The Unfortunate Truth:

The quality of your backlinks is the main ranking factor.

There is no point having thousands of links pointing to your website if they hold no value, consequently, a lot of businesses give up with backlink building as they struggle to get recognised in a flooded market. 

As you can imagine, this Off-Page strategy entails a bucket load of resources and is virtually impossible to do in-house without a dedicated marketing team and an on-going content strategy. 

This, unfortunately, steers business owners to off-shore freelancer’s and cheap SEO’s that, in a lot of cases, do much more harm than good. 

This leads to the next part of this article. Being penalised by Google. 

Backlink Penalties:

Over 95% of all Google penalties are related to backlinks. 

There are two different types of penalties, Manual, or Algorithmic. 

According to Matt Cutts, there are more than 400,000 monthly manual penalties being handed out, surprisingly, the majority of them aren’t being fixed. 

Without being too nerdy, Google is consistently releasing new algorithm updates that could potentially harm your website. 

This means we have to arm your website with a strong foundation of high-quality backlinks.

backlinks that aren’t paid for, or appear as spam in Google’s eyes.

This way we can grow your organic traffic steadily, and more importantly, healthily.

Conclusion:

If you haven’t yet implemented an Off-Page strategy including backlinks, you’re most likely going to have to catch up with competitors who’ve most likely been utilising these strategies for 5+ years. 

It’s not all bad news. We’ve been in the trenches ranking website’s and growing traffic for businesses of all sizes for the last 10 years and new website’s can certainly rank quickly.

In today’s post we’ve covered the importance of building high volume backlinks, while also ensuring the quality of the link is high so you’re not penalised by Google.

Remember, there’s no point in having 1,000’s of votes if they mean nothing.

9 times out of 10, this will do more harm than good!

If you need any assistance implementing a safe backlink building strategy, that will get you website to #1 of Google quickly, don’t hesitate to reach out and lock in some time to speak to an SEO Brisbane Expert. 

Managing your website’s on-page SEO, off-page SEO and technical SEO all at once is a lot of work. 

From managing the title tags on each page to optimising your page’s loading time, there has to be a better way to keep all of this in check. 

Thankfully, we invest heavily in tools and software to keep track and manage our SEO projects so we’re going to help you skip the guesswork.

Within this article, I’ve compiled 3 must-have SEO tools that will help you manage your organic campaigns, spy on your competitors, and ultimately grow your business.

Let’s get started:

1: Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is an industry leading website crawler that deep dives into your website to identify technical and on-site SEO improvements.

The features of Screaming Frog range from finding broken links on your website to generating XML sitemaps for Google Search Console. 

Obviously, when you step up to the paid version, they offer a few extra tools such as the ability to link to your Google Analytics and Search Console which will ultimately help automate the process of auditing and optimising your website on an on-going basis. 

Other Notable Features Include:

• Analysing Page Titles & Meta Data
• Crawl Javascript Websites
• Discovering Duplicate Content
• Visualise Site Architecture

You can download Screaming Frog for free here.

2: Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another industry-leading tool that allows you to audit your website, spy on your competitors, and gain insane insight into keyword research and development. 

This is our favourite tool for researching new keywords and checking backlink quality. 

To quickly rattle off a few of their features:

• Site Auditor (Similar to Screaming Frog, will audit your website and suggest improvements)
• Rank Tracker (Allows you to track your website’s rankings) 
• Content Explorer (Cool tool that shows you new & fresh content ideas)
• Keyword Explorer (Awesome for finding new keywords)
• Site Explorer (Great for checking out your site or competitors sites)

Unfortunately, this tool doesn’t come free but you can pick up a 7 day trial for $7 here. 

Thereafter, you can deploy their Lite Plan (which still has some serious power) for only $99/month here.

Alternatively, feel free to get in contact and we’ll show you how we reverse engineer your competitor’s strategies with Ahrefs to hike you to the top of the page!

We find Ahrefs to also be the most accurate in terms of traffic volume. If you’ve ever wondered how much traffic Google gets, here’s a snapshot:

And just last month, over +2 million were added! It’s like a traffic paradox, because where does Google get all these hits? Their own search engine. 

Just to add, Ahrefs also has some crazy beneficial content which they publish regularly on their blog which is completely free.

They are big believers in content and proudly sell extra courses on their academy page if you’re interested in learning more in-depth tactics. 

