SEO Tips Australia

Anyone who's used Google will be familiar with the drop down suggested searches box. It's basically the search engine using its own data to do a bit of thinking for you and suggest the keyword searches that many other people have used.

So, as you type in each word, others magically appear below in the menu. The more words you type yourself, the more chance that you're using a completely one off, original search, and so the suggestions trail off to nothing.

This tool is extremely useful for webmasters and bloggers because they can be sure that if a keyword search appears, a reasonable number of people type that in every month. So, if you include such keyword combinations in your page and blog post titles and write lots of good unique content that's relevant to them you've got a good chance of ranking fairly highly for such searches, and ones like them. Targeted traffic will then follow.

That said, it's not always that simple, because some keyword searches have massive volumes and therefore huge competition. And that information is not included next to the words. Still, if you apply a bit of intuition it's not hard to find some keyword combinations with strong potential.

You can get pretty creative and find your own way of using this drop down suggestion tool. It's great for helping you get geo-targeted Aussie traffic too. One thing that people often do is type a country, state or city name, then their main keyword (or vice versa). Depending on how popular those keywords are, Google will then suggest many related, oft-used searches.

For example, if you run an employment themed website you can type in "Australia+jobs" and you'll get many suggestions. You can sift through them for ideas. And even some of the resultant three word searches listed will throw up still more that you can target.

Of course it's doesn't always follow that those typing in local location names are from Australia. However you can be confident that many of them are. Keep going with this technique - even if you don't do further research into exactly how many people type those particular searches and how many websites and blogs are competing for them - and you're sure to have some success before too long. Remember that a few such traffic trickles can add up to a flood over a year or so.

One thing worth remembering when blogging is that people are always on the lookout for specific information. That's why it's a good idea to write detailed posts with the names of products, companies, businesses and even well known individuals in the titles. It's usually pretty easy to end up on page one for search results for such keywords. And needless to say, if those keywords are specifically related to Australia, then you will draw local visitors.

And being opinionated can also make those posts stand out on the search results pages, making them more likely to be clicked on. I had a very good illustration of this recently.

Being a climate change skeptic I did some Googling on the issue and noticed that a theatrical management company that runs a lot of Perth theatre venues had some pretty full on green policies in place. So I wrote what was quite an abrasive, though humorous post about this on my arts blog. It ranked highly enough in Aussie searches including the company name that a journalist for a local paper who was researching a story on the company saw my post and read it. He thought that the blog itself was unusual and interesting, so ended up doing a story on it alone. It can be found on page 2 of the issue marked 14/5.

I haven't received any direct SEO benefit from this, since the issues seem not to be indexed by Google. However I've definitely had some clicks coming in from people who read the story, since I saw these in my stats. And it has certainly helped raise my profile as a local blogger.

So, remember to be specific with your blog posts, and don't be afraid to be controversial. It can definitely get you noticed by media outlets with a much wider reach.

I occasionally tweet about Perth, and these tweets get retweeted comparatively often. They also get included every now and then in Twitter "newspapers" like this one.

There are clearly a lot of people on Twitter interested in information related to their location. And not just at the city level; they tweet and retweet about their suburbs, too. Take this feed, which is devoted primarily to things happening in (or at least related to) Wanneroo.

This is a goldmine for any business person keen to service a particular geographical area. You can get your products and services well known through Twitter for free. As well as the direct geo-targeted traffic it can attract, remember that lots of tweeps are also bloggers and webmasters, so you're bound to get a few local backlinks as well.

The key is to just to keep cranking out geo-specific tweets, and be sure to use the hash tags with the locations you cite.

I've just done another search for Aussie article directories and found some more. One of them was intriguing in that it had categories for each Australian state. This is unusual. I certainly haven't seen any local (or international) article directories categorized in this way.

This particular directory is very new, with hardly any content. However it is hosted within Australia and is already ranking pretty well. So I suspect it will grow into a good local directory. And I think that it might particularly good for webmasters and business owners who are keen to get traffic in a particular state or city, rather than the whole country. The reason, of course, is that state by state categorization.

