User Experience Design Class @ General Assembly Oct 22th 2013

User experience talk by senior UX Consultant, Karen Callaghan @ General Assembly Tuesday 22th October 2013.

Get your objectives right, map your user journey, involved your content strategist and test!, test! test!

SEO Agency Sydney - SEO in Action - Test Article 2

SEO Agency Sydney - SEO in Action - Test article 1

"SEO Agency Sydney" search term for a Sydney SEO agency could be a key search phrase you might think an Sydney SEO agency should rank for.

However there is more to it than just ranking for the term you think your business should rank for. In this specific example, the term "SEO Agency Sydney" is:
a)  not a "high volume" term (just 140 searches last month in Australia - According to Google Adwords keyword tool)
b) it is just one of other key relevant terms an SEO agency might want to rank for.
b) Possibly might not generate as many conversions (phone ringing asking for Sydney SEO packages).

This optimised SEO Agency Sydney article is one of some others SEO test articles I am planning to publish in my Blogspot website (Google owned Blogging service) to find out whether Google Australia will rank this article for "SEO Agency Sydney" searches on Google Australia.

Would this optimised SEO Agency Sydney blogspot page be enough to be ranked on Google Australia for "SEO Agency Sydney" search phrase? ANSWER: We do not know (YET). As with any SEO project; we need to test, test and test.

With so many changes with latest Google Panda update and latest Back Links updates from Google; as ranking positions rely more and more on quality content and not just buying links pointing to your optimised pages.

Not just "SEO Agency Sydney" term!

Our business (as yours) cannot rely on just one term to get traffic. Generally a planned SEO content strategy that publishes "meat" that Google would love to eat is key!.

For this testing exercise then how do I ensure I am creating enough meat? 
In the next days I will also publish pages that optimise for the terms:

• SEO Packages Sydney
• SEO Consultant Sydney
• SEO Consultant Salary
• SEO Job Description
• SEO consultant philippines

I will start internal linking between these pages too. At the moment there is no linking as the pages have not been created.

How did I come up with the above terms?

As this is a BASIC TEST to check whether this Blogspot page can actually gain great Search Engine Ranking Positions (SERP's)  for the term "SEO Agency Sydney" a BASIC keyword research using free tools ( tools you can also use) was used to come up with the above terms we will be creating pages for. 

Basic keyword research.
Step 1: I looked into Google Adwords keyword tool and find relevant terms.

"SEO Agency Sydney" relevant, related terms - Google Adwords keyword tool

So, who is ranking for the search term "SEO Agency Sydney" by the 7th August 2013?

SEO Agency Sydney - Google Australia results - 7th August 2013

As seen above, none of those ranked sites are Blogspot sites!

Is that because anyone is optimizing for the term "SEO consultant Sydney" using Blogger/Blogspot platform? 

According to Google there are  14,000 Blogspot pages that have the term "SEO Agency Sydney" in them so it is not going to be an easy fight as some of those blogs have better page rank and page history than my new Blogspot blog.

SEO Agency Sydney - Blogspot pages ranking in Google Australia - 7th August 2013

But is it really worth the effort trying to rank a blogspot page for the term "SEO Agency Sydney"?

According to Google Adwords keyword tool, "SEO Consultant Sydney" term had 140 searches last month (July 2013). That might be quite a few searches if you sum up the volume for the other 5 searches we are optimizing for and get around a 2% conversion I am looking at a gain of 5-6 clients which I will be very happy with. Then if I convert these 5-6 clients into long term client who engage me for other website SEO packages, SEO consulting or training; eDigital products that are worth on average a couple of thousand dollars, it might then be worth the effort!.

In summary, how to SEO a website for great Google organic (free) rankings requires an experienced Sydney SEO Consultant, a solid SEO Content Strategy and some testing time.

