Fri, 28 Sep 2007 12:59:45 by Craig Wilson
This week’s most interesting subject—in my opinion—goes to the idea that Google actually comes 2nd on a list for something search-related. “Behave!” - I hear you cry; let me explain:
Compete.com recently published their research of ‘web search fulfilment’, which seperates all web searches between answered and unanswered. An answered web search is ...Read More.
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Fri, 28 Sep 2007 11:24:11 by Pete Handley
I've been a bit busy recently, so have not been blogging as much as my co-workers, but I have been extolling the virtues of blogging to a number of my clients recently, so thought it was time for me to partake once more.
You may or may not have read one of my previous blog posts about how important it is to link to other pages on your blog or website when you post a blog - do y...Read More.
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Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:41:22 by Danni Mikellides
When it comes to budget allocations each year, how many companies do you think are including a budget allowance for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
For a lot of companies here in Australia, SEO is a new concept and people haven’t quite grasped the importance and the potential SEO can have ...Read More.
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Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:41:44 by Matt Hopkins
Choosing the right keywords for your optimisation campaign is an important part
of the process - after all, it is what will shape the structure and content for
most of your site. There are plenty of tools available to help you
research and locate appropriate keywords (although they are all flawed in some
way), but the real question is who is more qualifie...Read More.
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Wed, 26 Sep 2007 07:09:13 by Cameron Winslow
In Brisbane, the going rate seems to be $895 dollars and that is for a DIY course. How ironic a company is offering to take your hard won marketing dollars from you and in return, they will teach you Black Hat techniques that could potentially cause your website to be banned in the search engines.
Unfortunately I was not suprised when I received an email from a Gold C...Read More.
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Wed, 26 Sep 2007 06:08:11 by Danni Mikellides
We talk with our clients about their search engine optimisation and the 20 keywords we use as a benchmark when beginning their campaing. A lot of clients seem to get very fixed and stuck on this. They then want to start rattling off many keywords and throw around a useful phrases. This is generally in our first meeting before we are at implementation stage.
Read More.
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Tue, 25 Sep 2007 12:38:23 by Kerry Dye
Those of us in the internet industry are very aware of social media. We use Facebook, StumbleUpon and Delicious. We know what Digg is and how it affects traffic. But how about the rest of the country? Outside of the technical professions and the universities, how is social media actually seen or used?
If you are a member of the so-called "Millennial Generation" you pro...Read More.
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Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:46:44 by Kerry Dye
Search engine optimisation is not an exact
science, but it is a form of marketing and thus needs to be measured in its
performance to monitor whether it is working. We have mentioned before
that the ongoing process is one of our key differences from other SEO
companies. However, I want to explore here one of the particular metrics that
we use to evaluate a campaign.
Read More.
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Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:45:25 by Jayson Munday
I found this clip on YouTube and thought I'd share. I got a kick out of it because this usually happens to me on a daily basis!
Enjoy
Jayson Munday...Read More.
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Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:42:54 by Joe Bursell
The Apollo system is our management platform that allows us to proactively control all aspects of client SEO campaigns.
It enables us to manage SEO at a granular level, as we can see the smallest variations in everything that affects the optimisation of a site, and make constant improvements.
Whenever we work on a client's campaign we post messages to Apollo. To view our c...Read More.
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Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:17:49 by Jayson Munday
If your business is like a majority of companies in Australia, you not only try and tackle the market here at home, but you also spread your wings across to our New Zealand neighbors. This raises the big question, "Should I have one website or two?". Well the question is a good one, and one that could have multiple solutions through SEO (search engine optimisation).
...Read More.
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Thu, 20 Sep 2007 03:11:57 by Jayson Munday
Searching the web seems innocent enough right? Well it might suprise you to know that the major search engines most likley know who you are, what your political beliefs are, what your religious beliefs are, your interests and hobbies and even your sexual preferance!
How do they know all this? It's simple, data retention. Every time you search using a search en...Read More.
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Thu, 20 Sep 2007 01:19:44 by Danni Mikellides
Today Google Australia has launched its new ‘gadget ads’ – these are interactive ads that be embedded into its web pages, it’s pretty cool !!
The advertiser can place these ads through the existing bidding system – this allows the advertiser or agency to bid for a publisher’s site or content theme.
Read More.
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Wed, 19 Sep 2007 10:48:06 by Kerry Dye
LinkedIn is becoming a more common tool than ever, with an explosion of invites in the UK.
Whilst it doesn't have the popularity of some of the other more "fashionable"
social media tools such as Myspace and Facebook, it is a useful business tool,
filling a niche for business networking rather than your friends.
