 study, Instagram was also found to deliver the 4th highest (1.08%) conversion rate among all social media platforms and services, trailing only Facebook (1.85%), Vimeo and YouTube (1.16% each).

A 2014 survey conducted by Social Media Examiner reveals that Instagram is among the top 10 social media platforms used by online marketers.

According to the SocialMediaMarketingReport of 2014, some 28% of online and social media marketers use Instagram as one of their marketing channels. This report also indicates that some 42% of the marketers (that were polled during the survey on which this report is based) were planning to increase their use of Instagram as a social media marketing platform. As this report further indicates, a significantly higher number (49%) of B2C marketers are likely to increase marketing activity via Instagram than their B2B counterparts (32% of which said they will increase Instagram activity).

Interestingly, the same percentage of marketers (i.e. 42%) also expressed their willingness to learn more about Instagram as a social media marketing and optimisation platform.

To paraphrase the old adage from the W. P. Kinsella novel, ‘Shoeless Joe’ (popularised in the classic 1989 movie, ‘Field of Dreams’): ‘

And with more and more people flocking to this photo-sharing social network every day, it is not surprising that Instagram has emerged as one of the world's 'must use' platforms for businesses, online marketers and social media optimisers.

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Looking for SEO Sydney for your website? Then you've come to right place. Simply call 0425 204 887, today. The first page of Google is only one click away!

Now this is a lovely thing to wake up to on a Saturday morning. SEO North Sydney are #1 in Google search for the much sought after search term, 'SEO Sydney'!

There are only two ways to get on the first page of Google. One, you can pay for it (via Google Pay Per Click), or two, you can get there organically.

The only way to work out how much a click is actually worth, is to ask yourself how much would you have to pay for it (via Pay Per Click) if you weren't getting that click for free on the organic side of the search page? In the case of search terms like SEO and SEO Sydney (which are searches from one of the single most competitive spaces in Australia - because everyone competing for the first page is naturally an SEO expert), the answer to that question is: north of $36 and $38 PER CLICK'.

That's right. If you pay to be on the first page of an SEO or SEO Sydney search via Pay Per Click, every single time someone clicks on your ad it costs you nearly $40!

Anyone who's ever spoken to me in person or on the phone about SEO will have heard me say, "It's a lot easier to take the boat to where the fish are, than to get the fish to come to you". A metaphor that holds true in the Organic Search v PPC debate. Because while PPC is a strategy that can work for your business, Google themselves tell us that 90% of all traffic is organic, with only 10% of the search traffic generated from the PPC side of the page. So given this salient bit of information, if 90% of the people click on the organic search (rather than the paid ads), then logic dictates that getting on the organic side of the search is where 90% of your online marketing budget should go. QED.

And I don't know about you, but if I had to pay $40 every time someone clicked on me via a Google search, I'd go out of business quicker than you can say, "Elvis has left the building!". And besides, why would I want to pay for a click, when I can get an endless supply of free clicks on the organic side of Google's search, simply by implementing Google's Best Practice search methodology? 

Naturally the organic Google search results fluctuate. One day you're SERP (Search Engine Raking Position) #1, the next day you're SERP #3, the day that you're SERP #2, etc. The actual order ultimately isn't the thing that matters. What matters is that you're on the first page consistently (92% of people don't go past the first page of their Google search) and ideally find yourself in the top 3 (where 60.5% of the first page traffic goes). If you are, then the phone will ring and your business will grow.

Want to master SEO? Then book in yourself or your staff for some SEO Training Sydney today! Sydney's #1 SEO Trainer Brian M Logan shows you everything you need to get your company website on the first page of Google. SEO Training can be in-house (we come to you) or classroom based (you come to us).

Or you can always call us on 0425 204 887 if you want to leave your SEO Sydney requirements to the experts. Your website's 1st Page of Google results are guaranteed in writing in the contract.