The third and last, but not least, must-have SEO tool is Google Search Console. 

3: Google Search Console

Google Search Console, previously known as Google Webmaster Tools, is another free tool that links to your Google Analytics and website allowing you to track your sites performance and potential improvements to stay within Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

We love this tool because it tells the truth, and nothing but the truth – According to Google 😉

If you need to make mobile usability adjustments, this tool will notify you. As Google states, their Search Console will help your website “Shine”.

This tool will also assist in checking your index status and submitting your website’s sitemap. If you don’t have this setup, get it now here. 

Some other benefits include:

• HTML Improvements
• Structured Data
• Website Sitelinks
• Manual Actions (Including Penalties)
• Crawl Errors
• And more…

Here’s a snapshot of the performance page:

If you ever need any help setting them up or want a sneak peek without paying the monthly fee’s just let us know!

Recently we visited Brisbane’s Google Summit event where they announced some pretty interesting stuff for the future of digital marketing.

One of the most underutilised tools shown was Google’s Scorecard.

It showed that by improving the functionality of a site, we would theoretically be able to generate extra revenue calculated by Analytics

The Scorecard allows you to not only compare your mobile site speed to your competitors, but also identify losses of revenue for eCommerce sites.

Head to: https://bit.ly/2XCO79b

Punch in your website address and it will compare your mobile site speed.

Next, scroll down and enter your domain name along with your competitors into the benchmark tool.

The tool will then provide you with a comparison of your site, and your top 4 competitors.

– Bear in mind, as this tool is new, some sites are still being added.

If you run an eCommerce store and would like to know how page speed truly affects your bottom line, scroll down to the Impact Calculator.

For example’s sake, let’s say we sped up this eCommerce site,  by 2.5 seconds. We are able to increase their revenue by a shocking $219,303 USD ($2.6m per annum)!

Below we’ve given a more accurate and reasonable example of a SMB we currently work with:

As page speed moves from 1s to 5s, the probability of that user bouncing increases by 90% [Source]

We’re now talking about hitting two birds with one stone.

As you may or may not know, not only will your sites speed directly impact your bottom line, your SEO is also heavily influenced.

Google has already announced that page speed affects your SEO ranking, but also other UX (User Experience) factors such as bounce rate and time on site.

There are countless ways to increase your page speed, but I’ll quickly rattle off a few:

Optimise Images:

• By compressing your image size, this will make your site quicker to load, if you are using WordPress, there are many plugins that will do this for you.
• You can also utilise CSS sprites. This will virtually squeeze all images into one and compress it even further.

Improve Server Response Time:

• Ensure your website is being hosted locally.
• Check using: Host Checker
• Ensure your Response time us Under 200ms

Enable Compression:

• Use Gzip to reduce the file size of your site

and so on…

To conclude, by improving your page speed, you will be able to better your websites rank-ability, and also directly increase your bottom line.

If you feel like your site speed is negatively affecting your business, don’t hesitate to contact us for a free site analysis.

What is Ad Rank?

I’ll preface this in explaining that Google wants its search engine to be the best,  right?

Better than Yahoo, Bing and so forth.

In other words, if you ensure your ads are highly relevant to the search, Google will reward you. 

Vice versa, if you’re irrelevant and your ad isn’t best serving the searches requirements, Google will penalise you by making you pay more than your competition.

The good news?

Google doesn’t keep you in the dark. Google provides you with the exact reasoning behind why they’re penalising you or rewarding you (Ka-Ching!)

So… how do they calculate your ad rank score?

Google will multiply your CPC bid (what you’re willing to pay per click), with your Quality Score (we’ll teach you how to find this in a second). This will provide them with your Ad Rank Score.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say your keyword has a Quality Score of 5/10, and you’re willing to pay $2 per click. 

5 multiplied by $2 is 10. 

Let’s say your competitor has a Quality Score of 8/10, but only willing to pay $1.50 per click.

8 multiplied by $1.50 is 12.

See the difference?

Your competitor not only ranks above you on Google due to a higher ad rank score, but they also pay 25% less for the click! – Crazy right!

Let me guess? Now you want to find out how to improve your quality score?

I’ll first teach you where to find it. 

Where to Find Your Quality Score:

The first step is to jump onto ads.google.com and login to your account.

Next, you want to select keywords on the left-hand side.

