Every man and his dog are SEO Experts!

 It infuriates me when I see and hear of so-called SEO experts / Gurus offering internet related services when they have no runs on the board themselves. Don’t get me wrong – there are many reputable website designers and internet marketing companies, but the numbers are small in comparison to those offering such services.

It just amazes me how these so called experts can sleep at night knowing that it is unlikely that they will ever get a return on investment for their clients.

Investing in internet marketing is no different to traditional marketing in that you must measure your results. But hey – there is no point in even considering investing in a newspaper advertising campaign for example if the newspaper is not relevant to your target market or if it has little or no circulation.

All advertising, whether it is online advertising or offline, must bring a return on investment -otherwise you might as well keep your money in your pocket.

How do you avoid the mistake of going with the wrong online marketing company? Ask Questions!

1. How long have you been the business of Internet Marketing?
2. Ask for testimonials and more importantly be sure to speak with their referees.
3. Search for their services online. See if you can find their website using keywords or phrases that are relevant to the services on offer. If you cannot find them on page 1 of Google or Bing this should tell you something. For example, if it is a Sunshine coast internet marketing company you are looking for, search Google using ‘Sunshine coast internet marketing company’ or ‘Internet Marketing Sunshine Coast‘.

And above all, if they offer a guarantee of a number 1 ranking for a keyword, avoid them like the plague!

by Suncoast Internet Team2 Comments »

Mmm… well, the results are slightly inconclusive but here goes.

The Google Trends blog post got 55 hits on the day it was published but it did not feature highly in Google results for either of the Hot Trends keywords (‘Mark Webber’ and ‘Michael Jackson’s autopsy picture’) we were trying to take advantage of. On the other hand, the good news is that, at the time of publishing, we’re on the second page of Google AU for ‘Google Trends’ and in pole position for ‘Google Trends SEO’. Woo hoo!

Why?

(more…)

by Suncoast Internet Team1 Comment »

Unsuspecting website owners are falling prey to the scams of so-called SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) companies promising unrealistic traffic and search engine results. Suncoast Internet spoke to one such SEO company this week that had been targeting one of their clients.

The scenario: The client had been contacted by an alleged SEO company offering to promote a search term, or keyword phrase, that potential customers might use when looking for the client’s business on internet search engines. For a fee of $1000, the company were promising to have the client’s website at the top of the search engine listings for this keyword phrase. (more…)

by Suncoast Internet TeamNo Comments »

Building a website has never been easier. There are dozens of self-help programs that practically build the website for you. And if you don’t have the necessary skills to build one yourself, you can always download a suitable template from hundreds of free templates available on the Internet.

But when it comes to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to get your website listed high up the ladder on the search engines it’s a whole new ballgame! In fact, by comparison, building a website is as easy as apple pie.

Why have they made SEO so difficult? SEO requires keyword search terms, website descriptions, keywords in the body content, ALT tags on images, keywords in page titles, keywords in headers, keywords in page names, a keyword rich sitemap and even keywords in the website name. Then there’s Google webmaster tools, Google analytics, Google maps and a whole range of other useful (?) gimmicks like external links, adwords, sponsored and paid links, reciprocal links, directory submission, article submission, forum submission, blogs, facebook and twitter.

Phew!!! And that’s not all folks. We haven’t even submitted the website to the search engines yet. That’s a unique experience all on its own, especially if you want to promote your website to a number of search engines because they are all different and all require user names, passwords, your grannies name, or the first teacher you had in school. And if you do manage to climb these obstacles safely there’s no guarantee that it will work.

And if your website fails validation, or there are broken links, or it doesn’t work the same in different browsers, or you’re website is regarded as spamming, you could have serious problems.

So if you don’t want to make a complete shambles of your website’s SEO what do you do?

Answer: Get help from the professionals. Suncoast Internet provides a wide range of SEO packages to suit your budget and your intentions. A basic Starter Pack will set you back only $650 and your website will have most of the important optimisation requirements installed. You can then sit back and relax and watch your website climb the search engine mountain.

by Suncoast Internet Team3 Comments »