Enjoy this free article? Great! Don't forget to Like it, Tweet it and LINK to it from your blog or website. Your sharing of the page with your friends is greatly appreciated! :)

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Looking for SEO Sydney for your website? Then you've come to right place. Simply call 0425 204 887, today. The first page of Google is only one click away!

Google has today announced that it is rolling out the Panda 4.0 update. While other SEO companies, who try to 'game' the system to get their clients better search results will be negatively impacted by this, SEO North Sydney clients, who are all run on a white hat content mapping strategy, will greatly benefit.

Bring it on I say, bring it on! This has the potential to be HUGE!

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Want to master SEO? Then book in yourself or your staff for some SEO Training Sydney today! Sydney's #1 SEO Trainer Brian M Logan shows you everything you need to get your company website on the first page of Google. SEO Training can be in-house (we come to you) or classroom based (you come to us).

Or you can always call us on 0425 204 887 if you want to leave your SEO Sydney requirements to the experts. Your website's 1st Page of Google results are guaranteed in writing in the contract.

Enjoy this free article? Great! Don't forget to Like it, Tweet it and LINK to it from your blog or website. Your sharing of the page with your friends is greatly appreciated! :)

There are five types of consumers when it comes to technology. 

1. Innovators.
2. Early Adopters.
3. Early Majority.
4. Late Majority.
5. Laggards.

This is classified as 'The Law of Diffusion of Innovation'. And if you don't know the term, that's okay. Because you'll certainly understand the concept.

Think about when Apple released the first iphone for example. There were those who queued up for 12 hours outside a store to buy the product, because they wanted to be the first people to have it. There were those who bought the product when it had been out a little while (but was still considered 'the hot new product to own'). Then there were the majority of people who bought iphones only when smartphones as a whole had gained a significant amount of market share, so they felt safe in the knowledge that the product worked as advertised. And finally there were those people who only ended up buying an iphone when their favourite mobile finally gave up the ghost and was no longer available.

But there comes a point, when the technology has been around long enough that someone not having it makes more of a statement about them than having it does.

Back in the 60s / 70s and 80s, newspaper advertising and DM (Direct Marketing) and DR (Direct Response) was the best way reach the most clients for the least amount of money. Then in the late 80s and early 90s, call centres came into their own. (Why have hundreds of salesmen on the road, when you could just have a team of people selling over the phone from one central office?) Then in the mid to late 90s, the internet started to become ubiquitous, and online search (through Yahoo, Alta Vista, Excite, Web Crawler and later Google) became de rigueur.

And as with all innovations, it took a long time to not only perfect the technology, but also to get people to trust it. I'm sure you remember a time when you'd happily search online, but God forbid you typed in your credit card into a website form for fear of someone making off with all your money! During these times there were the people who were all over the web and happily used search to find products or services (the Innovators and the Early Adopters). Then there were the (Early and Late) Majority who started trusting it, only because other people were trusting and using it. And lastly there were the Laggards. Those raised in an earlier era where going to the Yellow Pages or opening a newspaper was how you found a local product or service.

Fast forward to 2014 and we find ourselves living in a world where practically EVERYONE is searching for the products and services they want, online (via Google). And as 92% of all the people searching do not go past the first page of their Google search, it is now more important than at any time in history, to ensure your website appears on the first page of your relevant Google search. Because, as I always say, 'It is easier to take the boat to where the fish are, and drop a big, big net over the side. Than to try to get the fish to come to you'.

Where once the web and internet search was only used by those hip-cats who were ahead of the bell-curve. Now it is used by everyone. Young, middle aged and old alike. You, your children, your parents and your grandparents, all find what they want, online, via Google. It's just the way of the world now. And if everyone is searching for what you do and where you do it online, but can't find you on the first page. Then you might as well shut up shop and close the business. Because if you're not using the world's largest ever free lead funnel for your benefit, then you are officially a 'Laggard' in the technology stakes. And in an evolving business landscape, it is the Laggards who are the first to become extinct.

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Want to master SEO? Then book in yourself or your staff for some SEO Training Sydney today! Sydney's #1 SEO Trainer Brian M Logan shows you everything you need to get your company website on the first page of Google. SEO Training can be in-house (we come to you) or classroom based (you come to us).