Next:

• Call Mauricio - SEO Consultant Sydney on +61481 367 711
• Check Mauricio Escobar Mármol LinkedIn profile.
• Follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter or Google+

About Mauricio

Mauricio Escobar Mármol (BBsMn & MCom) is eDigital Sydney SEO Consultant, Social and Digital Media Specialist. Mauricio posses over 10 years experience helping companies to earn new customers and prolong customer lifetime value by effective execution of structured Digital Marketing strategies and executions. Mauricio worked as Digital Marketing Manager for some of Australia's most visited websites. Mauricio expertise focuses on Website Optimisation, Social Media, SEO/Networks Acquisition Strategies (SEO, SEM, Affiliates, Display) and vendor reviews.

Website Project Brief - Free Template by eDigital

Website Project Brief - Free Template

Filling the below Free Template will help your "Parrot" Digital Agency, Website Developer or SEO Consultant to understand what you brand is, your customers and what you want to achieve.

Brand/Product :       Campaign :

Prepared By :     Date :

Creative Agency Contact :

Media Agency Contact :

What is the background?

What is the brand eseence, personality, unique value proposition and category history?

What are your strategic objectives?

• What is the contribution to the overall business? What is the role of the brand in the portfolio?
• If building a new website, what are the traffic acquisition and retention objectives?

What is your key business objective?

• What is the single thing we should we focus on? How will this be measured? What is the desired timeframe for delivery?

What are the trade expectations?

• What is their key objective? How is this measured? Who are they targeting?

What are the communication objectives?

• What should the campaign deliver? How will this be measured?

What are the issues facing the category/brand?

• What do we need to take into account? What’s the current competitive landscape?

Who is the target audience?

• Who currently uses the website? Specify consumer segments.

What are the consumer insights?

• What do we know about the consumers?
• What are they looking for?
• Why are/aren’t they using our site?

What is the brand communication proposition?

• What is the proposed brand positioning? What are the supporting pillars?
• What underpins this?

What is the desired consumer action?

Why should they respond in this way?

• What are the rational reasons for this response?

Are there going to be any product changes?

Are there any regional considerations?

• Metro vs Regional? State vs State?

Are there any seasonal considerations?

• How does the traffic fluctuate? What are the key occasions/timings to communicate?

What research has been conducted which could be relevant?

What are the mandatories?

What must the campaign include?

• e.g. must include certain media channel, specific creative etc.

What are the key deliverables?

• What are your expectations from each response?
• What must be covered off?
• Media:
• Creative:

What are the key timings for response?

• Initial Response (media & creative)
• Final Sign off (media & creative)

What are the key campaign timings?

What’s the launch date? Is this confirmed? What’s the ideal campaign duration?

Any additional info that might help creative/media and development

What is the budget?

Media $

Creative/Production $

Promotion $ ————————- already covered.

Total Budget: $


Next:

• Call Mauricio - Digital Marketing, Social Media &  SEO Consultant Sydney on +61481 367 711
• Check Mauricio Escobar Mármol LinkedIn profile.
• Follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter or Google+
• eDigital is a Sydney Digital Agency, SEO Company in Sydney and Digital Marketing Training Sydney.

Have a great weekend! 

Mauricio Escobar Mármol
Director +eDigital 

About Mauricio

Mauricio Escobar Mármol (BBsMn & MCom) is eDigital Sydney SEO Consultant, Social and Digital Media Specialist. Mauricio posses over 10 years experience helping companies to earn new customers and prolong customer lifetime value by effective execution of structured Digital Marketing strategies and executions. Mauricio worked as Digital Marketing Manager for some of Australia's most visited websites. Mauricio expertise focuses on Website Optimisation, Social Media, SEO/Networks Acquisition Strategies (SEO, SEM, Affiliates, Display) and vendor reviews.