I joined the site Qondio some time ago. And I've only recently looked into what it's all about. The more I learn about it the more I like the concept and think it's worth putting quite a bit of effort into.

Qondio has similarities with some big information gathering, user generated sites like Wikipedia. However it rewards contributors by giving them backlinks. Also, you can put your own ad code in there and get all the revenue. That is unique as far as I know and a good incentive to add lots of information.

The one thing you really notice when submitting content (or "intel") is that they are super careful to make sure that everything up there is unique. If you try and sneak in some duplicate content, you're out! They also have zero tolerance for members spamming other members.

With these restrictions in place, they will build up a really good repository of knowledge, much of it local. This is from their About page:

What we value most is local intelligence about the people, companies, and places around you. Things that you - and others in your neighborhood - know and a lot about, but most other people don't. Stuff that's obvious to you and easy to write, but unknown to the web. The people and places you write about do not have to be famous, and the intelligence you share does not have to be earth-shattering.

The site alread has a PR of 6, so a backlink from there is likely to be quite powerful already. Also, they have sections for each country. So Aussies, if you have some good, locally oriented intel up there, it's bound to help lift your site's rankings quite a bit!

Not so long ago I started a new website (with blog) about Perth. I have been very busy with other projects so it's still very basic at the moment. There's very little content and only a few backlinks to it. I've basically just taken a few photos to show how Perth is booming, and put them on the site.

Although I've almost never put photos on sites before I was aware that it was important to name them accurately, since this could bring in some traffic. Surprisingly, it's started to work already. I haven't had tons of hits, but there's a regular trickle of visitors to the blog coming via Google image searches. So, it looks like there's a good source of easily gained traffic there for webmasters to tap in to. The trick seems to be in naming your images correctly.

My photos are all specific and unique to Perth. So it's not unreasonable to assume that the traffic is mostly geo-targeted as well. I haven't looked into this but logic dictates that if people know the buildings and streets I've named, then they're probably also from Perth, or some other city in Australia. After all, people from overseas wouldn't have such specific knowledge of this city.

I suspect that if a local landmark is very well known, then there'll be a higher proportion of people from overseas searching for it. The inverse would be true too. So, the less well known the landmark or location you're photographing, the more localized the search engine traffic that image can bring. (Of course there'd be smaller volume, too. But if you have several photos up the effect will certainly accumulate over time.)

This is worth knowing for anyone who wants to get geo-targeted traffic. Digital cameras are not pricey, and It doesn't take long to go out and take some photos and upload them onto your site or blog.

There is a risk with using lots of photos, however, particularly ones of famous landmarks. That is that they'll get ripped off and used on other sites. So here's an article about how to address this problem.

Just another little lesson I learned from blogging about items in the news: Recently, I wrote a blog post about an interesting story in Melbourne. There was a gay man called Tom McFeely running for the traditionally conservative Liberal Party in one of the seats in that city. I thought that what he was doing was courageously politically incorrect, and also proved that the Libs were not the bastion of homophobia that they were reputed to be. So I wrote a post about it with his name in the title of the post.

Needless to say quite a few people were searching for that name - Mr McFeely among them. Because my blog post was on the first page, he found the blog and commented on it.

So, if you blog about figures in the news then put their names in the titles. People will be searching for these names and you'll may well get some search engine traffic. Of course, it won't work for the really famous names, but it often works for those with lower profiles. And it's a doddle when you write about someone who's only just arrived on the scene.

This tactic could be really good for local SEO. If you blog about those well known only in your city, then you're almost bound to rank highly, simply because there's not much competition.

Remember that we all have egos, and chances are that many of these people will be searching for their names and end up reading what you have written about them. If you have something nice to say they may well show their appreciation by commenting. And if they have websites or blogs they may well send links your way, which is of course highly beneficial for SEO.

That's not to say that you should only ever be complimentary and supportive when blogging about local leaders, celebrities and newsmakers. Being critical can also help you SEO-wise. You'll still be adding relevant local content and probably ranking highly for searches for their names, and there may be other local bloggers and webmasters who might link to your views. Just remember to be fair in what you say, though. And clarify it's just your opinion so you further lessen your chances of copping a lawsuit.

