Be warned if you are delving into the dark art of Black Hat SEO as it will eventually come back and bite you in the you know what!

The worst thing you can do as an Internet marketer is to play dirty Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) tricks, AKA Black Hat techniques. If you are being compelled to do Black Hat SEO, below are some of the reasons why you should take the higher road and refrain from doing it.

Everyone is doing it

It does not mean that just because it may be a common practice for some, you will have to follow suit and jump on the bandwagon. Google will impose penalty on your site once it finds out you are engaging on shady strategies. In general, the best links are those that are natural or organically generated. It does not really matter how many people are practising unethical SEO techniques, what really matters is how you sincerely interact with your community via social networking sites to bring in clean links to your site.

We will not get caught

Black hat SEO makes use of sneaky strategies such as hiding and blending links with the page background to make it seem like they are texts. If you think you can get away with your sneaky techniques and trick Google, you are mistaken. Google and other major search engines are aware of Black hat SEO methods and spend a lot of time working on how to stop it. If you think about it, the search engines don’t won’t irrelevant sites ranking as this would mean people would not use there search engines. If you get the famous Google slap (your site will be removed from the Google Index) you will find it very difficult to get your site back in the index and your rankings of course will suffer. If you value the credibility and reputation of your company, you will distance your business from unscrupulous Black hat SEO techniques.

We will only do it once

Unethical SEO practices can be compared to drugs. Once you’ve tried doing it, you will have a hard time giving it up especially if you are already dazzled by its short-term gains. If you value your website and do not want it to suffer the repercussions of doing Black hat SEO such as drops in rankings or being completely de-indexed from Google, then you will say NO to Black hat SEO techniques.

In Summary

To sum it up, Black Hat SEO strategies are tempting but are definitely not worth the risk. Google and other search engines strive to be of service to people by generating the most relevant results based on their search terms. By trying to fool Google and by trying to thwart its goals, you will get your site banned. Instead of wasting your time on unethical SEO practices, it is best to use ethical SEO strategies to boost your site’s rankings and focus on generating high quality web content to maintain the integrity of your website.

It Is Not All About Your Company

Try to notice that the type of posts you are writing and see if you have been writing incessantly about your company and the products and services you are offering. Though there is completely nothing wrong with letting people know how great your products and services are, people may hate hearing about them all the time. What people love to read are blog posts that are interesting and can be of good use to them. Instead of posting me-centric contents, post informative contents that can spark the interest of your customers.

Your Posts Lack Call to Action

Too often many companies get frustrated when they spend so much time designing their blogs and paying people to write professional content but still their blogs aren’t generating any leads. Sometimes you actually need to encourage your readers to take action. This does not mean that you will make your blogposts sales-y, what you want to do is incorporate certain phrases or words that will prompt your readers to do something.

For instance, try instructing your readers to fill out your web form or call your toll-free number for a quote or sign up for your email newsletter and see how many leads your blog can bring in a month’s time.

Your Blog Cannot Be Found On Search Engines

Because your blog cannot be found in the search engines, no one knows it exists. Though creating content and making sure each of your post has a call to action are both important, those efforts may be rendered useless if you do not optimise your blog. Optimising your blog is easy. Start with keyword research then optimise your business blog around search terms that are profitable. In addition to targeting keywords that have a good amount of search volume and acceptable level of competition, you may also want to broadcast each post you create to different social bookmarking and networking sites. Doing so, you inform the search engines and people that hey, my blog exists and it has great quality content!

If you want your blog to generate leads, you need to realise that there’s quite a lot of work involved in attracting readers and generating engaging contents. If you are suffering from a useful business blog, we hope that the information we shared above can resurrect your blog and turn it into a profitable sales funnel.

What do you use to monitor your rankings in the search engines? We have been using AWR seo software (AWR) and we use it on a daily basis to track our clients and also our own keyword rankings.

The program is really easy for all or our team to use which is a key factor to using any software long term.

So what exactly does Advanced Web Ranking do?

To give a bit of a background, AWR is an excellent web ranking software created by Caphyon Ltd. who specialise in creating tools for efficient Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The software is used and recommended by many SEO professionals.

AWR’s Best Features

• Integrated link building and management elements
• Competitor keyword analysis
• Keyword research and analysis

• Performance reports including automated reporting (we love this feature)

Effectively Manage Your Link Building Campaign

Link building is paramount to any SEO campaign. Relevant link backs are an important consideration if you want your websites to have good search traffic volume. Keep in mind that the more relevant sites that link to yours will be seen as higher value by the search engines and will help improve your overall rankings.

Over the last 12 months we have also trialled a couple of other tools however they just didn’t stack up to AWR.

