Listing on Australian Business Directories for SEO

Listing your business on prominent Australian business directories such as Yelp , TrueLocal and PureLocal is recommended , not only to increase your direct views on the directory - but also to increase your backlink profile which will ultimately improve your organic search results in Google. 

How do I create great content for my website?
You know your website the best , and you know the customers and demographic you're trying to target - one would hope! Perhaps one approach is to put yourself in the shoes of your customer - What information , offer , discount or otherwise would you want to see on the website for you to be motivated to spread the word to your friends by word of mouth or social media? 

For example , if you operate an online Baby Store - creating a large top banner to advertise free "baby boots" with any purchase over $50AUD. Or perhaps , "spend over $100AU and we will create a custom baby shirt with your baby's name printed". 

Another example , you've recently opened a Mechanic/automotive store - in your local area. Showcase a large banner on your website advertising that if you and a friend have their car serviced then each will receive a 50% discount no questions asked. The visitor on your website will most likely contact his friend to follow up on receiving a 50% discount on their car mechanic servicing and you've potentially started a viral email chain within your local community for mechanics and finding the best price in town.

How long does it take to get traffic and a successful website?
It's not an overnight process , 15 years ago one could create a website , spam it with keywords and voilà - The website would rank well in Google and you'd have yourself a frequented website which does not deserve to be ranking highly in Google and fails to keep the user engaged. These days , ranking well in Google , especially for popular keywords , is a process which takes time , patience , knowledge and inevitably varying amounts of money. As explained above , creating a website which attracts attention will help you but it will take months , perhaps years for your website to climb the rankings in Google. 

Example keyword -  "Mystic fortune tellers in Hobart , Australia". This is a very specific keyword and searching Google for this would most likely provide a few results , if your business targets keywords of this type - you will find it much easier to be seen in Google , however , the number of queries for your keyword/business will be limited.

Example keyword -  "Best Mechanic in Sydney". This is a very "busy" and popular search term. If your business operates within this business type then you will find it difficult to rank within the first 1,2 pages of Google and may wish to enter the market using an alternative method rather than spending money trying to break the top of Google in this instance. For business types who find it difficult to rank in Google , please see above for creating unique content and perhaps take your marketing off Google and to the "face to face" interactions you have in store with your customers , relying upon word of mouth and reputation building in your local area. For example , your in-store customer is about to leave satisfied - encourage him or her to visit your website , share it on social media or leave a review about his/her experience. This will , over time , improve your website's backlink profile and importance in the eyes of Google with no extra money spent on advertising agencies etc.

New business , no website , what to do?
A website these days is important to accompany your bricks and mortar operation. If your physical store is setup and taking in new business then perhaps a new website will be your next task. I would recommend contacting an affordable web design / marketing agency which can create your website , optimise your website for Google / humans and allow you to continue on your lonesome after a period of a few months. This will allow you to get your website off the ground , with an ongoing ability to generate online revenue/interest without the pitfall of spending thousands being stuck with a longterm web designer / marketer. Note : Many web designers will construct your website and admin area so that their input is always required longterm thereby sustaining your business for years to come. Avoid this! There are many website creation platforms out there which are simple to use and do not require a guru to operate for changes you may wish to make moving forward. For example :

Hopefully , your web designer / marketer uses one of the above so that you can have full control of your website should anything need to be updated , added or HTML edited in days , weeks or years from now. The approximate cost for most of these website creation/hosting services is $30USD per month. Note : If your website becomes popular and begins processing large online transactions then some providers may begin charging more per month. I recall spending $30USD per month on a Shopify store for a client , after 2 years the client's online store had grown and was transacting a reasonably high numbers of dollars/orders per day. Shopify , in this case , were able to see the metrics and requested my client pay more pre month - they increased the monthly cost from $30USD (starting rate) to $200USD per month. This client had multiple domains and as a result needed to pay $200/month per domain to the Shopify service. At this point he "migrated" his website to another provider with a more reasonable price. The popular website creation/hosting services (as shown above) typically allow you to trial their service. I would recommend trialing a few of them and selecting the best option after you're comfortable in making a decision and are confident that you'll be able to control / edit your store without assistance and without any problematic unforeseens in the future regarding price hikes or otherwise.

