Scaling Companies and Boosting ROI with SEO

SEO, a subset of digital marketing, is the art and science of getting your business to be more discoverable by people who are using online search engines such as Google. SEO is almost as old as digital marketing itself, making it one of the few marketing methods that continue to stand the test of time.

However, like any other form of digital marketing, SEO continues to grow and evolve as companies like Google attempt to improve the way search works. This means that SEO marketing tactics that used to work become outdated as the search algorithm changes.

It is estimated that Google updates its search algorithms between 500-600 times a year. However, most of these updates do not impact the majority of websites.

Larger core search algorithm updates happen a couple of times a year. Here’s the full history of Google Search including major algorithm updates.

Negative SEO is the process of down-ranking certain webpage URLs or domains in search results. Unfortunately, negative SEO is another commonly misunderstood field of search engine optimisation.

There are both white hat and black hat ways to go about negative SEO. A black hat approach may typically involve polluting the target URL with spammy backlinks, negative PR and even DDoS attacks and hacks to bring the website down.

On the other hand, a white hat approach may focus on pushing the target website down by using white hat SEO tactics to push your own website on top of it. In reality, it is just like running a regular SEO marketing campaign however the KPIs are to outrank certain websites in search.

An SEO specialist’s job is to ensure your business succeeds with search engine optimisation. To achieve that requires an effective understanding of your business and your goals.

At that point, an SEO strategy can be produced containing keyword and competitor research, on-site and on-page recommendations, technical implementations link acquisition targets.

This strategy forms the basis of your search engine optimisation campaign which is implemented and reported on a month-to-month basis.

Over the course of the last 10+ years that I’ve been a full-time digital marketer, I’ve had the pleasure to deal with over 1,000 different clients. Of these businesses, I’ve personally had a hand in the SEO marketing campaigns of at least 100 clients.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with clients in almost every major industry vertical. Unlike other newer SEO specialists who have only worked in one or two industries, my experience allows me to effectively advise clients on SEO regardless of industry.

SEO consultancy services can be a one-time thing however if you want to achieve lasting results, a long-term campaign is key for success. A typical SEO campaign lasts between 6 to 12 months or longer depending on the results and returns on investment generated.

Unfortunately, this is a common mistake that many businesses unintentionally make. I get it, coming up with unique content for your website takes a lot of time and hard work. One of Google’s hard and fast rules is to not copy content from other sites aka duplicate content.

If you have copied content from other businesses then a well-thought-out SEO content strategy combined with an effective copywriter can get you out of the jam.

If this is you, get in touch with me today and I’ll do my best to help you out.

If you’ve been in business long enough, you would have received at least one cold email from some suspicious ‘SEO Experts’ guaranteeing results with SEO marketing. If you decided to entertain that email, you may have been pleasantly surprised at the price to achieve these seemingly unbelievable results.

Hopefully, you did not make the fatal decision to pay them. Because in almost all cases, that money gets burnt on low-quality, spammy and dodgy link-building jobs.

You may have even seen a nice email showing some temporary growth in rankings. Chances are that translated to nothing tangible for your business.

So you write off SEO as a waste of money and label all SEO consultants as con-artists. The reality is you get what you pay for when it comes to SEO.

Pay for peanuts, you get monkeys.

Social media does intersect with SEO. With that said, I do advise my clients on how they can use social media to help maximise their SEO campaign.

However, I specialise only in SEO services and I do not provide any other digital marketing services such as social media marketing.

The real reason why organic search engine optimisation matters is website traffic from organic search typically converts the best. The caveat to this statement is only if the organic traffic is coming from the right keywords.

It is widely known that organic search website traffic typically outperforms website traffic generated from other forms of digital marketing. Additionally, consumers have increased trust in businesses that rank well in organic search compared to businesses that pay to be there.

Every business should at least consider search engine optimisation as a viable way to grow.

White hat SEO is the process of improving a website’s ability to rank in search by applying techniques that are in line with Google’s Search Central guidelines.

When it comes to practical SEO, pure white hat search engine optimisation will only get you so far. Now before you think otherwise, consider this: link building – an essential component of SEO – can be seen as a violation of Google’s guidelines.

As with most SEO techniques, there is a white hat and black hat way to go about it. As an example, a black hat approach for link building would be to use a paid backlink network (PBN). On the other hand, a white hat approach would be to do targeted guest posting.

The reality is that in practice, a successful SEO marketing campaign sits somewhere in the grey when it comes to the kind of tactics that need to be deployed to get the best SEO results.

The speed which it takes to rank on Google depends on the keywords you are targeting, the level of competition, your website’s on-site and technical health, your backlink profile and whether or not you have received any penalties from Google.

Ensuring all of these areas have been correctly addressed can help to increase the rate at which you can show up in Google Search.

Working with an expert SEO consultant is quite different to working with an agency. For one, you don’t have to deal with account managers like you do working with agencies.

That means you get direct and immediate answers to your questions. You don’t have to waste time waiting for the agency account manager to get back to you.

Additionally, your SEO consultant is there with you for the entirety of your campaign. This is unlike working with agencies that can swap you out with different account managers throughout your campaign.

