Search Engine Optimisation Australia
Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO for short, is the process of improving a website’s search engine ranking and directory positions by making the website more visible to search engines.
Search Engines’ Importance to a Website
The importance of Search Engine Optimisation in Australia is tremendous, as search engines and directories will continually deliver the most cost-efficient leads for your product or service. Compared with traditional media advertising or paid online advertising, Search Engine Optimisation provides gaugeable increases in traffic for the small cost of your web developer’s Search Engine Optimisation services.
Search engines provide the vast majority of visitors to most websites both in Australia and worldwide, as they are generally the first place online a potential customer will turn to in order to locate a product or service, or information. If you don’t appear in the top 30 results for your primary search term, you can expect to put in a lot of hard work to receive just a trickle of visitors. If you’re in the top 10, your results will leap to a new level; and the results difference as you climb the top 10 ladder is considerable.
Search Engine Optimisation Prices
Fortunately, Search Engine Optimisation in Australia is one of the cheapest forms of advertising you can buy, considering its 24/7 exposure, market reach and the “Yellow Pages factor” (someone searches for a product because they either want to buy it, or learn more about it.) Either way, just about every eyeball is a lead; and you’ll be hard pressed finding another medium offering that sort of market reception per dollar.
cityofcairns.com in Cairns, Australia provides leading Search Engine Optimisation services for a monthly investment of just $95. With some clients experiencing over 1000% increases in traffic, your business simply cannot afford to be left behind.
Not having your website optimised for search engines is like situating your shop right at the end of an unlisted street in the worst part of town with a vicious-looking dog chained out the front of your padlocked door. The key separator lies in the price difference between a prime retail location, and $95 a month for Search Engine Optimisation with cityofcairns.com.
But Company XYZ will submit my site to 3,000 search engines for $19.95...
An interesting facet of the search engine market, both Australia and worldwide; is how roughly 8 search engines and directories represent nearly 100% of all web searches. Many Search Engine Optimisation companies and especially software packages claim to submit your website to hundreds upon hundreds of search engines; however we feel this doesn’t represent effective time and motion.
We prefer to spend the extra time enhancing your website’s ranking in the most popular search engines, and only if we feel a particular search engine will provide substantial traffic returns (for example, a niche search engine in Australia covering your market section) will we submit to the less trafficked search engines (often referred to as “second tier” search engines.)
In addition to this, the reality is there are only a handful of actual search engines in existence: the rest are either “meta search engines”, which merely collate data from other search engines; and “Free For All” pages, or FFAs.
Termed “link farms” by some, being listed in FFAs will often cause your site to be penalised in the main search engines as they are viewed to be a manipulative manner of improving search engine rank. Without delving into the inner workings of search engines, they are ineffectual anyway because of the sheer volume of links featured on the pages. Your website will merely be listed together with the sorts of websites you wouldn’t want your kids looking at, and the owners of such sites normally use them to collect email addresses from the websites listed on their page — which means more junk in your email.
Attaining high rankings in the Search Engines with Search Engine Optimisation
As a business owner, you know your business more than any web development company could. This is an obvious fact which, incredulously, many web development companies overlook. Your primary role in Search Engine Optimisation is determining exactly what it is you do, who you do it to and where you do it.
These three aspects will usually converge into a single “key phrase”, which is a phrase of two or three words which describes your business in the most concise and objective fashion possible. It will generally also be the most popular search term potential customers will use to find sites such as yours.
An example would be a 4 star hotel in the Cairns CBD. Its key phrase would be “cairns accommodation”. Those two words convey the most meaning in the shortest possible way, and — funnily enough — is the most popular search term for anyone looking for a place to stay in Cairns.
Often, however, there is not much competition for what are referred to as “second tier” search terms. They are more specific, thus receive less searches; however at the same time are easier to achieve a high ranking for and may also represent your business more sharply, resulting in a higher conversion of visitors to leads/sales. In our previous example, second tier search terms could be “cairns resort”, “cairns apartments” and “cairns hotels”.
This is a very simplified example, but should provide a degree of insight into what will be covered in an initial Search Engine Optimisation discussion.
How long before I can expect to see results from Search Engine Optimisation?
Search Engine Optimisation takes time, and it is often disconcerting to not notice a remarkable increase in traffic for the first couple of months. Most search engines take between 2 and 4 months to list your site, and any improvements you make to your website’s search engine “friendliness” (as it is often called) generally won’t have any impact for at least 6 weeks.
In the online world everything is perceived as being instant, which often makes the process of optimising a website for search engines very frustrating. Patience is required, and the knowledge your website is being handled with professional, capable hands.
We mostly recommend that clients engage in search engine optimisation for at least six months for our services to provide a maximum impact.
Can’t I do Search Engine Optimisation myself?
Most certainly. You could also design and print your own business cards, film your own TV commercials and fix your own computer. Heck, you could clean your own office; but you don’t. Why? Because your time is more valuable than that.
Effective Search Engine Optimisation takes years of research, hundreds of test sites, and hours each day devoted to keeping up with the dynamic nature of search engines, optimising your site, securing reciprocal links and enhancing your visibility. For a business owner in Australia to perform these tasks by themselves would be a full-time job in itself. So why not use the services of a firm whose full-time job is to improve your search engine ranking?
You need to ask yourself whether your time, at whatever hourly rate you choose to place upon yourself; is better spent on Search Engine Optimisation for hours each day, or on doing what you do best: managing your business.
We are sure you’ll agree that $95 each month invested into your search engine ranking is a more astute decision than learning and deploying a search engine optimisation package yourself.
What results can I expect from your Search Engine Optimisation efforts?
We have been researching search engines, refining our methods and excelling at search engine optimisation for a number of years. If we don’t believe we can improve your search engine ranking, we will not undertake the job. The actual rankings you’ll receive, and traffic accrued thereby, depends on the competitiveness of the keywords your business targets and the popularity of those keywords.
Whilst there is no way we could estimate a particular search engine ranking beforehand, we consistently exceed client (and our own) expectations and possess a client satisfaction record of 100%.
What will your Search Engine Optimisation services cost me?
Our Search Engine Optimisation prices are priced at a level permitting any website operator to attract the search engine traffic they deserve. As most web designers do not build websites with Search Engine Optimisation in mind, we normally require time to stabilise the website and discuss with you the best approach we can take to produce the most qualified and consistent visitors to your website. This is encompassed by the setup fee; normally $300 (and includes the first month’s Search Engine Optimisation.)
If the website requires significant alterations to make it search engine friendly, we may quote a higher setup fee to incorporate this. For existing web design clients, we waive the setup fee as all websites designed by cityofcairns.com are produced with search engine friendliness in mind.
From here, a monthly investment of $95 is required to continually optimise your website and enhance its search engine ranking. This is paid in three month blocks; the first three (including setup fee) being $585, and following three month blocks at $285.
For more competitive websites, Search Engine Optimisation services are priced on an individual basis.
Contrasted to Search Engine Optimisation firms in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne — where you can expect to pay several hundred to several thousand dollars per month — cityofcairns.com represents tremendous value for money, without compromising service or results.
Check out our Search Engine Optimisation Price page for more information.
You’ve convinced me. What do I do now?
Fantastic! Your next move would be to give us a call on (07) 4033 7811, or email seo@cityofcairns.com so we can have a nice friendly chat about how we can push your website to new heights.
Note:
Search Engine Optimisation services by cityofcairns.com are available to, and enjoyed by, clients anywhere in Australia or internationally. Whether you are in Cairns, Townsville, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, the UK, or the US; our Search Engine Optimisation services will ensure the continued promotion and high ranking of your website in the search engines, regardless of your location.