I have been doing SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) for quite a while (since the late 1990s). I've had the opportunity to work for some amazing companies on some of Australia's largest most trafficked sites such as The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne's The Age.
I've also had to sort out global SEO issues on sites like Microsoft Australia and currently on the Salesforce CRM Australia site.
Even though I've had the opportunity to work on such amazing websites, working with amazing people, it's not easy being the SEO guy. It's a constant challenge to rank well and maintain rankings.
The sites are very complex, competition is fierce, many technical CMS (Content Management System) hurdles/limitations to overcome and often large teams of web developers and content producers to deal with. In some cases (depending on the nature of the business and competition) it's easier for small businesses (SMEs) to outperform and outrank large businesses.
I'm passionate about search and want to show SMEs how they can succeed at SEO.
I recently presented at CeBIT Sydney in May 2013. My session was part of the Small Business (SMB) stream at the event. I wrote a blog post that has highlights of my talk - "My 7 Secrets to Search Marketing Success" and I thought I'd share it with folks here at SavvySME as I want to help as many Aussie SMBs succeed with SEO.
Photo: Mark Vozzo presenting to a packed room of Small Business owners and SME employees at CeBIT Sydney, sharing his SEO tips.
My presentation covers a wide variety of topics such as:
1. Analytics - What are key Search Marketing Metrics you should be focused on?
2. Keyword Research - How do I conduct Keywords Research? What are some free tools to help me do effective Keywords Research?
3. Crawl-ability - How do Search Engine spiders work? What are some free tools to check what my page looks like to Google? How do I check how many pages of my site are in Google's database?
4. Content - How can I figure out what content I need to write? How do I optimise my content to improve ranking and traffic?
5. Connections - What types of links will affect my Search Rankings? Can you show me some free tools to check my site for broken links?
6. ROI - How I can measure Return on Investment (ROI) of my Search Marketing programs?
7. Keeping Up-to-Date - What are the best websites, newsletters and video channels I should subscribe to so I can learn more and stay ahead of the pack?
During the presentation, I cover each of the following in great detail. But here is the action list for SMEs:
View and download the slides
If you'd like to view/download my slides here they are:
7 secrets to successful search marketing
My slide deck contains many links to Free SEO tools, resources and videos.
TIP: If you don't have time to go through the entire deck, the one thing you must do is watch this YouTube video titled: "Using Google Webmaster tools like a SEO" (the link is on slide 66). It's a free tool by Google that will help you uncover any SEO issues with your website that if fixed will help you get more traffic from Google.
Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or LinkedIn or post questions here.
I wish you all the best with your SEO rankings.
I'm passionate about Digital Marketing and have been in the Online space my entire career. I started off as a Web Master/Designer at a Software company called Citect (SCADA Software), then moved on to Fairfax Digital to head up Search Marketing for the news and media sites (smh.com.au, theage.com.au etc.). Spent over 2 years at Microsoft Australia looking after Web Analytics (using Webtrends and Omniture), before joining Salesforce.com. I head up the APAC Inbound Marketing team.
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Tim Greig, Owner at Green Galah Pty Ltd
Thanks for the very helpful presentation Mark. Kind of what I have been doing but in a random, un-coordinated way! I might actually sit down soon and go through our site with your action plan in view. A problem seems to be sites that crawl a businesses website and create links automatically. When you check the site out it is just full of rubbish, random links which I would imagine make Google look poorly on the business site. All done with us lifting a finger!
Mark Vozzo, Online Marketing Manager at Salesforce.com
Hi Tim, thanks for comment. You've raised a good point about sites that crawl a business site and spew out random links. These sites are one of the various reason why Google makes so many algorithm changes to weed out these crappy, poor quality, link farm type sites. As long as your site adheres to best SEO practise (some of them outlined in my Slide deck) and you don't engage in any tactics that aim at decieving Google to gain rank, you'll be fine. I just heard I'll be running a webinar shortly to share my SEO Tips to those that didn't attend CeBit. let me know if you're interested.