Or you can always call us on 0425 204 887 if you want to leave your SEO Sydney requirements to the experts. Your website's 1st Page of Google results are guaranteed in writing in the contract.

Enjoy this free article? Great! Don't forget to Like it, Tweet it and LINK to it from your blog or website. Your sharing of the page with your friends is greatly appreciated! :)

Nice thing to wake up to this morning! Second in the country for the short tail search 'SEO' after Wikipedia (who of course I'm not competing with).

Got to be happy with that, given the thousands of SEO companies who specialise in getting on the first page of Google I’m competing with to be there!

My kung fu be strong!

Cheers 
Brian M

Happy birthday internet, old buddy, old chum! We don't know what we'd do without you!

Yes, today (March 12, 2014) is officially the internet's 25th birthday. In honour of the occasion, Google's home page includes a cake with a “25″ candle on top to remind everyone.

The world wide web, as modern users may know, was founded on March 12, 1989 by (Sir) Tim Burners-Lee. But, though Burner-Lee is credited with 'founding the web', the internet itself can be traced back decades earlier. Right back to 1957 in fact with the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA - later DARPA). Historians love to credit the genesis of this auspicious organisation to President Dwight Eisenhower (who pushed for the creation of ARPA), with the inference being that the 5 star General launched ARPA because he had a burning desire to push the boundaries of scientific knowledge. When in fact the truth is far more mundane - and some might even say, devious. Because while (what came to be known as ARPA) had been bubbling on US university campuses for several years, it had not received any significant funding from Washington. Then, in October 1957, the unthinkable happened. Russia launched Sputnik, the world's first satellite. And suddenly, Bible bashing middle-America was confronted with the unsettling knowledge that those damn Ruskies could see EVERYTHING they were doing...from space!

Needless to say, a US President was never going to take this slap in the face, lying down. So Eisenhower pushed through ARPA (which of course was actually a part of the Department of Defense), and so the war for technological supremacy was cranked up a couple more notches.

The creation of ARPA led to a gentleman by the name of Ted Nelson creating Project Xanadu in 1960. And it was Nelson who coined the term ‘Hypertext’ in 1963. Hypertext is contained in hyperlinks (which are known today simply as ‘links’) and is the core component of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) which is the language of the web as we know it.

Berners-Lee comes into the picture (historically speaking) around 1980 when he came up with the concept of the World Wide Web (as it would become) while working at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. During his research Berners-Lee wrote a rudimentary program for storing information using random associations. The program - named 'Enquire' - was only ever intended for his own personal use however, and was never actually published.

Fast forward to March 12, 1989 and Berners-Lee submitted a proposal to CERN seeking to build 'A web of notes with links between them'. And so...the web was born. And now, 25 years later, we all get to wish the Internet a very happy birthday indeed!

In Tim Berners-Lee's own words :

On the 25th birthday of the web, I ask you to join in - to help us imagine and build the future standards for the web, and to press for every country to develop a digital bill of rights to advance a free and open web for everyone. Learn more and speak up for the sort of web we really want with #web25.

Although most people (myself included) utilise the words 'Internet' and “World Wide Web” to mean the exact same thing, they're actually different. Not that it matters too much in the normal line of conversation you understand, but for those anal-retentive or finicky enough to care (and just so I don't get inundated by emails from nerdy undergrads with too much time on their hands and a 24/7 hard on for InternetFactsAreUs), The 'Internet' is a pan Galactic gargle blasting way of connecting a gazillion computers together via the standard Internet protocol TCP/IP suite, while the ‘World Wide Web’ is a system of Hyperlinked documents accessible via the internet. 

All the nerds happy now? Good. Then we can move on...

Let's sign off on this auspicious birthday by reminding ourselves of two very important points. One, without people like Sir Tim Burners-Lee, folks like me would have to get a real job! And as much as I like to think that I'd be a shoe-in for the role of Brad Pitt's on-set body double if I needed to find an alternate career path, I suspect that in reality I might have to look slightly further afield...