AWR not only helps us determine who links to our site, but also helps us spy on the keywords of our clients competitors. If you want to start exploring the link networks of your competitors, going to AWR’s graphic reports is a great feature.

Competition Benchmarking

Using AWR’s Competitor Analysis Feature, we can analyse the website of competitors, their present rankings, and the keywords they are using.

Comparing your website to that of your competitors’ and understanding the SEO strategies they employ will help you develop strategies to out rank them.

Keyword Research and Analysis

AWR’s keyword research tool integrates with other top keyword analysis tools such as Wordtracker, Google Keyword Tool, and Yahoo! Search Marketing. The said tools will be able to give you a full picture regarding the real statistics of searches performed for a certain keyword.

Indeed, this feature is also important since it not only offers keyword suggestions, but also keyword density analysis, unlimited URLs, unlimited keywords, Google AdWords features and local search tags.

Thorough Performance Reporting

AWR’s Performance Reporting feature gives its users a graphic representation of a website’s link popularity so one can see how effective their SEO efforts are. AWR’s graphs and charts can be used to visually inspect rankings shifts for your chosen keywords.

AWR reports important site metrics using charts and graphs. Included in its performance reporting feature are performance trends, index checker, report expert, alert reporting, as well as automated reporting.

Summary of ALM

AWR has impressed and is continuously impressing us. Aside from their outstanding features, which other web ranking softwares do not have, it is the AWR’s sincere aftersales support that truly impressed us. The Caphyon team responded quickly and completely to some of our previous questions regarding their product clearly demonstrating that they take pride in the performance and usefulness of their SEO product.

Advanced Link Manager Review

Aside from AWR, Caphyon Team is also proud of another SEO tool for link building they have created–the Advanced Link Manager (ALM).

Essentially, ALM can act as your hub for all things related to link building. You can even consider it as your link manager. No less powerful than AWR, you can build links and create relationships with other websites using ALM.

ALM’s Best Features

• Backlinks evolution
• Link Text
• Competitor Analysis
• Finding Link Partners
• Contact Information

Backlinks Evolution

Do you want to see how your link building efforts have paid off over the last six months or study how your link popularity has grown? Backlinks Evolution will show you the amount of backlinks your site has mapped over time. Depending on your preference, you can opt to view the links of your entire site or just a single page. You can even graph several pages at once and compare. With ALM you will also notice that the links are categorised into several groups such as Important Links, Paid Links, Blog Links, and so on.

Link Text

With this feature, you will be able to view how many links you have for each keyword or anchor text. This feature is helpful if you want to know which keywords need your attention in the future. Also, by choosing a certain keyword you can see all the websites linking to your site with that anchor text.

Competitor Analysis

In addition to Backlinks Evolution and Link Text,, another valuable feature of ALM is its ability to analyse your competitors’ sites and determine the SEO strategies your competitors are employing. ALM can gather the necessary data needed so you can work out how to out rank your competitors.

Finding Link Partners

One of ALM’s main purpose is to help you find links partners to which you can build a relationship with. With ALM’s Find Link Partner wizard, you can find sites to link from according to your chosen keywords. From the several results ALM can turn in, you can quickly filter them by Page Rank (PR), outbound links, and so on.

Contact Information

For each site that ALM gathers, you can quickly get the contact information of the webmaster. The only task left for you to do is email webmasters and start building a link relationship. ALM also tracks your emails and where you are when it comes to attaining a link so there’s really no need to worry as ALM can get the job done for you.

In Closing

Both AWR and ALM are fantastic software packages that our company uses on a daily basis. We have tested other similar software but nothing comes close to the functionality, features and most importantly the ease of use that both AWR and ALM provide.

Content Farms Removed

This specific Google Panda update is a move to make sure the search engine only returns relevant search results. By removing content farms that have dominated the top listings, despite containing low quality and superficial pieces of information, Google aims to improve the user’s browsing experience and make it more efficient.

Keep Your Visitors on Your Site Longer

It seems that Google now gives more importance to the length of time users spend looking at a website. The rationale behind this is pretty simple. The users will not spend as much time on a website if the content is not relevant to what they are searching for.

Site owners or webmasters will have to adapt to these updates and make the necessary changes to keep their sites visible. The update, in addition to removing useless content farms, also monitors the kind of traffic websites get thus SEO content and increasing the number of your links to your website are still important.

However, aside from getting the users to visit your sites, you also need to create SEO strategies on how you can keep your visitors on your site. This can be done by creating more high quality relevant content and by designing your site in such a way that your site visitors will stay longer on your site pages.

Not The End of SEO

So we think that the recent Panda update will actually increase the demand for talented writers and creative web designers.

