Perth SEO Specialist Matt Lynch - Perth, WA - Australia

Matt is a Perth SEO specialist, living in Perth - Western Australia, and has over twenty-three years Online Marketing experience, with his primary speciality being Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). He has worked both at agency and in-house roles during this time. He is a Google Partner, Bing Ads Professional, Hootsuite Solutions Partner and a Mail Chimp Expert. Described as a ‘technical-marketer’, his skills cross; design, audio, video, website development, branding, SEO, PPC and more.

Showing posts with label search marketing. Show all posts

Friday, July 17, 2015

Using Canonical Meta Tags to address Duplicate Content site issues

If you are conscious about your website’s ranking in the search engine results, then one of the last things you want to find out is that you have several instances of duplicate content in your site. In case you do find an accumulation of duplicate content, don’t worry. You can always use the canonical meta tag as an effective means to address the issue.

What is the canonical tag?

The canonical meta tag is placed in the HTML header of a web page. It tells search engines that the page is a copy of the URL indicated in the tag and that it should be treated as such. This prevents search engines from imposing penalties for duplicate content on your page because of the existence of said copies. This is the canonical tag:

“Wait,” you say. “I don’t create duplicate content. I don’t need the canonical tag.”

Indeed. Any responsible website owner knows that creating duplicates is one of the easiest ways to drop out of the rankings. As such, many go to great lengths if only to ensure that every page is populated by unique content. Duplicates, however, do not necessarily have to be created by you. Here are some of the instances by which duplicate content may be created without your knowledge—or consent:

· The system may create session ID URLs in lieu of cookies or other URL trackers if they are disabled in your system.

· Different URL cases are usually redirected to the same location but at times, they may be recognised by search engines as duplicates of each other.

· E-commerce pages often make multiple URLs for the same page, especially if there are multiple available options for a single product. They also tend to use country-specific URLs to accommodate different currencies but these may be identified as duplicates of a single page.

· The mobile version of a page is also prone to getting mislabelled as a duplicate.

· Different mirrors of secured pages are often crawled separately and as such, may be read as duplicate content.

The canonical tag can be used to prevent these instances from having a detrimental impact on your website. While the process itself of applying the tag is straightforward, there are a number of ways that you can get it wrong.

1. Do not have more than one canonical tag in a single page. A single canonical tag at the <head> section of every page is enough. Having more or putting the tag in the wrong place will lead the crawlers to ignore the tag(s).

2. Do not use the canonical tag for multiple pages. In cases when you really must deal with multiple pages, you can use the prev and next tags instead of the canonical tag. You can also redirect crawlers to index a “View All” page instead. This page collates all the results together for easy review.

3. Do not use your homepage as your preferred site. A canonical tag tells search engines to crawl the indicated URL instead of the page with the tag. Use this opportunity to have search engines reference the other pages in your site.

4. Do not use canonical tags for featured content. There is a good chance that these pages will be ignored, making you lose some of the traffic for your features.

5. Do not use 301 redirects and canonical tags interchangeably. While they do have similarities, 301 redirects are useful for when you have performed changes on your site’s structure. A 301 effectively redirects traffic, too. Canonical tags redirect crawlers, not traffic, and are great only for addressing duplicate content.

For all its apparent benefits, the canonical tag is effective only when you use it correctly. Keep in mind the proper mechanics before implementing it in your pages. You can look for strategies on the Internet on how you can use it or which other tags and techniques you can pair it with to give you better results.

Vorian Agency’s dedicated SEO – Search Engine Optimisation division is Search Group. Vorian Agency is a Google Partner, Bing Ads Professional, Hootsuite Solutions Company and a MailChimp expert company. We provide free seminars on SEO and marketing best practices for businesses in Perth, Western Australia. We will help you get acquainted with the tools you can use to help you reach your marketing goals. Contact us now on 1300 100 333, visit us at www.vorianagency.com.au or email info@vorian.com.au to get started.

Friday, June 12, 2015

Search engines: How do they work?

If you have spent enough time online, you must have heard of the likes of Google, Bing, Yahoo Search and probably AOL. They are all search engines used for one of the most popular activities in the Internet—search. They are more than just digitised encyclopaedias; most of them come integrated with an extensive array of functionalities and features and cast an influence that almost literally affects the entirety of the Internet’s surface.

If your business can’t be found within the Search Engine, you don’t get the traffic…

When we talk about “Organic” or “Natural” Search, these are the results that appear in the main body of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page), that aren’t paid for, and are determined by Google (and the other search engines in their own platforms) based on an algorithm that considers the content of your website and matches this to a consumer’s search query.