And two, let's take a moment to appreciate how RADICALLY DIFFERENT all our lives today would be without the internet as we know it. So different in fact as to be unrecognisable. With a quite staggering 6 billion web searches performed every day, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that for all of us, the internet and the world wide web have become as much a part of our daily lives, as breathing in an out.

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Want to master SEO? Then book in yourself or your staff for some SEO Training Sydney today! Sydney's #1 SEO Trainer Brian M Logan shows you everything you need to get your company website on the first page of Google. SEO Training can be in-house (we come to you) or classroom based (you come to us).

Or you can always call us on 0425 204 887 if you want to leave your SEO Sydney requirements to the experts. Your website's 1st Page of Google results are guaranteed in writing in the contract.

Enjoy this free article? Great! Don't forget to Like it, Tweet it and LINK to it from your blog or website. Your sharing of the page with your friends is greatly appreciated! :)

There are literally thousands of algorithmic factors that Google weighs when working out who goes where in a particular search. Trying to get your head around what algorithm affects what outcome is a little like chasing the rainbow looking for a pot of gold. Because by the time you’ve got to where the end of the rainbow was…it has already moved on. Or - in SEO speak - by the time you work out what Google algorithm affects what short or long tail searches you’re trying to rank for in the SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Positions), Google up and changes the algorithms* and you’re back to square one.

*Google on average rolls out between 500 to 600 algorithmic updates every year. Or just over one and a half algorithm updates every single day…

However, notwithstanding the continuously changing slings and arrows of outrageous Google fortune, there are some factors that are pretty much constant. How important they are can change (and have changed) over time, but they are still with us so are worth mentioning here. There are many, many others factors of course. And if you want to know the Top 50 Google Ranking Factors (IN ORDER) that Google uses to rank websites, you might wish to book yourself or your staff into our one day SYDNEY SEO TRAINING COURSE (where this, and every other piece of ‘Must Know’ information about Google is revealed IN DETAIL).

1.      Age of the Domain as a Factor in Search Engine Trust.

Age of the domain is important because the older a domain is, the more times the Google spider has crawled it and thus the more it is inherently ‘trusted’ by Google.

Newer websites are at a distinct disadvantage when compared to older websites for just this reason. There are ways to get around this problem (which will be discussed in a different blog entry at a later date), but make no mistake, if your website is still wet behind the ears, Google will know it, and it’s much harder for your site to rank in the SERPs.

Note: despite what you may have read, every page on the web is its own ‘website’, and has its own ‘Trust Value’ in Google’s eyes. So if your site has 1,000 pages, that equates in a very real sense, to 1,000 websites in Google’s eyes. Of course Google knows that all the pages belong to the main TLD (Top Level Domain), but every page is viewed as a separate entity with its own ranking signals as well as a part of the entire domain. Which means that, on rare occasions, a page in a website can actually have a higher PR (Page Rank) than the home page it belongs to (though this is highly unusual, as most links go to a site’s home page).

2.      Page Rank / PR.

Every page on the web has a Page Rank (PR). Page Rank goes from 0 to 10. The higher the Page Rank the more innate trust value that page has in Google’s eyes. Page Rank is an algorithm created by Larry Page, who with Sergey Brin was one of the two co-founders of Google in 1997 / 1998. Page Rank is not only a clever play on Larry’s surname, but is an algorithm that exists to rank websites based on the trust value given to that site’s content, by other websites.

In times past Page Rank was the huge elephant in the room in Search Engine Optimisation and played a major factor in where you ranked in the SERPs. How could it not as it was the very algorithm that changed the landscape of search as we know it (for everyone – including Yahoo and what we now know as Bing). As such the Page Rank algorithm would update every 3 months or so because of it. But in the last few years Google has been downplaying Page Rank, at least publicly. They don’t offer a Page Rank toolbar for Chrome and they stopped supporting the Page Rank Toolbar for Firefox back in 2011, which many in the SEO community took to mean the death of Page Rank.