Now you want to edit your columns and select quality scores.

Once you have completed this, your quality score will appear on the right-hand side of your screen as a number out of 10. 

Rule of thumb: Generally anything under 7 is alarming. Once your quality score begins dropping to 4 and below, Google will stop showing your ads due to a low-quality score. 

Now you know where to find your quality score, let’s discuss how to ensure you’re not being penalised by Google!

How to Ensure You’re Not Being Penalised:

This step will teach you the strategies we utilise to make more informed decisions and ensure your ad rank is not compromised by Google’s strict algorithms. 

To improve your quality score, we must first learn what it’s made up of. 

Your Quality Score is made up of 3 main metrics: Expected CTR, Landing page experience & ad relevance. 

The above main metrics are then categorised into 3 different states: Below average, average or Above average. 

To determine what category each keyword sits within, go to the Keywords tab on your campaign page, and hover over the speech bubble icon next to the keyword of interest.

1. Expected CTR 

A CTR, or Click-through-rate, is a major metric Google uses to determine if your ad is being clicked on. This is a major indicator as to whether or not you’re providing a solution to the searches problem. 

How it’s calculated: Impressions ÷ Clicks = CTR

Example: 100 Impressions (Ad Views) ÷ 10 Ad Clicks = 10% CTR

The higher the CTR, the better. This will help Google deem you “Above average”. 

There are many ways to improve your CTR, so I’ve listed a few below:

• Utilise ad extensions for more screen real estate
• Use symbols to snag attention
• Dynamic keyword insertion for relevant ad copy
• Insert the target keyword to your URL
• Ensure you know your audience inside & out!

2. Landing Page Experience

Put simply, your Landing Page experience is how related your website is to the ad, and if you’re following user experience best practice. 

Here are a few crucial tips to make sure you’re not being penalised:

• Make sure your site is mobile friendly
• Speed up your website (under 3 seconds)
• Promote transparency and trustworthiness
• Offer relevant and useful content

You can read more about how to improve your landing page experience here: Understanding Landing Page Experience

3. Ad Relevance 

Your ad relevance is as it states, how relevant your ad is to the keyword/search term. 

Simply put, is your ad relevant to what the potential customer typed into Google?

This can be complicated when Google Advertisers shove too many keywords in too little number of ad groups. This limits the relevance of your ads.

Here are a few tips to improve your ad relevance:

• Use different match types (not just broad match)
• Use multiple ad groups
• Test/trial with SKAGS

Conclusion:

Funnily enough, improving any of the 3 main metrics involved with your quality score will generally help boost the others too.

For instance, if you put in the work and make your ads more relevant, your CTR will also generally climb in conjunction.

If you follow the basic tips provided within this article, you’re well on your way to generating cheaper clicks and blowing your competition out of the water. 

Remember, the one who wins is the one who can spend the most to generate a customer. 

If you’re spending 25% less per click than your main competitor, who’s more likely to win? 

1. Introduction:

Your website can be your gold mine or it could be the factor behind your slow or lack of success. In the majority of cases, a website is the forefront of a business so it pays to ensure that you are not making mistakes that can end up costing you!

We’ve seen our share of poor performing sites. Believe it or not, 70% of business owners are making mistakes when it comes to their website and as a result, they aren’t reaping the full rewards from their business.

Recently, we sat down and compiled this list of common key metrics of a poor performing site.

Are you making these 5 costly marketing mistakes?

It is imperative to review the list below and ensure that you are not making these 5 costly mistakes. Whether your website has been alive and kicking for the ages or you’re just in the process of creating one, we are sure the list below will be of benefit to you.

2. Unresponsive Website:

It’s 2019 and every man and his dog own a mobile phone. We are all guilty of living in our phones so we are always gobsmacked by the number of sites we come across that are either not mobile responsive, or the user interface is not properly optimised for mobile devices.

The fact is that over 52% of searches are done from a mobile device, so, it is absolutely crucial to ensure that we’re offering our customers the best UX (User Experience) on every device possible.

To check if your site is mobile responsive, you can simply use your mobile device although you won’t be able to see what it looks like on different devices.

Alternatively, follow the below steps using the Google Chrome web browser and see just how your site shapes up on mobile or tablet devices:

1. Click the 3 Vertical Dots in the top right-hand corner of your browser
2. Hover Over More Tools
3. Click Developer Tools

Now you will see an option to change device on your screen and have the opportunity to see what your website looks like to users of different devices!