Did you know?

81% of internet users use search engines to find a website.
73% of all online transactions begin with a search engine.
87% of users only look at the first page of results.
85% of clicks are organic clicks

The Search Engine

Search Engines are online tools that scour the Internet to provide users with the information they need. The resources they allow users access to are virtually limitless, explaining their immense popularity and making them invaluable tools for any Internet surfer.

To explain the scope of the Search Engine’s influence on modern living using a few words is practically impossible. The way they place information within any individual’s reach has affected the way we do business, communicate, study, eat, and conduct ourselves, among others. Their influence and power grows as the number of their users increase, and as Google has proven over the last few years, any changes can have dramatic effects on the Internet as a whole.

How it works

Search engines use automated robots, otherwise known as “spiders,” “bots,” “crawlers” or “indexers” to find content in websites. As the Internet is a figurative jungle made up of vast troves of information, search engines use links as pathways or guides. They follow these links in order to “spider” the sites and “index” the information in the site.

Webmasters also may also use .xml and .txt feeds as site maps of the content they want search engines to index in the directory. Ideally, these lists contain each of the URLs in the site. All indexed information is then gathered and stored in huge servers for easy retrieval at a later time. When a search is performed, search engines take indexed information matching the search query and present them as search results.

When using the robot method, search engines look at a number of factors to determine how deeply and frequently they will index your website. Some of these factors are:

The uniqueness of the content in your site
The uniqueness of the content in a page as compared to other pages in the site
The uniqueness of the content in a pages versus all other pages in the Internet

To ensure that search engines find your content and index them, you need to keep an eye on one key factor—your links. Search engines determine the quality and the quantity of inbound links to your site. As a rule, it is best to ensure that your links come from high-quality sites. This will encourage search engines to index your site more frequently. It will also lead them to consider you as a high-quality source yourself and give you a better ranking in the results pages.

Obscure or “deep” search makes up a significant percentage all searches performed via search engines. As such, it is important that you pair great links with high-quality copy. Many website owners tend to think this means suffusing their web content with keywords. This may be a mistake as the practice tends to sacrifice readability. One thing you need to remember is that search engines today are focused on providing positive user experience and as such, they favour content that are easy for users to digest and understand. So when you write your copy, make sure to write for both humans and search engines.

Needless to say, the workings of a search engine may not be as simple as this post connotes, but this gives you a good idea. The extent of search engines’ influence over the net may be complex in itself, too, but remember that ultimately, they are tools for humans to use. Your focus therefore, should be the humans using them just as much as the spiders themselves.

Interested in a deeper understanding of Search Marketing for your business? Come along to our free marketing seminars at Vorian Agency. As a Google Partner and Bing Ads Professional Company, we also offer a comprehensive range of Search Marketing services. www.vorianagency.com.au

Thursday, June 11, 2015

What SEO do I need in 2015?

It’s the middle of 2015. Have you begun your SEO campaign? Despite the predictions you might have read in the past year, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is still alive and kicking, and in fact, remains as one of the best ways to boost your traffic, get more from your website and raise returns for your business.

What is SEO?

Let’s do a short recap of what SEO is all about. It is the process of identifying the keyword phrases that potential customers use in search engines to find products and services. SEO helps ensure that your website faces little to no obstacles in capturing the maximum possible volume of relevant incoming traffic.

SEO revolves around the idea that by giving your website a boost, you are providing your business with distinct advantages in an Internet-driven business environment. It helps get your business found more easily. Through this, you gain more leads, better chances at conversions and greater potential to make sales, among others.

Organic traffic is a key element in search engine optimisation. It is the type of traffic that is derived from natural search engine indexes, as opposed to traffic bought through search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns such as Google Adwords. To achieve organic traffic, pages in your website have to be optimised so that they conform to search engine algorithms and as such, get ranked in the search engine results pages.

Needless to say, algorithms can vary from one search engine to another. Google’s ranking criteria may differ from that used by Bing. SEO seeks to optimise your website for any algorithm so that you are guaranteed a good ranking in any search engine. Additionally, search engine algorithm changes periodically—keeping up with the changes and ensuring the best results every time is part of the aims of SEO.

SEO for 2015

A lot of things have changed for SEO over the last couple of years alone, thanks to shifting demands and Google’s changing algorithms. That, however, does not necessarily mean that it is too late to engage in SEO. Here are a few pointers to remember for SEO this year:

· Google’s goals remain unchanged.