Indeed, as far back as 2009, Google’s Amit Singal said in a Bloomberg Interview:

“No one should feel, if I dismantle the current search system, someone will get upset. That’s the wrong environment. When I came, I dismantled [Google cofounders] Larry and Sergey’s whole ranking system. That was the whole idea. I just said, That’s how I think it should be done, and Sergey said, Great!”

However reports of the demise of Page Rank have been vastly overstated. Page Rank is still important (for indexing and search reasons) today, and is still the cornerstone of how Google prioritises their search results. It’s just that Google now has (post the Panda and Penguin updates particularly) many hundreds of ranking factors that they use in concert with Page Rank, to work out where a website should appear in the SERPs, and so are much less reliant on the time honoured ‘how many links you have pointing at your website’ metric than they were back in the day.

3.      On-Page SEO Factors.

On page factors are vitally important in ranking a website, with the quality of the written content, post Panda, being the single most important factor in search today.

Other on-page factors such as how fast a page loads, meta tags and description, et al, combine to give Google an idea of the quality and relevancy of your website’s content. But now, in 2014, it all starts with HOW WELL THE CONTENT IS WRITTEN.

Which, let’s face it, is exactly how it should be. Because Google search is ultimately only interested in two things: 1) relevancy of the content to the search, and 2) the quality of the content itself. Everything else is window dressing to put those two factors together.

4.      Off-Page SEO Factors.

Off page factors such as the type of links, number of links, anchor text, etc are less important now than they were before Google released the Penguin and Panda algorithms. But make no mistake they’re still very important. Though if the current trend toward content being king, continues (as I assure you it will), Google will, over time I believe, phase out their reliance on links all together*.

*And it’s only at THIS point that Page Rank will be retired.

In 2014 however a targeted (rather than an aggressive) off-page strategy is still vital to a website getting on the first page of Google.

Think of it this way, if you put up a new website Google says, ‘The only people who think the content on this website is any good, are the people who put it there’, so Google is more or less ‘Content Neutral’ at the time the website is launched. But when other websites (that Google trusts) link to a page on your website, then you receive a tacit endorsement of the quality of your content (on that page) by a third party. And the more third party websites that give your content the ‘thumbs up’ via a link, and the more relevant that third party is to what you do and where you are, the higher up the search rankings that particular page goes.

Note: whatever you do though, do NOT hire an SEO company in India (or similar) or an SEO company in Australia who outsources link building to India (ASK THIS QUESTION!). Because one in three calls SEO North Sydney gets each day, is from a business whose website is suffering from a Penguin penalty (either algorithmic or manual) due to toxic links. And ‘recovering’ a site from toxic links is an expensive and time consuming process, with no guaranteed end result.* Many clients in fact choose to dump their old domain completely when they get a penguin penalty because it will cost too much and take too long to fix, and thus are forced to start again from scratch. And as I’ve mentioned above, new sites have no innate trust value in Google’s eyes, so a company doing this finds themselves back to square one due to being forced to pick the lesser of two evils.

*it can take anywhere between 3 and 9 months for a site to recover from a Penguin penalty on average.

5.      Number of Pages in Relation to Search Engine Optimization.

Post the Panda algorithm, this is more important than ever. It's what I dubbed, 'The Wikipedia Principle'. Because the more pages you have, and the greater the depth of knowledge you express on a given topic, the more likely Google will think you're an 'authority' on the subject you're discussing.  But don’t think that having hundreds of pages by and of itself will rank your site. Because, due to Google’s Panda algorithm now being able to use a sub-section of Machine Learning known as Support Vector Networks to gauge the quality of a site’s content and practically read the page like a human being (it can now literally tell great content from good content and good content from bad content), if you’ve just got dozens or hundreds of pages of poorly written or duplicate or ‘thin’ content on your website, having more pages will actually harm your site’s performance in the SERPs not help it. But if you want to rank for something, having more ‘supporting pages’ on a given topic and then using those supporting pages cleverly in your IA (Information Architecture) allows you to push page rank around your site to the places that need it most. This is known as page rank sculpting, which of late has got a bad rep (due to affiliate marketers and dodgy SEO companies abusing the practice for many years) but when used judiciously, this – plus the additional pages of original, brilliantly written ‘supporting’ content - can help you enormously. But again, done incorrectly, or by the untrained, this too can damage your site more than help it. But in the hands of trained (and ethical) SEO professionals like SEO North Sydney, this technique can produce exceptional results and a great deal of ‘quick wins’ in the SERPs.