I've been using some more keyword hunches related to topical news stories on my rant blog (Die Fluffy Wuffy Die!), and it's worked well. For example I wrote a mostly humorous post about the recent top rating episode of Packed to the Rafters, in which the much loved character Mel Rafter died.

I got in early with it, and ended up on page one for various specific searches including those for "Mel Rafter". I was also ranking for some simple terms including the name of the actress playing this character, Zoe Ventoura. I've now been elbowed out by a lot of news sites and blogs more specifically devoted to entertainment and my post has fallen down the list for these one name searches, so the traffic has pretty much dried up. (I'm not sure of how many hits I got but it must be around a hundred. Not a torrent by any means, but I suspect they're all new visitors, and I probably wouldn't have got any of them had I not been mindful of keyword selection.)

That said, I'm still on page one for those two names combined. (BTW, the reason I don't often link to these posts is because there's a chance that doing so might actually harm their rankings. Google takes note of interlinking between sites that are owned by the same person. They are not given as much weight as voluntary links from separate sites. So if you overdo it you can be penalized.)

The reason I've gone into such detail about this little episode is that it reveals some good lessons:
One, you've got to "strike when the iron is hot" and get in early with a topical blog post. Secondly, if you can make an educated guess about what people will be searching for and target those keywords you can punch above your weight for a while, and get some good targeted traffic. (And keyword tools are pretty much redundant here. They will give you data about what has been searched already. But here you're trying to predict what will be searched.) Thirdly, you can get a lot of geo-targeted traffic by writing about topical keywords that are related to your country - or state or city, for that matter. (Packed to the Rafters is an Aussie show, so probably all of those visitors I had were also Australian.)

Sometimes you hit, and sometimes you miss with your topical hunches, of course. But even a few hits over a few weeks could easily triple your blog traffic over that period.

In summary I should make it clear that I'm not endorsing that you only write such posts so that you can get traffic. That would be putting the cart before the horse, and make for a soulless blog full of short, unoriginal entries. You should only ever write what you would want to write anyway. Then you'll always have something interesting to say. But if you're mindful of the SEO aspects as I've described, you can get more traffic to those posts than if you weren't, that's all.

I have just been searching for Aussie business directories so that I can update my list of them on this site. There are quite a few new ones. And it wasn't that long ago that I last looked for them.

So, it's still an expanding market - or maybe just a volatile one! This is also true of the Australian classifieds sites I've been listing. There's never a shortage of ones I've never seen before.

Of course, some of these directories will go kaput in time. But there'll always be new ones. That's why I'd urge anyone who has a business to keep doing various keyword searches across all the major search engines and submit your site to a few from time to time. (And if you can, try to be wary of shonks. Google for reviews of sites if you have time. Unfortunately some directories are run by scammers who do charge businesses for listings they never asked for.)

Not so long ago I wrote a post on my rant blog about the Australian federal election. Being mindful of keyword selection, I included the names of the main party leaders in the post title. Just as I'd hoped, a reasonable number of people were including those two keywords in their searches and I managed to sneak onto the first page of Google for it. That particular post has well and truly slipped down the list but it did manage to bring in scores, if not hundreds, of visitors.

Something similar happened today. I read about a point blank execution in Dianella, which was the suburb I grew up in. Compelled to comment on the changing nature of Perth, I wrote a blog post on the chilling event. I thought about what people would most likely include in their searches and titled the post "Shooting in Dianella". Again, more than a few people were typing in those exact words, or something similar. And I've had dozens of hits as a result.

I know it's a pretty opportunistic, even ghoulish way to bring in some traffic. Still, there's no point in writing a blog unless you get people to read it, right?

And the lesson from this (particularly for bloggers who write about current events) is that you should always try and think what people will most likely type into a search engine when seeking information and opinions. If at all possible, you should include those keywords in the post title. If the post is about topical information there's almost certain to be very little competition for popular searches related to it. And if your hunches are correct (which they're pretty much bound to be from time to time) you can end up getting some really nice spurts of traffic as a result.