3. A Slow Website:

The tortoise beating the rabbit and slow and steady winning the race are concepts that DO NOT apply to a website! Makes for a cute moral of a fairy tale story but when creates havoc for your website and business.

We live in a society where everyone is pressed for time and Google is well aware of this. As a result, it has always had super high expectations in regards to what we advertise on their platform and how we go about doing it.

In particular, Google has become extremely strict on website speed, and for good reason.

Google’s expectation is that a site will load in less than 3 seconds, and after reading the next sentence I’m sure you’ll be in the same boat.

Every extra second in load speed after 3 seconds, represents a massive 20% dip in conversions.

That’s a huge amount of customers and potential sales that you could be losing…. And you will be kicking yourself even more if this is the case for you when you realise how easy it is to check your website loading time. The Scorecard Tool allows you to compare websites mobile speed to your competitors, and identify loss of revenue if you run an e-commerce site.

Picture this scenario:

You run an Ecomm store. Your website loads in 10 seconds, you have approximately 5,000 monthly visitors that convert at 3%, and your average order value is $200.

If you improve your page speed to 3.0 seconds, statistics show that you will increase your annual turnover by $50,997 USD! ($71,885 AUD – at the time of writing this).

Now, a lot of you may be scowling and saying:

“I don’t run an eCommerce website, my business is service based”

Don’t stress friend; we haven’t forgotten about you!

A case study written by Hubspot showed a local business cut their page speed in half, which leads to a 13% increase in sales, and a 9% increase in conversion rate.

Now that we’ve identified the importance of your website’s speed, let’s put yours to the test.

Jump onto Pingdom’s page speed tool:

Next, enter in your website address, and ensure the test location is set to Sydney, Australia.

If your site loading time is over 3 seconds, then get on the phone right now and call up your web developer. There are numerous things that can be done to improve your site loading time such as changing the location of your website hosting. Such a small change that will be well worth it in the long run.

4. A Crappy Offer:

Your offer is one of the most important components of a successful conversion rate! Unfortunately, it is also something I see lacking on a lot of websites.

When it comes to your offer or value proposition there are a number of factors that need to be ticked off.

Firstly and most importantly, ensure you have a unique offering, that perfectly meets the demands of your target market.

Secondly, make your offering simple to claim,

Thirdly, make it clear to the consumer how the customer will benefit from accepting your value proposition. What will they gain out of the transaction? How will their needs be met? Look past the obvious and outline both immediate needs such as functionality and try to outline other benefits that your value proposition would be adding such Social Standing, Price and Security.

In some cases, you’re better off using a gated lead capture form to nurture your database – but this is something for another day.

5. The CTA (Call to Action):

Your call to action can be your game changer; poor or no call to action and well…let’s face you won’t be getting too much action. A great call to action, on the other hand, can mean a well performing and converting website.

Check out the tips we’ve compiled on Call to Action:

• Make your CTA’s relevant to your sales copy
• Ensure the button colour and text colour is contrasted properly
• Test different locations for your CTA to ad split test the effectiveness of each

6. Not building trust:

Remember, there’s a good chance that your website visitor is landing on your website from a Google search Ad and have never heard of your brand before; so it’s important to build trust and rapport with your new potential customer quickly.

There are many ways you can improve the customer experience and show them you’re the real deal.

• Publish customer reviews from your GMB Page (Google My Business Page)
• You can also integrate them with different plugins for a better UX
• Include experiences of your customers via the use of video content.
• If you have a look on our homepage, we make sure our customers know we can generate results as soon as they land on the page by posting customer testimonials
• Use social proof
• Utilise your UBP (Unique Buying Proposition), ie; guarantees, free shipping etc.
• Build trust by offering something of value, for free ie; a free eBook or checklist

Remember, if your customers do not trust you, they will not buy from you.

7. Conclusion:

There has been a lot of information given in this article but the main key point is that the website you’re driving traffic to, is just as, if not more important than the traffic itself. Driving traffic to the site won’t turn into conversions if that traffic is not engaging with your website!

So, don’t delay! Review these 5 deadly mistakes we’ve listed and ensured that your not making them with your website…and by doing so, set yourself, your business and your site up for SUCCESS!