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Want to master SEO? Then book in yourself or your staff for some SEO Training Sydney today! Sydney's #1 SEO Trainer Brian M Logan shows you everything you need to get your company website on the first page of Google. SEO Training can be in-house (we come to you) or classroom based (you come to us).

Or you can always call us on 0425 204 887 if you want to leave your SEO Sydney requirements to the experts. Your website's 1st Page of Google results are guaranteed in writing in the contract.

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Every day I receive multiple phone calls from business owners throughout Australia who are searching for the Rosetta Stone that deciphers how to get on the first page of Google. Some business owners are willing to pay for this secret to search engine optimisation, and pay handsomely. While some simply want (nay, expect) me to divulge all I know over the phone as if I were a free public resource with nothing better to do with my time than download the 15+ years of study I've done in the field, without getting any remuneration in return. But be these callers genuine in-bound SEO leads for my company or be they the quintessential in-bound 'tyre kicker' (every industry gets them, even SEO!), they are all calling because they understand the innate impact a Google first page listing can have on their business.

Or do they?

If Google were Monopoly, then getting on the first page would be like landing on Mayfair or Park Lane, because it's far and away the most valuable real estate you can get and everyone wants it. You know this to be true as well as I do, because we all of us realise that only a tiny percentage of people (statistically speaking) will ever go past the first page of a Google search. But just how valuable is the first page of Google exactly? And is it really worth spending your hard earned money hiring SEO North Sydney to get your website there?

To answer that, let's agree that if you're not on page one of your relevant Google search, your website is practically invisible. Let's further agree that every day you're not on the first page of Google, your competitors (who no doubt are on page 1) get all the business that should be going to you. 

Now, given the above two points, let's close off the syllogism with the conclusion that, as the vast majority of all consumers in the 21st century search for what they want and where they want it, online (rather than in traditional media), it is very likely that the companies that are not on the first page will seriously lag behind their competitors until they learn to harness the power of the world's single largest lead generation tool (Google) to drive inbound enquiries.

Still with me? Good. Because I'm about to give you some statistics to back up the above statements and to make your eye-balls spin back in your head like slot machines. As it's not enough just to get on the first page of Google (though that's impressive - and a vital first step), it's WHERE on the first page you rank that's really important. And this is the ongoing challenge that SEO companies face when you hire them.

To explain why this is so vital, we first have to understand the well-worn axiom that all sales is a numbers game. Because when it comes to internet search, the more people who click on your website's listing in Google, the more people will end up calling you or buying whatever cool-aid you're selling. Beyond the obvious though, how many people click on your listing is important because one of the factors Google weighs when working out where your website ranks, is your click through rate. As a high organic click-through rate (CTR) is one of the best metrics for determining relevancy to the search string. And Google marries this relevancy with their ability to measure the quality of the content on the page your listing actually takes people to (via factors such as bounce rate, time on page, average session time, etc). And together with the machine learning SVM methodology employed via their Panda algorithm, Google takes all this information and gets a frighteningly accurate picture of just how good the content on your website actually is.

The beauty in all this is that the better your site's content, the higher your rankings in Google. The higher your rankings the better your click through rate. The better your click through rate the more relevant your content must be. The more relevant your content, the higher your click through rate. The better your click through rate the higher your rankings. QED. In many ways this becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, and - if you're lucky enough to be deemed by Google as worthy - a self-perpetuating one.