Overall, Google’s Panda update did not stop SEO, it just changed the rules of the game and if you follow good solid SEO stragegies you should be fine.

If you want to stay in the game, you will be wise to comply.

 Though links, title tags, and meta descriptions are still important, you may need to think more about the user and less about the search engines this year. Keep in mind that Google always wants to please its users so do not take too much time chasing and monitoring their algorithms. Instead, create great content that is focused on your audience.

All veteran Internet marketers know that no singular strategy can boost one’s online rankings. An effective SEO campaign is all about the fusion of several disciplines into one cohesive strategy. If you want to succeed with your SEO campaign this year, you need to think diversely, pay attention to the smallest details of your campaign, and follow all the tips we will be sharing below.

1. Search Friendly URLs

Though probably a small part of Google’s algorithm, search engine friendly URLs should still be included in your overall strategy. Aside from the apparent search advantage one gets from having keywords in the URL, it also helps in providing instant anchor text when people make use of the URL to link to a certain page. Search friendly URLs, no matter how small its role is in Google’s algorithm, is still highly encouraged as it gives searchers an idea if whether or not they are on the right page.

2. Heading Tags

Heading tags usage started several years ago and since then have been an essential part of any on page SEO strategy. Though some evidence suggests that the correlation between rankings and heading tags is only minimal, it is not an excuse to ignore them. Heading tags are still useful in the sense that it help users determine if they are on the right page for their search query. As a smart Internet marketer, you need to ignore what others have been saying and start focusing on strategies that will further improve the user experience in your site.

3. Optimised Copy

One should not ignore the advantage of having an optimised web content. As Google becomes more sophisticated with its algorithms, you must avoid any kind of conspicuous optimisation and stop doing the tricks of the past. To further improve your web content copy, make sure to use Google itself in finding synonyms. Furthermore, when it comes to keyword research, a little creativity and a little thinking out of the box will make you go far in terms of finding good keywords that have high search volume and low competing pages.

4. Images

Though it may not seem important to SEO, there are some strong pieces of evidence that suggest that the images associated with Alt Text contributes in the ranking of a web page. If you are going to include images in your web page, make sure they are relevant and that they have the appropriate Alt Text thereby contributing effectively to the ranking of your site.

5. Steer Clear From Old Keyword Strategies

Instead of writing with keyword density, proximity, and prominence in mind, you need to write for your readers. Though proper SEO writing is still paramount, Google encourages that this year we write what feels right to us and by always considering the kind of content that will capture the interest of our readers.

6. Keep Your Content Relevant and Interesting

Be certain that you know who your target customers are and the kind of information they need and want. Most sites attract different kinds of visitors so be sure that your site content is addressing all types of visitors. Remember that your website is a very valuable marketing tool so make sure that it is receiving the kind of attention it deserves and that it has the ability to address the needs of your site visitors.

7. The Importance of Videos

Many businesses still fail to see the benefits of video marketing. By including videos on your web pages, you provide your customers another communication channel and do not bore them with a purely text-based site. Videos can also be included in the universal search so it will be wise to diversify your search visibility by optimising the videos you will be posting on your site.

8. Go The Extra Mile

Google and other search engines love results that are relevant and useful to their users. If you are doing the extra steps to please and delight your visitors, Google will eventually notice it and will give your site the visibility it deserves thereby outranking your competitors. Try looking at your site and its sub-pages and then think if you can consider it as one of the best websites in your niche. If you think it is one of the best, then you must be ranking well in the search results. If not, then you definitely need to take the extra mile and maybe start considering the tips we have shared above.

On Page SEO this year is all about creating contents that are useful, sharable, rich web pages that deserve rankings according to their quality. If you want your website to maintain its good ranking position, you will combine old school optimisation with usability, marketing and psychology to write and design site pages that will do well this year.

Below is a bullet point list from that article outlining what count’s as a high quality site.

We’re pleased to say that most of these guides are things we’ve been banging on for years so it was pleasing to see this list come from Google.

So keep aiming for original, high quality content that people will want to read.

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

You can read the full article here

Don’t be fooled though, great content rarely comes in the form of super-slick marketing agency style advertising. It’s much simpler than that… and it’s far more effective too.

Take this following video as an example. Blockout Blinds found that through mis-adventure customers often managed to derail the chain on their roller blinds. It’s an easy thing to fix, so they created the following video demonstration and an accompanying blog entry:

Roller Blinds: How to fix a broken chain

There are several benefits to creating and publishing your own content like this video:

• Customer service – Don’t underestimate how valuable content like this is to your clients
• Brand exposure – This simple video has been seen nearly 1000 times to date, but some of our customers home made videos have been seen 10’s of thousands of times within months of publishing
• Human contact – Before your customers pick up the phone and call, they will feel like they have already met you. Videos like this associate real people and faces with your company
• Establish your expertise – A simple piece of content like this one can help your customers to understand your hands on expertise in a way that advertising just can’t.