In theory, it is possible to get any website first page Google rankings in Australia. It all boils down to the amount of time, effort and resources (i.e money) invested to achieve the desired result.

As much as we all wished that our businesses had infinite money trees, the reality is that getting your website’s first page rankings in Australia may not financially make sense. That’s why I highly recommend viewing SEO as one of many digital marketing tools in the toolbox of modern business.

Yes, it can be extremely profitable if you get it right. However, that isn’t always the case for everyone depending on your business model and the type of industry that you are in.

If you want to know what’s involved to get your business to the first page on Google, get in touch with me today.

No, it does not. I’ve successfully ranked single-page sites at top of page one for competitive keywords. However, if you want to rank for a wide variety of relevant keywords, having lots of high-quality targeted and supporting web pages certainly helps.

If you want to understand how to best align your content efforts with SEO, get in touch with me.

The frequency of SEO ranking fluctuation depends on the activity level of your competitors who are trying to rank for the same keywords. Keywords that have low levels of competitive activity tend to fluctuate less frequently compared to those that have high levels of activity.

Doing SEO audits, keyword and competitor research can help understand and answer why certain rankings are fluctuating.

Like all other forms of digital marketing, there are thousands of variables at play at any given time. Any one of these variables could impact the outcome of your campaign.

That’s why any marketing SEO specialist that is worth their salt knows that guarantees for SEO services set the SEO specialist and the client up for failure.

Every business is different. That’s why every SEO campaign needs to be tailored to the uniqueness of every business. This is also why blanket guarantee statements do not work and why I do not offer them.

With that said, what I do offer is research-based SEO KPIs and milestones to gauge the success of my SEO campaigns. These KPIs and milestones are set at the beginning of your SEO campaign as part of the initial SEO strategy.

If you do have certain ranking goals in mind, please get in touch with me so we can discuss what needs to be done to achieve them.

Local SEO is a subset of SEO marketing that focuses on improving organic rankings for local search results.

You may notice that certain keyword searches are geographically sensitive. For example, searching ‘cafe near me’ would produce a list of map results and cafe websites within the suburb that you conducted the search from.

If you have a local business then local SEO is an excellent opportunity to generate more Google search traffic. If you want to find out how your local business can benefit from local SEO, get in touch with me.

Black hat SEO is the process of implementing search engine optimisation techniques that either directly or indirectly go against Google’s search guidelines.

The reason why someone would consider black hat SEO is it can lead to faster increases in rankings when compared to purely white hat SEO.

However, the risk that you run with black hat SEO is that Google will eventually catch you. Once Google does catch you, depending on the scale of the black hat SEO done, you may receive a drop in rankings all the way to the removal of your domain in search.

Unlike when you hire an SEO agency, an SEO consultant is a search engine optimisation specialist that works directly with you to help achieve your SEO goals.

An SEO agency will typically appoint you an account manager who acts as a liaison between you and their SEO technicians. The downside of this structure is you end up wasting time waiting for communication to move between you, the agency account manager and the SEO technicians.

Working with an SEO consultant means you don’t have to waste time waiting as you do when you hire agencies. The reason being is the person you are dealing with is the one responsible for implementing your SEO campaign. Think of it as being able to run without having your arms tied behind your back.

I work alone as a single SEO consultant. After running a digital marketing agency for 8.5 years, I decided to sell my part of it so I could focus on my passion for SEO.

Depending on your business needs and the goals of your SEO campaign, I may bring in other expert SEO consultants who specialise in certain aspects of SEO.

I’ve been fortunate to meet and work with many experienced SEO consultants over the years. That means I can form an SEO consulting super team if that is what is required to achieve your SEO results.

A successful SEO marketing campaign is made up of many different small parts working in harmony with each other.

Ultimately, you need a well-thought-out and researched SEO strategy in place before you started implementing SEO into your website.

Without a proper strategy, you end up spinning your wheels with little to no traction gained for a lot of wasted effort. That’s why taking the strategic approach to SEO is vital if you want to achieve long-lasting results.

One of the most common misconceptions with search engine optimisation is you need to be publishing content all the time if you want to rank better. The reality is how frequently you need to be publishing depends on the keywords you want to be ranking for in what timeframe in addition to your search competitors.

These variables differ for each of my client’s businesses. Some clients can get away by publishing barely any new content. Some clients need to be publishing content as it happens to have a chance in search.

That’s why there’s no magic number for how often you need to publish. However, I can give you a number as part of researching and developing an effective SEO content strategy for your business.

SEO is expensive if it is not making you any money. Additionally, SEO is a long-term investment. It usually takes between 3-6 months before you start seeing a return from search engine optimisation services.

Depending on your business model, it may take longer before you receive a positive return on investment. However, if you are willing to be patient and have the cash flow to invest in SEO, it can become one of the best drivers of new revenue in your business.

The bare minimum search engine optimisation requirement is a well-thought-out and thoroughly-researched SEO strategy. An effective SEO strategy should take into consideration your business needs, who your customers are, what keywords are they using to find you, who you are competing with in search, what needs to be done to your website for it to rank and what type and number of links you need to be competitive.