Whilst the most obvious way to use LinkedInRead More.
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Wed, 19 Sep 2007 06:52:03 by Danni Mikellides
How much of the market are you missing out on through traditional forms of media and not considering search engine optimisation?
Want to be regarded as a more energetic and modern company but agree your old ways are holding you back?
· Australia has approximately 850 franch...Read More.
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Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:35:53 by Danni Mikellides
Most companies now have a web site and if not they certainly recognise the importance of having an online presance. They understand the need of a successful informative website, but companies need to bear in mind that the competition is looking for the same success. One of the best ways to keep the competition at bay is through better search engine placement. This placement on ...Read More.
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Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:19:44 by Kerry Dye
I've noticed more and more recently that there are more Universal Search Results appearing when you do a search at Google. As this is something of great interest to all of us here at Vertical Leap, as well as our clients, I have documented some of them that I have come across, and I thought that the readers of this SEO blog would also find them interesting.
Speaking at Citigroup...Read More.
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Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:48:09 by Kerry Dye
According a recent report by Nielson//NetRatings, Google now accounts for 80% of all search click throughs in the United Kingdom. They report that in July 2007 Britons clicked on over 1.3 billion search results – which is over 29,000 every single minute!
Yahoo comes in at second place, with AOL gaining the third place in the UK.
Interest...Read More.
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Mon, 17 Sep 2007 07:23:46 by Cameron Winslow
There was an article that had some statistics and projections regarding the online market growth of Local Search I wanted to share: http://searchengineland.com/070914-150407.php
This was an opportune time to share a Local Search Product Sheet our Australian Strategic Partner Adcorp designed for their Clients earlier this year. Vertical Leap's Local Search is known a...Read More.
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Mon, 17 Sep 2007 00:38:03 by Danni Mikellides
With a massive growth in the new users every day adding to the Face Book phenomena, no wonder employers need to get a restrictive as to time spend using this social media during work hours. Around 43 percent of companies are denying staff access to the site in any form. While others are allowing restricted access depending on whether it is required for job...Read More.
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Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:20:24 by Pete Handley
Well, obviously I would like to think that many many people out there in the WWW like to read my blogs, and I have had some reaction from people before, but my recent blog about Yahoo Sponsored Local Search seems to have caught the attention of some people.
I just had a thoroughly interesting and pleasant conversation with the CEO of Infoserve Steve Barnes, who had a couple...Read More.
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Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:49:13 by Pete Handley
Yesterday I was playing around in Google's Webmaster Tools, making a removal request for a number of URLs (254!!!) for one of my clients who had just fixed a badly formed URL rewrite but was unable to get redirections in place. As such there were hundreds of pages of duplicated content indexed, which we have now blocked with the robots.txt and removals request.
I went back to ch...Read More.
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Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:34:40 by Pete Handley
I had a phone call from a Yahoo saleswoman this morning, who had been referred to me by one of my clients to discuss the possibility of us using their Sponsored Local Search offering. The client in question has over 40 hotels, which Yahoo was attempting to convince me of the benefits of signing up each hotel at approximately £300 per listing (for 6 months), and for a limited number of t...Read More.
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Thu, 13 Sep 2007 09:27:20 by Cameron Winslow
Google is involved in another potential privacy case with Street View to be released in Canada. It may violate some of the country's stringent privacy laws.
See article: http://searchengineland.com/070912-093321.php
This follows my recent theme of privacy with the previous comments on the Facebook Phenomena.
Stay tuned for mo...Read More.
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Thu, 13 Sep 2007 01:33:59 by Danni Mikellides
Or would you.....
Bit of a debacle if two giant brands come up with a similar logo or trademark wouldn't you agree? But I wonder is it the fault of the brands themselves or should their agency representative be aware of what is currently in the market place. One would think they would research this before even going to concept stage with their creative ...Read More.
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Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:11:07 by Craig Wilson
View the HTML source of the home page on your website - are you satisfied with out it looks? Most websites I look at (that don't specialise in website design or SEO) always look terrible. The top of the page is filled with JavaScript image rollover code and let's not get started on the unnecessary Meta tags. Recent activity suggests that search engines may favour those tidy websites over your...Read More.
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Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:45:30 by Jayson Munday
Ok ok, so I'm not going to delve into the full mechanics of how search engines work. Instead I've decided to show you a video from goo (a Japanese search engine). It sort of has no relevance to how search engines actually work, but it made me laugh, so I thought I'd share.
Enjoy
...Read More.