Creating this video took about 4 hours of work. The rewards of creating it will be reaped for years to come.

If you are marketing your business on the web, you need to read this book: Get Content, Get Customers.

The result of adopting content marketing for Blockout Blinds has been massive growth in website leads and most importantly sales. Bear in mind that Blockout Blinds did not have a website before 2008. Now their website is their biggest source of leads by far.

A great example of a new content marketer is Ace Mobile Mechanics.

Ace are a Victorian company offering auto electrical services, car servicing and car repairs. This year, they have focused on creating new, useful content for their website such as this page on “Starter Motors” or this one on “Voltage Regulators.”

Now those pages probably don’t mean much to you right now, but if your starter motor is playing up or your voltage regulator is on the blink, that information will help.

Putting content like this together not only provides information, it helps customers to find that information. Google’s webmaster resources tell us time and time again to focus on content for search engine rankings rather than techniques, and it does pay off. For Ace, it has paid off with a 21.2% increase in traffic so far this year, and that is continuing to grow.

Ace however are not prepared to just settle with that… They have taken content marketing even further by participating in a new blog website designed to help customers solve their own mechanical and car service problems – Car Service Tips

Ace Mobile Mechanics regularly contribute to the Car Service Tips site with posts such as:

• How to jump start your car
• How to check your brake fluid
• How to maintain your car’s battery

Creating content that is useful to your customers and prospects doesn’t have to be complicated, but it will require concerted effort from within your company.

“Effectively dealing with the infinite choices consumers have on the web involves a mind shift from old marketing where commercial messages are thrust on people. The messages that work best on the web are those that consumers choose. There’s a huge benefit to making this mind shift—it then becomes easy to create the kind of content that your customers are looking for.” – Brett Gilbertson from Get Content, Get Customers

When you change the way you think from Advertising to Content Marketing your marketing costs diminish, your conversion rates will go through the roof and you end up with better, more qualified customers who are easier to deal with.

In May this year McGraw Hill published the new book from Content Marketing Gurus Newt Barrett (Content Marketing Today) and Joe Pullizzi (Junta 42) – Get Content, Get Customers.

Content Marketing is something the we have been very passionate about for a long time now. With our years of experience in building, analysing and marketing websites, we find that very few web designers, developers and consultants are focused on content.

They spend too much time getting the look right and focusing on content management and Google rankings. Too little on content.

We are very grateful to Joe and Newt for writing Chapter 13 of their book about us and our customers. Chapter 13 starts out as follows:

“Content Marketing Pays Off on the Bottom Line in Australia

How Bitemark teaches small and medium sized businesses to reinvent their online presence to deliver dramatic increases in sales, leads, and profits.”

So why does content marketing does pay off for our customers?

Well to us, content marketing means using your website and email marketing campaigns to make customers comfortable enough to take the next step. The next step might be a contact or an online sale.

To make them comfortable enough you will need to use the right combination of information such as descriptions, details, features, locations, photos, specifications, prices, use cases and most importantly benefits, both emotional and logical. That’s what content is…

More and more, website tools and techniques are becoming throw away commodities. Content on the other hand is an asset that you can create, that will keep on giving back for years.

So do your website a favour a get a copy of  Get Content, Get Customers Here!

We’re going to look at a few example of Content Marketing Strategies from some of our customers in upcoming blogs.

“Can you produce your website KPIs for me in 10 seconds?”

“What are they?” You wouldn’t be alone if you asked that.

We recently consulted with the lead generation department of very large Australian business. Interestingly they were unable to provide us with this information in a timely manner.

You might think, if a big corporation can’t pull this information together quickly, then how could you expect me to?

Well, as a small business, you actually have an huge advantage. Since there is likely to be only a few people involved in the collection of the information it is much easier to put it together. The smaller your business, the quicker it should be to do this.

So what KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) am I talking about? Well, three KPIs in fact.

1. Visits- How many visitors came to your website last month?
2. Leads – How many leads were generated via phone, drop in or contact forms?
3. Sales – How many leads turned into a sale?

These three KPIs will tell you exactly what to focus on in your website at any point in time. Without this information so much effort is wasted. We make it a rule not to make any recommendation on any website without this minimum of information.

So, it’s been more than 10 seconds now. There’s no excuses for not having this information at your fingertips. Go get it!

If you need help making it easier, contact us.