Google may have gone through many algorithm shifts but their purpose has always been to provide users with the best search results. The search giant has always considered user experience a priority and as such, has consistently rolled out algorithm updates that moved towards accurate, informative search results in websites that are easy to use.

That said, your SEO campaign must have user experience as its foremost goal as well. Put yourself in the users’ shoes and imagine what would make your search easier and much more fruitful. Will you benefit from a website that loads quickly? If so, then ensure that your own site loads fast. Would you, as a user, benefit from having more pictures in a site? If so, then add more images to your own site. Obtain the assistance of experts to ensure that the steps you take are in line with current search engine standards, but putting the interest of your site visitors first is a great way to start.

· Never underestimate content.

As it turns out, one of the best ways to provide optimal user experience is to make information readily available through content. Blog posts and other forms of web content are now considered as key elements of most content marketing campaigns, and are religiously integrated into many businesses marketing strategies.

To maximise results, make sure that your content is high-quality. Readability and comprehensibility are huge factors for users. They can affect how they see you as a potential resource and how often they return to your site for your content. Boost your web content with SEO strategies to increase their effectiveness and their visibility.

Moreover, content is a great way to spread your links and strengthen your backlink portfolio. Users searching for resources will be more than happy to link back to your content and your website if your posts are informative enough. This is just another reason to invest in well-created content.

· Go mobile.

Google reported that a large percentage of search queries nowadays are sent via mobile devices. Consequently, the search giant rolled out a mobile-friendly update last April. The update rewarded websites that have adopted a mobile-responsive design.

As more and more users surf the Internet through their mobile devices, it is within reason that your SEO strategy this year should prioritise mobile optimisation. A good start would be ensuring that your website is mobile-responsive. This would mean that users would be able to use it conveniently and comfortably even through the small screens of their mobile devices.

That said, you should be careful about potential errors, especially as the technology is relatively new. This should, however, not discourage you from taking the path to mobile-responsiveness as, with adequate preparation, the benefits far outweigh the potential risks.

The year 2015 is not too late for you to get started on your SEO campaign. The Internet offers plenty of insights into the many steps you can take, as well as the many ways you can enhance your online marketing campaign. Get started now with Vorian Agency – a Google Partner, Bings Ads Professional company and a Hootsuite Solutions Partner.

Facebook and the social salesperson

Facebook has come a long way in recent years, transforming from a hub for casual users and posters (Farmville, anyone?) to a veritable social media giant. Today, businesses from all over the world take advantage of features and benefits made possible by Facebook’s ever active development team not only to bolster their online presence but also to enhance their ability to promote content to their customers.

The numbers show that Facebook beats all other social networks in terms of number of users. Surveys show that there are currently around 1.4 billion Facebook users from all over the world. A whopping 55.02% of the entire Australian population have an account. Facebook also leads in terms of monthly visitors, with 900 million unique visits from users who click, share and post status updates.

These figures give a clear indication of the extent of Facebook’s reach. This is an excellent point to remember when you design your Search Marketing Integration (SMI) strategy. These days, just creating outstanding content will not garner for you the response and traffic you anticipate—you will need a figurative courier who will deliver the content right where your intended audience can find it. The numbers suggest that Facebook is one of the best tools for this exact purpose.

The social salesperson

For this strategy to succeed, you will need to adopt a few changes. You will have to take the role of a social salesperson or if you can, hire someone else who can. A social salesperson understands or endeavours to understand your market, your product, the problems you may encounter and the solutions to said problems. This individual’s role is to maximise your SMI efforts not just by incorporating SEO techniques but also by ensuring that the right content is created for every stage of the sales funnel.

Like salespersons in brick-and-mortar institutions, the social salesperson will represent your brand. As such, it is their responsibility to create and maintain an online presence through which they can engage consumers in conversations and discussions. They will manage the creation of content and its distribution through social media. They must ensure that shared content will have a positive impact for your company.

Facebook will do a good job as the tool of choice for any social salesperson. Its features (from pages to Messenger) and its extensive reach can be used to your brand’s advantage. A social salesperson can post URLs to direct traffic, post videos and images and effectively open channels where they can interact directly with customers. Needless to say, integrating other social media platforms would improve results, but there is no denying how large the role Facebook will play in your SMI efforts.

Indeed, a large percentage of the world’s population is in Facebook today. Many of them are your customers. Learn more about using Facebook in business in Vorian Agency’s free 2015 Facebook Seminar. Register for Vorian Agency's free marketing seminars here..