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Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:13:58 by Jayson Munday
Ethical SEO, I hear you say, what is it and is there such things as unethical SEO??? Well, like pretty much everything to do with our business, social, and home life, SEO has ethical and unethical techniques. While most search engine optimisation companies do walk the straight an narrow, keeping inside the realms of ethical or "white hat" SEO, some companies do take adva...Read More.
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Wed, 12 Sep 2007 07:32:30 by Cameron Winslow
Here is another article that outlines some interesting claims and behind the scenes on Facebook's claims last week of millions of new users. There is also useful information to consider if you have a profile or are thinking about one.
Check out the link: http://searchengineland.com/070911-103851.php
Cameron WinslowManaging Director Australia...Read More.
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Tue, 11 Sep 2007 17:27:01 by Craig Wilson
It seems that there may be a significant change to Google's algorithm over the next few weeks. We already know that trust and the age of a domain are major factors in search engine rankings - but just how important are they? What about trust and age of a single web page?
It seems there has been some buzz around the Internet asking these very questions. Our SEO Management system ...Read More.
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Tue, 11 Sep 2007 10:58:26 by Joe Bursell
In this second instalment I'll explore how and why JavaScript can presents problems for your site's search visibility.
As we have seen, AJAX is reliant on client-side JavaScript, and there needs to be quite a lot of scripting present to enable AJAX.
A common notion regarding JavaScript and search engine optimisation is that it should be avoided, or at least curta...Read More.
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Tue, 11 Sep 2007 08:13:47 by Cameron Winslow
Google has landed back in a Sydney Court over another incestuous relationship with commercial partner Trading Post. Anyone with common sense has known about the preferential treatment and deceptive PPC placements certain customers receive with "Organic results" but this was a blatant one.
We have noticed a change in PPC already with several of our Clients n...Read More.
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Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:45:33 by Danni Mikellides
Mobile operators have tried to get users to do a lot more than talking for a long time spending lots of dollars to upgrade their networks to wireless technology. They have succeeded with SMS but are after a lot more. Voice calling at present is still generating he majority of their revenue, texting has come a long way.
When music downloads became available a...Read More.
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Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:07:01 by Jayson Munday
In our industry it's easy to throw around acronyms and forget that a lot of the time people outsidde of our SEO world will look at you with a puzzled and bewildered look. So i thought it was a great time start a series explaining exactly what is meant by our quirky terms and highlight some of the most common terms we throw out there. I thought I'd start with a simple term, and get...Read More.
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Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:32:45 by Kerry Dye
Matt Cutts recently announced that underscores were soon to be treated as word separators in Google. At the
moment, they are not treated as spaces, so "seo_consultancy" is not the same as
"seo consultancy".
Whilst Ask, MSN/Live and Yahoo have always
treated underscores as word separators ,
Google has not done so, and is in the process of makin...Read More.
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Mon, 10 Sep 2007 11:27:59 by Joe Bursell
In the first part of this blog I'll introduce web 2.0 concepts and explain the enabling technologies, in part two we'll get to the nitty-gritty of how web 2.0 can affect a site's search visibility.
Currently web 2.0 is not defined well enough for me to discuss it here, but we can cover AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) as it is, in simple terms: A bundle of existing technologie...Read More.
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Mon, 10 Sep 2007 08:56:40 by Danni Mikellides
Client's still don't quiet seem to grasp the concept that SEO should be part of their overall marketing mix. Each strategy complements each other and no one form of marketing needs to stand alone. When you're looking to reach a youth audience, you might target some street press media, followed with radio ads targeting younger listeners. If you're looking to attract people to use public transp...Read More.
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Mon, 10 Sep 2007 02:48:50 by Cameron Winslow
Are you one of the 1 million new users a week of Facebook? This is a prime example of the explosion of Social Media and the potential of Online and Web Marketing to have a major impact. The increasing number of people turning to the internet for everyday interactions and transactions have forced business to recognize the necessity of having an integrated online marketing strategy....Read More.
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Fri, 7 Sep 2007 15:10:21 by Craig Wilson
Link buying for SEO purposes is a dangerous game. First and foremost: Google says no. It’s wrong. It’s forbidden. It pollutes the natural search listings and violates Google’s search engines’ quality guidelines. On the other hand, however, link buying is a secret art of ‘gaming’ Google and achieving highly relevant search rankings. While the risk of getting caug...Read More.
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Fri, 7 Sep 2007 15:08:12 by Pete Handley
This morning I reviewed a campaign that I had been working on recently, and was astounded by how quickly Google had taken account of a number of recent changes.