Learn the secrets of a successful website - webinar - Bigcommerce Paypal July 2013

KEY TAKEAWAYS - "Learn the secrets of a successful website" - Webinar by Bigcommerce & Paypal.  23 July 2013

Key intakes from Troy Cox, Bigcommerce Australia

• Create and launch a clean and modern website and homepage.
• 90.000 australian websites using Paypal.
• 37.000 merchants using Bigcommerce. They have learned what works well when selling online.
• Ensure it showcase your brand your image. Make it easy and simple. homepage is the first impression of your website: . Not too cluttered.
• Be careful when running multiple promotions. Put them in a carousel on homepage. The less promotions the more you convert. Imagine you enter into a shop and 6 sales assistant comes to you to sell you different products.
• Make your website easy to navigate. Categorize your products on few categories.
• Get a fresh perspective of your homepage. Run your website on different browsers and mobile phones and see how your homepage looks. It should be nice and clean.
• Successful website have great product images. As people are not able to touch the product and really feel it, you need to have your products images from different angles. This will help improve conversions. The bigger the images, the less likely people will return your products. Bailey Nelson is a great example for nice, big, beautiful product images from several angles. They also have images of key features of the product: hinges.

• Videos to drive engagement: Videos have a profound impact on conversions. it is not just about getting more visitors into shoppers. Videos allow to add value and get users to connect with your brand. Videos allow to lift that level of trust with your shoppers and visitors. People prefer to buy from companies they trust. You can showcase how your products work with other products. Video content can help you build that trust by showcasing the features, how products are being used or general information videos: how returns wok, how shipping work.
• You do not have to be an expert videographer. Troy encouraged people to start with your smartphone and create videos to your products. Yeti coolers is a nice website that fully use videos to promote and educate users about their coolers. They use videos to help customers understand the capabilities and richness of of their products.

• Product reviews: apart from increasing sales and conversions; it adds a "Social proof", that validation that a product is good, that works well. People start to distrust company product reviews so reviews have to actually be genuine. Customers like to see the both sides of the story. Product reviews are great for search engine optimisation SEO as products reviews are unique, timely and relevant content Google bot likes it. 
• Social sharing is another advantage of product reviews. Allows people to add on reviews on social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
• Abandoned shopping carts: For many reasons people will abandon your shopping cart. (more than 70% of shopping carts are abandoned and within that 70%, 75% of those actually intended to buy. Reasons for abandonment:
• Shipping costs: People do not like paying for shipping costs. Solution: offer free free shipping.
• There is no guest check out: Some people do not want to create that "register" relationship. Solution: create a guest check out option.
• Takes too long: do not ask questions you can ask later on. Questions like gender, others. 
• Not having enough payment options: allow for different payment options. Add Paypal Express option. That will help you increase conversion. Bump my lock added Paypal Express and allowed them to increase conversion by 20%. Not bad.

• Abandon Cart Saver: it is a great piece of software detects when a shopper abandon your cart and sends an email to shopper to invite them to comeback to site and complete purchase. Often there is a some sort of promotion to entice users to complete their shopping. Merchants can specify some rules and setting when using it such as offer limited time discounts (creating that scarcity of time), offer free shipping or any general offer.  A case study presented was Night Gear which recovered around 8.000 sales that otherwise have been lost by using the Abandon Cart Saver. I would have liked to know the average open and click through rates for those automated emails.

Key intakes from Dan Woodall, Paypal

• Sounded like a product pitch requesting website owners to get Paypal logo on all key pages of your website.
• Dan mentioned Paypal is the third most trusted brand in Australia and that four million people in Australia use it. would like to know the sources for those claims.
• Mobile 1 in 4 transactions are done on a mobile phone. Create mobile versions of your key pages. Paypal already offers a mobile optimised payment process.
• Cart abandonment: 70% of people abandon carts. In 2102 paypal conducted studies and a/b testing and some tips are:
• Make sure paypal logo is prominent and visible. Leverage that Paypal brand trust.
• Add Paypal on your product pages (smooth, easy, safe transaction with paypal)
• Express checkout Paypal integration. It pulls customer payment and shipping details information.
• Make it clear that you have Paypal Express option. It can increase up to 4% conversions.
• Express Checkout: make sure you customised your Paypal Express Checkout flow with your logo and brand visuals.
• Do not charge additional fees.