My new website! Should I pay an Indian on Fiverr to save money?
It depends on your budget , your industry , your location and many other variables. If you're not on a budget , then you most likely already have an agency receiving funds to organise everything. If you're on a budget but still want the best results possible then you'll be faced with a decision to hire either a helping agency within Australian or off-shore , on Fiverr for example.

Visiting the Fiverr website will show hundreds of freelance individuals who are willing to setup your website , organise its Google SEO and be of temporary assistance for a small fraction of the price you'd pay a local Australian based agency. Do you get what you pay for? Yes and no , while it's true that freelancers (Indian typically) are able to do the job for a very low amount of money , there are often issues with communication and many problems which can arise from the Indian developer not fully understanding your English and overall intentions for your website project. If you decide to team up with an overseas and inexpensive freelancer ,  I would only do so after having several phone and/or Skype conversations with the person responsible for your website's creation , SEO , maintenance and publication etc. 

Be sure that the freelancer understands your English , your subtleties and your overall plan. Often times you will speak with an overseas "IT Guru" and feel that you are on two different pages , this is best to avoid if you're going to be spending the next few weeks or months creating and fine tuning a website together. Also , request to view the freelancer's previous work for English websites and ensure that he's using a platform which is easy to use not requiring his longterm assistance. The portfolio of a freelancer's previously completed work will give you a good indication of the website you'll receive. Lastly , inspect the freelancer's customer reviews on the platform on which he's advertising his services , eg : Fiverr. A rating of 4/5 stars is required , Freelancer's with very few reviews and/or an overal rating of 1-3 stars should most likely be avoided unless you've dealt with them previously.

Everything is up and running smoothly, yet you aren’t seeing any traffic or very little traffic? None of this traffic converting into potential customers?

It’s important to take a deeper look at your website to make sure your ticking all the boxes to make Google happy. We first take a deeper look at your on-page SEO and then your off-page SEO.

There are plenty of online tools that allow you to review your website and see what needs fixing. You can even sign up for a free trial of a platform like SEMrush. If your website is built in WordPress it’s a good idea to use a free tool called Yoast SEO which will help examine your website a little deeper as well.

They will take a look at your website, check the loading speed, check image sizes and also make sure all of your meta tags and img alt tags are working correctly. It’s important to do your keyword research and understand what words you’re looking to target and emphasis these in your website.

It’s important to do your keyword research and understand what words you’re looking to target and emphasis these in your website.

This part of the puzzle is everything that happens off your website. The behind the scenes action that helps build your website even further. There are a million different theories on the best way to do this, everyone has their own opionion on what works and what doesn’t. Below we list some popular techniques that we find work best.

Publish daily blogs that are built around your industry. It is best to target long tail keywords. Meaning, keywords that doen’t have as much competition as ‘plumber frankston’ may have. You can use a free tool like Google’s keyword planner to find keywords that suit your business best.

Obviously ranking for ‘plumber frankston’ would be great, however, it will be much harder than ranking for keywords like ‘cheap plumber frankston’, ‘plumbers frankston victoria’, etc. If you create frequent blogs targeting these long tail keywords you will be amazed at how much this can increase your website traffic, rather than just targeting the difficult keywords, target the low hanging fruit. Targeting SEO Frankston is also a lot easier than trying to target SEO in Melbourne or a whole state. It’s a good idea to start smaller and build from there.

If you provide services for other businesses ask them to include your business on their website. Likewise, make sure to include their business logo on your website and link to their page. It’s important to create link structure that includes both internal linking and external linking.

Post to social media frequently, using relevant hashtags and including URL’s on websites like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.