Last Saturday (September 1st), a brand new site was launched on the same domain as an older site used to exist. It was a full redesign, page construction changed dramatically, and file names were changed. The conte...Read More.
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Fri, 7 Sep 2007 09:35:53 by Matt Hopkins
How can anyone refer to SEO services as a "commodity" when there is such huge variation in the way that it is implemented across the planet? The variations are not just in the detail - but they are also in the approach to campaign management.
Over the years, I have had the privilege of meeting with many people in and around the search industry and it is clear tha...Read More.
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Thu, 6 Sep 2007 09:49:36 by Kerry Dye
One of the things that we always recommend to our clients is that if they write press releases, then it is (a) a good way to get new fresh content and (b) we can distribute them for additional SEO opportunities.
Whilst it is important that your press release contains some of your key phrases, given that you are writing about your own company, this is a fairly natural thing that ...Read More.
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Wed, 5 Sep 2007 22:54:26 by Jessica Faltot
Preparing Site Content For Optimization
A smart company should not rely solely on search engine optimization to drive online sales. The old adage about leading a horse to water comes to mind. The search engine optimization company can lead a horse to water, can even help make him thirsty but getting him to drink is something that companies must do. In addition t...Read More.
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Tue, 4 Sep 2007 21:25:24 by Cameron Winslow
Who is handling your Brand Protection Strategy and what operational procedures are in place for dispute resolution? Do you respond to posted letters of complaint in a timely manner feeling confident your brand is protected?
The tried and true motto has always been that if you effectively resolve a dispute with a consumer you prevent them from telling 10 friends who t...Read More.
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Tue, 4 Sep 2007 13:45:40 by Kerry Dye
HTML entities I hear you say - what are
those? Well, you will almost certainly have used them if you have written any
HTML code. They are the little codes that you use to make sure that characters
appear correctly when seen in an HTML rendering engine. The most common one you
will have come across is probably & - used because the ampersand
character does not render...Read More.
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Tue, 4 Sep 2007 12:43:38 by Joe Bursell
The "snippet" that Google displays below a found page title is taken from DMOZ's Open Directory Project (ODP) or the META DESCRIPTION tag on the page, or from the page contents itself:
If your web site is listed in the ODP then Google (and MSN) will regularly use the ODP's description text to describe your web site in their search results. This can be ...Read More.
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Mon, 3 Sep 2007 11:49:44 by Kerry Dye
When I look down the client list for Vertical Leap, there are a large number of travel related sites. Not all the same sort of company, it must be said, but sites offering hotel breaks, flights, holidays, information on cities, travel insurance, even airport portering services. So what is it that makes this such a dense arena for search engine optimisation?
First of all of course, there's...Read More.
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Mon, 3 Sep 2007 10:16:30 by Matt Hopkins
"Without investment in SEO, online businesses will struggle to generate the traffic it needs to survive" according to the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) in the UK.
According to David Thorp, CIM director of research and information, "Although there will always be those who accidentally stumble across your web site, if you are looking to attract new customer...Read More.
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Mon, 3 Sep 2007 10:13:35 by Joe Bursell
Branding is an often misunderstood topic, frequently discussed without an understanding of its fundamental tenet- that it is the set of values by which your stakeholders define you. No amount of leverage or intentionally skewed measurement can ever see "brand" being controlled or dictated to by the marketer.
Your logo is not your brand; it is a badge, a symbol used to identify ...Read More.
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Mon, 3 Sep 2007 06:42:21 by Cameron Winslow
We all find in the current marketing arena the proliferation of companies that have added a section, tab, or line item in their suite of services to include "Search Engine Marketing", "Search Engine Optimisation, "Web Marketing" or something to the effect to give the end consumer the impression that they offer a full service solution.
Unfortunately for t...Read More.
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Mon, 3 Sep 2007 00:50:20 by Danni Mikellides
We still come across many companies spending millions of dollars in press advertisements every year, even though they know and admit the readership has dropped significantly, as with other forms of advertising and marketing. They also agree that they have no indication of who viewed their advertisements, let alone what sort of a response they received from it.
SEO has a complet...Read More.
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Mon, 3 Sep 2007 00:24:47 by Danni Mikellides
For Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), gone are the days when SEO was simply optimising titles, meta tags and placing a few links here and there and reporting was simply rankings. SEO is now a multi-disciplinary exercise in both skills and talent and in blurring the fields of PR and marketing.
Clients will often ask, is SEO worth it? Should I be considering this in my overa...Read More.
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