Key Intakes from Jonathon Allara, BicyclesOnline.com.au

• Using Bigcommerce and Paypal has been beneficial.
• Improve Customer Value proposition: improvements to supply chain, product quality, service and delivery.
• Website started with very small range of bicycles, as they started to evolve, they presented more range and more features on the website.
• Bicycles online uses analytical tools to help understand better users and customers: Visual Website Optimiser, Kampyle (Feedback form tool) Google Analytics and other tools.
• Google Analytics: E-commerce reporting, goal reporting, conversion funnel reporting.
• Visual website optimiser has helped bicycles online to create different variations of a page and run A/B testing in order to optimising conversions.
• Bigcommerce search data has been also useful for bicycles online.
• The Google on-page analytics tools helped bicycles online to know what call to actions features on homepage were not really fully utilised and they would have liked to. 
• Results were improving the homepage and added some key call to actions on the header of the website( email, phone number, live chat).
• Humanising the website has also been great. Adding images of people and employees and the key reasons why bicycles online sell just one brand.
• Product pages have also been a/b tested. Bicyles Online added video content to each product page. This new video content resulted on a 60% increase on conversions by having this addition on product pages. it has also been created more trust, local feel and credibility.
• They have also been using video to better communicate how the service works.

NEXT:

• Call Mauricio - Digital Marketing, Social Media &  SEO Consultant Sydney on +61481 367 711
• Check Mauricio Escobar Mármol LinkedIn profile.
• Follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter or Google+
• If you like the above embed Real time Australia hot searches box you can embed it on your blog or website by using the below iframe: <iframe frameborder="650" height="650" src="//hawttrends.appspot.com/?r=3&amp;c=3&amp;p=8" width="600"></iframe>

Happy Tuesday and thank you Bigcommerce and Paypal for the invite to this great webinar.

Mauricio Escobar Mármol
Director +eDigital 

About Mauricio

Mauricio Escobar Mármol (BBsMn & MCom) is eDigital Sydney SEO Consultant, Social and Digital Media Specialist. Mauricio posses over 10 years experience helping companies to earn new customers and prolong customer lifetime value by effective execution of structured Digital Marketing strategies and executions. Mauricio worked as Digital Marketing Manager for some of Australia's most visited websites. Mauricio expertise focuses on Website Optimisation, Social Media, SEO/Networks Acquisition Strategies (SEO, SEM, Affiliates, Display) and vendor reviews.

Top 10 dead simple tips to best SEO Search Engine Optimization - Sydney Companies!

Sydney Companies! Top 10 dead simple tips to best SEO Search Engine Optimization - Slide Share Presentation - eDigital.

Top insights on how your company can be at the top of the SEO Search Engine Optimisation strategy game!

I created this presentation for a training session with a Company in Sydney, Australia; however any other companies can take advantage of this presentation.

NEXT:

• Need SEO training in Sydney? give us a buzz and we are happy to help out! Call Mauricio - Digital Marketing, Social Media &  SEO Consultant Sydney on +61481 367 711
• Check Mauricio Escobar Mármol LinkedIn profile.
• Follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter or Google+

eDigital is a Sydney Digital Agency, SEO Company in Sydney and Digital Marketing Training Sydney.

About eDigital & Mauricio

Mauricio Escobar Mármol (BA Business Management – Masters of Marketing) is a Sydney SEO Consultant, Social and Digital Media Specialist at eDigital. Mauricio has helped for more than 10 years companies to earn new customers and prolong customer lifetime value by effective social & digital media optimisation. Mauricio has worked as Digital Marketing Manager for a number of top digital websites including News Limited Realestate.com.au, homesite.com.au, thrifty.com.au, caravanandcampingnsw.com.au, studylink.com and currently working on theathletesfoot.com.au. Mauricio has also offered consulting and training to crownland.nsw.gov.au, caravanandcampingnsw.com.au, furnituremate.com.au, fit2date.com.au and also offering consulting to international websites including: enfilme.com, globalnomad.com. Mauricio expertise focuses on Search Engine Optimisation, Traffic Acquisition and Digital Media.