US based search targeted advertising and research company 'Chitika' might get zero out of ten for their unfortunate choice of business names, but they get ten out of ten for their always excellent and wonderfully detailed SEO research. 

I first came across Chitika back in May 2010 when they did an insights study into the 'Value of Google Results Positioning', an eye-opening report into how important 1st page results were when advertising online. But in the fast paced world of the internet, data from 2010 is as relevant today as that acid wash denim jacket you've got stashed in the back of your wardrobe. Consequently in 2013 Chitika decided to update their research in the subject to quantify what each spot on a Google results page is actually worth in terms of organic traffic from Google, today.

To quantify their research, Chitika performed a taxonomy of tens of millions of online ad impressions in which the user was referred to a specified landing page via an organic Google search. From the referring Google URL, Chitika were able to determine the exact SERP (Search Engine Ranking Position) the query came from, and measure what percentage of Google traffic comes from each position in the search results page. The data range for this particular research was extracted between May 21st to May 27th, 2013.

Despite what your ex-girlfriend assured you in the bedroom (no doubt before she left you for a pro-football player named Tripod), size actually is important. Consequently to ensure the results of their 2013 research gave an accurate representation of Google 1st page results as a whole, Chitika went big and extracted their 2013 SEO data from approximately 300,000,000 U.S. and Canadian impressions, as measured by page views (rather than unique visitors).

Note: while these results didn't include Australian internet users, this 2013 study is by far the most in-depth I've come across, and it's not rocket science to work out that the data as expressed in this report will also hold true for Google.com.au as well as for Google.com.

The first thing that Chitika discovered from their 2013 SEO study was that, when measured as a percentile, the traffic for each SERP was actually very similar to their 2010 results, with 32% of clicks coming from the website in the first position in the Google search, compared to 17% for websites in the second position.

Think about that for a minute. Sales is a numbers game, and the more clicks you get, the more people buy. And this data categorically proves that the difference in traffic between being number one in a Google first page search and number two is almost 100%.

Yup, you read that correctly. Getting SERP one in Google gets you approximately twice the clicks as getting SERP two. And twice the clicks means twice the calls. Twice the calls means twice the sales. Twice the sales means double the profits. So if you're reading this and wondering whether or not to sign up for an SEO package with SEO North Sydney, start thinking about how much business you'd make if the visitors to your website doubled? How much business you'd make if your phone calls doubled. Because these are the margins available to whoever has the wherewithal to go after them.

But enough with the sales pitch. Let's stick to the research and let the facts do the talking. Further to this I've posted the Chitika SEO results below for your edification. But the other salient takeaway from this survey that's worth referencing is what we as business owners intuitively know anyway, and that is if you're not on the first page of your relevant Google search at all, then your website is practically invisible, because the first page of Google generates a whopping 92% of all traffic. And heaven forbid you're even further back than page 2, because traffic drops a further 78% between page 2 and 3, and another 58% between pages 3 and 4. Though by that stage there's probably only one person still searching anyway, so...

SEO RESEARCH - RESULTS OVERVIEW:

• #1 in a Google search gets 32% of all the clicks.
• #2 in a Google search gets 17% of all the clicks.
• #3 in a Google search gets 11% of all the clicks.
• 92 out of every 100 people who search on the internet do not go past the first page of their Google search.

CONTACT SEO NORTH SYDNEY TODAY!

Every day you delay is allowing your competitors to get all the business that should rightfully go to you...

Want to master SEO? Then book in yourself or your staff for some SEO Training Sydney today! Sydney's #1 SEO Trainer Brian M Logan shows you everything you need to get your company website on the first page of Google. SEO Training can be in-house (we come to you) or classroom based (you come to us).

Or you can always call us on 0425 204 887 if you want to leave your SEO Sydney requirements to the experts. Your website's 1st Page of Google results are guaranteed in writing in the contract.

Enjoy this free article? Great! Don't forget to Like it, Tweet it and LINK to it from your blog or website. Your sharing of the page with your friends is greatly appreciated! :)